WHAT DRIVERS CONSUMERS’ CHOICE OF ORGANIC IN THE TAIWANESE MARKET

Wei-Chih Tseng,Chun-Hui Chang 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2014 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2014 No.2

With the popularization of the issues of global warming and climate change, more and more people are aware of environmental damages caused by human behavior. The fundamental living necessities of humans, such as food, water, clothing, housing and transportation, all take place on the Earth. Many environmentalists and governments worldwide have started to promote low carbon and green concepts. Such a green urgency is sweeping the world. Based on the surveys conducted by the Organic Trade Association (OTA) in 2013, over 40% of those surveyed in US households have a higher level of motivation to purchase organic products, for the sake of their own and their family's health. In addition, 97% of organic product buyers had purchased organic fruits or vegetables in the past six months. We can also see this kind of situation in Taiwan, where about 80% of consumers are willing to pay more money to purchase environmentally friendly products. The OTA even maintains that, except for Japan, Taiwan is the fastest growing organic market in Asia. Therefore, this study aims to explore the consumers' purchase behaviour behind the organic market in Taiwan. The organic market in Taiwan covers the products from agriculture, food processing, textiles, apparels, and even personal care products and cleaning supplies. Following this green trend that seeks to enhance human health and to maintain a sustainable earth to live on, organic stores in Taiwan have become an emerging industry and there seem to be endless business opportunities in this potential organic market. In order to acquire a significant market share, it is necessary for enterprise managers to understand consumers' perceived value of organic products and how this determinant, perceived value, impact their purchase intention. Perceived value is the overall purchase experience of consumers. It is based on the consumers' comparison between the quality and quantity of products received and paid out, and their objective and subjective consideration of certain factors (Schechter, 1984; Zeithaml, 1988). Perceived value varies with the type of products and services and consumers' personal traits (Zeithaml, 1988). Perceived value is a complicated construct and, therefore, its impact on consumers' purchase intentions toward products cannot be judged from a single dimension only (Bolton & Drew, 1991). Literature on perceived value divides it into utilitarian and hedonic values. Utilitarian value refers to the perceived value acquired by consumers after their purchasing goals have been achieved in the process of consumption. That is to say, utilitarian value is the task- and rationalization-oriented decisions of consumers. On the other hand, hedonic value is affiliated to the individual emotional and irrationality phase of consumers, which usually occur during the process of consumption. Consumers commonly feel pleasant emotions and feelings of motivation and accomplishment, or can even fulfill their desire for escape (Babin & Attaway, 2000; Babin, Darden, & Griffin, 1994; Bae, 2008). Past studies have pointed out that perceived value has a direct impact on the purchase intention (Grewal, Monroe, & Krishnan, 1998). However, in the Value-Attitude-Behavior Model, Homer and Kahle (1988) indicated that perceived value affects consumers' purchase intention through the mediating effect sourced from their attitude. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) has been commonly used to explain a variety of human behaviour (Cunningham and Kwon,2003; Andrews, Silk and Eneli,2010; Kim & Chung, 2011). The TPB mainly focuses on the influence of three behavioural intention dimensions of individuals: attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control. In short, following the fundamental concept of TPB (Ajzen, 1985), this study explored the variables of (1) consumers' attitude towards organic products, (2) the subjective norm, represented by the pressure from family members and close friends, and (3) the perceived behavioural control, presenting perceived ability to control the availability and accessibility of organic products. The ultimate goal of this research is to find out the critical determinants influencing consumers' purchase intentions towards organic products. In order to explore the consumers' possible decisive path from perceived values to purchase intention toward organic products (see figure 1), this study includes the variables utilitarian value and hedonic value as the antecedents, attitude as the mediating factor, and both subjective norm and perceived behavioural control as other influential factors. Figure 1: Conceptual framework and hypotheses This study mainly targeted the consumer behavior toward organic products in the Taipei area of Taiwan. Totally 565 samples were collected. Excluding invalid questionnaires (73 samples), the number of valid questionnaires was 492. The valid response rate was 87%. The SEM is a statistical technique combining both factor analysis and path analysis and is widely used in social and behavioural science studies. Therefore, this study adopted the SEM as the analytical tool to explore the causal relationship among the latent variables discussed above. In sum, this study revealed that the proposed model could well predict consumers’ purchase intentions toward organic products. The empirical research results of this study are summarized as follows. First, the findings of this study confirmed the claims proposed by many scholars that perceived value is a critical determinant affecting the purchase intention of consumers (Zeithaml, 1988). The empirical results of this study show perceived value is an important antecedent driving consumers to purchase organic products in Taiwan. Nevertheless, perceived value is a multi-dimensional construct. As Ryu et al. (2010) suggested in order to explain all consumptive phenomena, we should consider consumers' overall evaluation of utilitarian and hedonic values that are taken into account

WHAT DRIVERS CONSUMERS’ CHOICE OF ORGANIC IN THE TAIWANESE MARKET

Wei-Chih Tseng,Chun-Hui Chang 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2014 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2014 No.7

With the popularization of the issues of global warming and climate change, more and more people are aware of environmental damages caused by human behavior. The fundamental living necessities of humans, such as food, water, clothing, housing and transportation, all take place on the Earth. Many environmentalists and governments worldwide have started to promote low carbon and green concepts. Such a green urgency is sweeping the world. Based on the surveys conducted by the Organic Trade Association (OTA) in 2013, over 40% of those surveyed in US households have a higher level of motivation to purchase organic products, for the sake of their own and their family's health. In addition, 97% of organic product buyers had purchased organic fruits or vegetables in the past six months. We can also see this kind of situation in Taiwan, where about 80% of consumers are willing to pay more money to purchase environmentally friendly products. The OTA even maintains that, except for Japan, Taiwan is the fastest growing organic market in Asia. Therefore, this study aims to explore the consumers' purchase behaviour behind the organic market in Taiwan. The organic market in Taiwan covers the products from agriculture, food processing, textiles, apparels, and even personal care products and cleaning supplies. Following this green trend that seeks to enhance human health and to maintain a sustainable earth to live on, organic stores in Taiwan have become an emerging industry and there seem to be endless business opportunities in this potential organic market. In order to acquire a significant market share, it is necessary for enterprise managers to understand consumers' perceived value of organic products and how this determinant, perceived value, impact their purchase intention. Perceived value is the overall purchase experience of consumers. It is based on the consumers' comparison between the quality and quantity of products received and paid out, and their objective and subjective consideration of certain factors (Schechter, 1984; Zeithaml, 1988). Perceived value varies with the type of products and services and consumers' personal traits (Zeithaml, 1988). Perceived value is a complicated construct and, therefore, its impact on consumers' purchase intentions toward products cannot be judged from a single dimension only (Bolton & Drew, 1991). Literature on perceived value divides it into utilitarian and hedonic values. Utilitarian value refers to the perceived value acquired by consumers after their purchasing goals have been achieved in the process of consumption. That is to say, utilitarian value is the task- and rationalization-oriented decisions of consumers. On the other hand, hedonic value is affiliated to the individual emotional and irrationality phase of consumers, which usually occur during the process of consumption. Consumers commonly feel pleasant emotions and feelings of motivation and accomplishment, or can even fulfill their desire for escape (Babin & Attaway, 2000; Babin, Darden, & Griffin, 1994; Bae, 2008). Past studies have pointed out that perceived value has a direct impact on the purchase intention (Grewal, Monroe, & Krishnan, 1998). However, in the Value-Attitude-Behavior Model, Homer and Kahle (1988) indicated that perceived value affects consumers' purchase intention through the mediating effect sourced from their attitude. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) has been commonly used to explain a variety of human behaviour (Cunningham and Kwon,2003; Andrews, Silk and Eneli,2010; Kim & Chung, 2011). The TPB mainly focuses on the influence of three behavioural intention dimensions of individuals: attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control. In short, following the fundamental concept of TPB (Ajzen, 1985), this study explored the variables of (1) consumers' attitude towards organic products, (2) the subjective norm, represented by the pressure from family members and close friends, and (3) the perceived behavioural control, presenting perceived ability to control the availability and accessibility of organic products. The ultimate goal of this research is to find out the critical determinants influencing consumers' purchase intentions towards organic products. In order to explore the consumers' possible decisive path from perceived values to purchase intention toward organic products (see figure 1), this study includes the variables utilitarian value and hedonic value as the antecedents, attitude as the mediating factor, and both subjective norm and perceived behavioural control as other influential factors. Figure 1: Conceptual framework and hypotheses This study mainly targeted the consumer behavior toward organic products in the Taipei area of Taiwan. Totally 565 samples were collected. Excluding invalid questionnaires (73 samples), the number of valid questionnaires was 492. The valid response rate was 87%. The SEM is a statistical technique combining both factor analysis and path analysis and is widely used in social and behavioural science studies. Therefore, this study adopted the SEM as the analytical tool to explore the causal relationship among the latent variables discussed above. In sum, this study revealed that the proposed model could well predict consumers’ purchase intentions toward organic products. The empirical research results of this study are summarized as follows. First, the findings of this study confirmed the claims proposed by many scholars that perceived value is a critical determinant affecting the purchase intention of consumers (Zeithaml, 1988). The empirical results of this study show perceived value is an important antecedent driving consumers to purchase organic products in Taiwan. Nevertheless, perceived value is a multi-dimensional construct. As Ryu et al. (2010) suggested in order to explain all consumptive phenomena, we should consider consumers' overall evaluation of utilitarian and hedonic values that are taken into account during their consumption experience. This study found that utilitarian and hedonic values are, indeed, the important driving antecedents for consumers to purchase organic products. Moreover, utilitarian value, compared to hedonic value, has a higher level of impact on the consumers’ purchase intention toward organic products. With regard to the sale of organic products, in addition to the emphasis on the interesting and exciting experience acquired from the purchase or use of organic products, what is more important is that managers can directly emphasize the quality, practical value of organic products, and the contribution that organic products make to people’s health and environmental protection. This not only directly drives consumers to purchase organic products but also further promotes the degree of satisfaction of consumers towards organic products, subsequently increasing the chances for organic products to be purchased. In particular, this study also finds that the main reason for people who never purchase organic products is that they do not yet have a preference toward organic products. For enterprises which want to extend the organic market in Taiwan, this study suggests that managers make consumer to be fond of organic products by driving hedonic and utilitarian value that can be provided by the organic products. Second, the influence of perceived behavioral control and attitude on purchase intention, as mentioned in the TPB in previous studies, was also supported in this study. In other words, when consumers purchase organic products, they have been deeply affected by factors regarding the degree of their knowledge of organic products or the accessibility of the organic products. In that case, the channel strategy and the store coverage of organic products should be very critical in the ever-booming organic products market in Taiwan. Besides, this investigation finds that a certain proportion of consumers do not purchase organic products because they do not understand the organic products, which is also a very important clue for the companies that intend to penetrate the market. They could spread environmental protection knowledge via the advertisements to educate consumers about the benefits (such as protecting the environment, and being good to health, etc.) of the usage of organic products. In that way, the potential consumers could be encouraged to purchase organic products and this will be beneficial for the development of total organic product market.

The Effect of the First Spontaneous Bacterial Peritonitis Event on the Mortality of Cirrhotic Patients with Ascites: A Nationwide Population-Based Study in Taiwan

( Tsung-hsing Hung ),( Chen-chi Tsai ),( Yu-hsi Hsieh ),( Chih-chun Tsai ),( Chih-wei Tseng ),( Kuo-chih Tseng ) 대한간학회 2016 Gut and Liver Vol.10 No.5

Background/Aims: Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) contributes to poorer short-term mortality in cirrhotic patients with ascites. However, it is unknown how long the effect of the first SBP event persists in these patients. Methods: The National Health Insurance Database, derived from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Program, was used to identify and enroll 7,892 cirrhotic patients with ascites who were hospitalized between January 1 and December 31, 2007. All patients were free from episodes of SBP from 1996 to 2006. Results: The study included 1,176 patients with SBP. The overall 30-day, 90-day, 1-year, and 3-year mortality rates in this group were 21.8%, 38.9%, 57.5%, and 73.4%, respectively. The overall 30-day, 90-day, 1-year, and 3-year mortality rates in the non-SBP group were 15.7%, 32.5%, 53.3%, and 72.5%, respectively. After adjusting for gender, age, and other medical comorbidities, the adjusted hazard ratios of SBP for 30-day, 30- to 90-day, 90-day to 1-year, and 1- to 3-year mortality were 1.49 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.30 to 1.71), 1.19 (95% CI, 1.02 to 1.38), 1.04 (95% CI, 0.90 to 1.20), and 0.90 (95% CI, 0.77 to 1.05), respectively, compared with the non-SBP group. Conclusions: The effect of SBP on the mortality of cirrhotic patients with ascites disappeared in those surviving more than 90 days after the first SBP event. (Gut Liver 2016;10:803-807)

A study of the replacement of desulphurization slag for sand to ready-mixed soil materials (RMSM)

Yi-Fang Shiha,Shih-Shong Tseng,Her-Yung Wang,Chih-Ting Wei 사단법인 한국계산역학회 2016 Computers and Concrete, An International Journal Vol.17 No.3

After the industrial of steelmaking by-products are processed properly, they can be used in civil engineering, not only as a substitute for natural resources and to reduce costs, but also to provide environmental protection. This study used different amounts (10%, 20%, 30%, 40%,and 50%) of desulphurization slag to replace natural fine aggregates in ready-mixed soil materials, and tested the physical and fresh properties (slump, slump flow, tube flow, initial setting time, and bleeding) and hardened properties (compressive strength, ball drop, ultrasonic pulse velocity) of the materials. The variations between the performances of the materials with different mix proportions were discussed. When desulphurization slag is used in RMSM, the workability can be enhanced obviously significantly. When the replacement of desulphurization slag is 50%, the slump flow is increased by 110mm compared with the control group, and the initial setting time increases as the replacement increases, because of bleeding. When the replacement is 10% and 20%, the compressive strength at various ages is higher than that of the control group. When the replacement is 10%, the compressive strength at 7 days is higher than that of the control group by 60%, and the ultrasonic pulse velocity is proportional to the compressive strength, which increases with age and decrease as the replacement increases. An appropriate replacement can effectively accelerate construction, and allow projects to be finished ahead of schedule; therefore, an appropriate replacement, is applicable for ready-mixed soil materials.

Sofosbuvir/velpatasvir plus ribavirin for Child-Pugh B and Child-Pugh C hepatitis C virus-related cirrhosis

( Chen-hua Liu ),( Chi-yi Chen ),( Wei-wen Su ),( Chun-jen Liu ),( Ching-chu Lo ),( Ke-jhang Huang ),( Jyh-jou Chen ),( Kuo-chih Tseng ),( Chi-yang Chang ),( Cheng-yuan Peng ),( Yu-lueng Shih ),( Chia 대한간학회 2021 Clinical and Molecular Hepatology(대한간학회지) Vol.27 No.4

Background/Aims: Real-world studies assessing the effectiveness and safety of sofosbuvir/velpatasvir (SOF/VEL) plus ribavirin (RBV) for Child-Pugh B/C hepatitis C virus (HCV)-related cirrhosis are limited. Methods: We included 107 patients with Child-Pugh B/C HCV-related cirrhosis receiving SOF/VEL plus RBV for 12 weeks in Taiwan. The sustained virologic response rates at off-treatment week 12 (SVR₁₂) for the evaluable population (EP), modified EP, and per-protocol population (PP) were assessed. The safety profiles were reported. Results: The SVR₁₂ rates in the EP, modified EP and PP were 89.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 82.5-94.2%), 94.1% (95% CI, 87.8-97.3%), and 100% (95% CI, 96.2-100%). Number of patients who failed to achieve SVR₁₂ were attributed to virologic failures. The SVR₁₂ rates were comparable regardless of patient characteristics. One patient discontinued treatment because of adverse events (AEs). Twenty-four patients had serious AEs and six died, but none were related to SOF/VEL or RBV. Among the 96 patients achieving SVR₁₂, 84.4% and 64.6% had improved Child-Pugh and model for endstage liver disease (MELD) scores. Multivariate analysis revealed that a baseline MELD score ≥15 was associated with an improved MELD score of ≥3 (odds ratio, 4.13; 95% CI, 1.16-14.71; P=0.02). Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) stage 1 had more significant estimated glomerular filtration rate declines than patients with CKD stage 2 (-0.42 mL/min/1.73 ㎡/month; P=0.01) or stage 3 (-0.56 mL/min/1.73 ㎡/month; P<0.001). Conclusions: SOF/VEL plus RBV for 12 weeks is efficacious and well-tolerated for Child-Pugh B/C HCV-related cirrhosis. (Clin Mol Hepatol 2021;27:575-588)

Psilocybin for End-of-Life Anxiety Symptoms: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Chia-Ling Yu,Fu-Chi Yang,Szu-Nian Yang,Ping-Tao Tseng,Brendon Stubbs,Ta-Chuan Yeh,Chih-Wei Hsu,Dian-Jeng Li,Chih-Sung Liang 대한신경정신의학회 2021 PSYCHIATRY INVESTIGATION Vol.18 No.10

Objective To systematically examine the effectiveness and tolerability of psilocybin for treating end-of-life anxiety symptoms. Methods The Medline, Embase, CENTRAL, and PsycINFO databases were searched up to November 25, 2020. We enrolled clinical trials investigating psilocybin for treating end-of-life anxiety symptoms. Meta-analysis was conducted using random-effects model. Results Overall, five studies were included, revealing that psilocybin was superior to the placebo in treating state anxiety at 1 day (Hedges’ g, -0.70; 95% confidence interval, -1.01 to -0.39) and 2 weeks (-1.03; -1.47 to -0.60) after treatment. Psilocybin was more effective than placebo in treating trait anxiety at 1 day (-0.71; -1.15 to -0.26), 2 weeks (-1.08; -1.80 to -0.36), and 6 months (-0.84; -1.37 to -0.30) after treatment. Psilocybin was associated with transient elevation in systolic (19.00; 13.58-24.41 mm Hg) and diastolic (8.66; 5.18-12.15 mm Hg) blood pressure compared with placebo. The differences between psilocybin and placebo groups with regard to allcause discontinuation, serious adverse events, and heart rates were nonsignificant. Conclusion Psilocybin-assisted therapy could ameliorate end-of-life anxiety symptoms without serious adverse events. Because of the small sample sizes of the included studies and high heterogeneity on long-term outcomes, future randomized controlled trials with large sample sizes are needed.