Graduate School of Business

Hyeasinn Song (entering class of 2017, master's candidate in marketing) of the Yonsei University School of Business has won the Outstanding Paper award in the business section of the Next Generation Social Science Research Conference, an academic conference hosted in June by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF).

Song's paper, "Channel stickiness in the shopping journey for electronics: Evidence from China and South Korea," was published in December 2019 in the “Journal of Business Research," which is listed in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI).The objective of the research for her paper was to identify, against the background of pervasive usage of mobile devices and the rapid rise of social media, a new paradigm to identify changes in how consumers make their purchase decisions and then predict their behavior.

Her research examined the association between consumers’ searches for information and their final purchase decisions. By categorizing consumers based on the characteristics of their patterns of digital use, she provided insights into how they screened information in arriving at purchase decisions.  In addition, her research also demonstrated how overall purchasing decisions varied by country, depending on the maturity of the country’s online market.

“I didn't expect that I could receive such a huge award,” Song said. “I am very honored. I would like to thank my academic advisor, Professor Jeonghye Choi, for helping me develop my research. I also want to thank the co-authors, Professor Jikyung Kim (IE University, Spain), CEO Yongseob Kim (TNS Korea), and Professor Jeonghan Hong (UNIST) for leading me and helping me in areas in which I was weak. Taking this paper as an opportunity, I am determined to work harder and become a researcher who can observe and analyze society."

Finally, she emphasized that, during her three years in the master's program, she has constantly learned from her adviser about what research is and what directions she should take. She also said she is grateful for scholarships, research space, and various administrative support from the school that enabled her to concentrate on the research that led to her achievement.

Her paper was selected from the 52 papers submitted to the conference. Outstanding papers were selected through primary and secondary evaluations by an NRF expert committee. Criteria for judging included originality of the research subject, logical clarity, rigor of the research data and methodology, legitimacy of expressions, and the relevancy of citations.