An analysis of the elements that impact foreigners’ and Korean consumers’ decisions to purchase vegan Korean cosmetics

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

A product is considered vegan cosmetic if it uses only natural ingredients and is not tested on animals. Nowadays, customers did in fact start paying closer attention to ingredients and environmentally friendly practices in South Korea and has impacted the cosmetics market. For this reason, the comprehension of the motivation in the South Korean market to purchase Korean vegan cosmetics is needed. Additionally, because of the increase in online shopping during the pandemic, customers tended to be more knowledgeable about the ingredients in cosmetics, and companies made an effort to satisfy their new expectations. This study investigates the effects of attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavior control from the Theory of Planned Behavior as well as moral identity and price sensitivity on purchase behavior. An online survey was conducted by collecting responses from 109 South Korean and 114 non-Korean consumers in South Korea. The results showed that moral identity and the subjective norms positively affected the South Korean consumer’s purchase behavior. On the other hand, non-Koreans were only positively impacted by their moral identity while purchasing vegan cosmetics. These results can be explained by the fact that South Korea is a more collectivistic society. This study's findings help marketers and advertisers better understand customer behavior and give them the information they need to build effective communication in the promotional campaigns of vegan cosmetics from Korea.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………….…...i
• 국문 초록…………………………………………………………………….…..ii
• TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………...iii
• LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………….….iv
• LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………….….v
• CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………1
• CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………………….3
• 2.1 Theory of planned behavior ......................................................... …………3
• 2.1.1 Attitude…………………………………………………………4
• 2.1.2 Subjective norms……………………………………………….5
• 2.1.3 Perceived behavior control……………………………………..6
• 2.2 Moral identity………....................................................................................7
• 2.3. Price sensitivity……………...…………………………………………….. 8
• CHAPTER 3. METHOD………………………………………………………….9
• 3.1 Sample and procedure ...................................................................................9
• 3.2 Measure .......................................................................................................11
• 3.3 Hierarchical regression................................................................................14
• CHAPTER 4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION…………………………….17
• CHAPTER 5. IMPLICATION…………………………………………………...19
• CHAPTER 6. LIMITATIONS…………………………………………………...20
• REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………...22