The pursuit of beauty in today's society is growing day by day. According to ITIS report about cosmetic industry development trend in 2010, the global cosmetics market in 2009 reached 3,474 billion U.S. dollars, twice as much as nine years ago. Cosmetic industry in Taiwan began to flourish since 1960s. Taiwan cosmetic industry is filled with United States, European and Japanese brands until 1990s. Promoted by government policy, many domestic brands emerge in 2000s. At this point, the Korean cosmetic brands entered Taiwan, making Taiwan cosmetic market more diverse and more competitive. The Korean cosmetic brands became more popular among the youth, and opened lots of stores. This study chose top 3 Korean cosmetic brands: The Face Shop, Skin Food, Etude House to understand what values the Korean cosmetic stores provide, and how the Korean cosmetic stores can survive and grow. So, this study has four major objectives: 1. To understand the correlation between service quality, customer value and customer satisfaction in Korean cosmetic stores. 2. To explore the impact of consumption emotions on customer satisfaction. 3. To understand the effect of country of origin on customer satisfaction. 4. To analyze the influence of different levels of consumer innovativeness on customer satisfaction. This study uses personal interview and online questionnaire to investigate the consumers of The Face Shop¡BSkin Food¡BEtude House.The results include: 1. Customer value is a mediator between service quality and customer satisfaction. 2. Different utilitarian values have no significant influence on customer satisfaction; different hedonic values have significant difference on customer satisfaction. 3. The main effects of country of origin, consumer innovativeness and consumption emotions have significant influence on customer satisfaction.

Master of Science / Department of Hotel, Restaurant, Institution Management & Dietetics / Ki-Joon Back / The objectives of this research were to address the impacts of positive and negative emotions on customers’ satisfaction and customers’ repeat visit intentions, and to investigate the mediating effect of customer satisfaction on the relationship between emotion and customers’ repeat visit intentions. A theoretical model of the formation of repeat visit intentions was proposed through a comprehensive review of the literature. Richins’ Consumption Emotion Set (1997) was modified to make it suitable for application in the lodging industry. The modifications were based on the participants’ responses to each emotion descriptor in the pilot test. Surveys were completed by graduate students and faculty members, undergraduate students at a Midwestern university, and conference attendees. Of 259 surveys returned, 248 responses were used for data analysis. Data were analyzed using factor analysis and a series of regression analysis. Positive and negative consumption emotions were found to have a significant effect on customer satisfaction and repeat visit intentions. Results also provided evidence of a significant association between customer satisfaction and repeat visit intentions. Customer satisfaction was found to be a full mediator in the relationship between customers’ positive and negative consumption emotions and repeat visit intentions. The loss aversion of the prospect theory was empirically supported in the formation of customers’ repeat visit intentions since results indicate that negative emotion has a greater influence on customer satisfaction and customers’ repeat visit intentions. Results support the importance of considering the impact of customers’ emotions on post-purchasing behaviors when developing better marketing and service strategies to achieve higher occupancy rate and retain customers.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Hotel, Restaurant, Institution Management and Dietetics / Ki-Joon Back / Elizabeth B. Barrett / This study attempted to develop a multi-item scale that measures restaurant customers' emotional experiences and has desirable reliability and validity, and to examine the relationships among consumption emotions, customer satisfaction, switching barriers, and revisit intention in the full-service restaurant industry. In the process of developing a consumption emotion measurement scale, this study followed Churchill's (1979) paradigm during the early stage and confirmatory factor analytic approach suggested by Gerbing and Anderson (1988) and Anderson and Gerbing's (1988) in the later stage. The scale development process began with a specification of domain of construct, generation of 40 items, and data collection. The collected data were subjected to item refinement (i.e., outlier detection, descriptive and reliability analysis, and exploratory factor analysis). Four underlying dimensions of consumption emotions with 32 refined items were identified from the data. A new sample of data was collected for additional testing (i.e., reliability and validity). A confirmatory factor analysis using the new data indicated that the finalized measure using categorical dimension approach was unidimensional, reliable, and valid. The results of structural equation modeling supported the criterion validity indicating that the finalized measure behaves as expected in relation to additional construct. In study two, a theoretical framework for understanding the relationships among consumption emotions, customer satisfaction, switching barriers, and revisit intention was proposed and tested. A series of modeling comparisons provided a best fit model. A measurement model estimated on the basis of Anderson and Gerbing's (1988) approach tested validity of measures. The results of structural equation modeling using the data from a web-based survey addressed the effect of consumption emotions on satisfaction and revisit intention. The partial/full mediating impact of satisfaction was verified following Baron and Kenny’s (1986) suggested process. The switching barriers, two positive (i.e., preference and relational investment) and two negative (i.e., switching costs and lack of alternatives), that restaurant customers are likely to perceive were identified through the qualitative approach, using the guidelines suggested by Maxwell (2005). The quantitative approach validated the scale applicability. The moderating role of switching barriers in forming revisit intention was verified by testing for metric invariances. Grouping was done by using K-means cluster analysis. Measurement invariance tests supported full metric/partial metric invariances. Structural invariance tests and invariance tests for a hypothesized path provided the evidence of moderating effect of switching barriers. Finally, theoretical and managerial implications of the findings were discussed.