소비자생활 관점의 제품-서비스 시스템(Product Service System) 분석과 소비자의 구매의도

Abstract

The issue of sustainable development from the production part, emerged in the late 80s, has been expanded to the consumption part with perspective shifts from a conservative to a life- cycle in the late 90s. The idea of a Product Service System (PSS) is the result of this paradigm shift and is that a physical object of a product could satisfy more needs if it is provided as a system of service, supporting networks, and infrastructure over the life cycle. The system includes product maintenance, recycling of parts, and finally product replacement, which satisfy consumer needs competitively and with lower environmental impact. The success of PSSs requires a coordinated approach by several stakeholders such as industry, government, and consumers to work together to create smooth functioning of such systems as part of a more sustainable economy. However, researches on PSSs have been mostly accomplished from the production side, i.e., developers' perspectives. Consumers are the end users and, therefore, PSSs must be developed in accordance with various human activities in consumers' daily lives. This study stems from the questions of how much of current PSS commodities are supportive of consumers' daily activities and of consumers' purchasing intentions on these new concepts of PSS. The first step of this study was systematizing consumers' daily lives and activities, selecting B2C cases of PSS commodities, and cross-checking those two items. The second step was to explore positive and negative elements influencing consumer's purchase intentions on PSS commodities. The results are summarized as follows: First, consumers’ consumption-related daily activities are categorized into eight life dimensions: personal care, education, home maintenance, food & beverage, family expenditure, exercise & leisure, transportation, and social-life & communication. Second, among Korea’s top 1000 companies in 2014, 74 companies provided B2C PSS commodities. They provided 114 PSSs, of which 92 were product-oriented, 11 were use-oriented, and 11 were result-oriented types of PSSs. Third, the cross-tabulations of consumers’ life structure and PSS cases indicate that 164 consumers' daily activities were supported by PSS commodities: 48 activies in home maintenance, 34 in transportation, 27 in family expenditure, 21 in exercise & leisure, 15 in food & beverage, 10 in education, 6 in personal care, and 4 in social-life & communication. Fourth, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) on positive and negative factors influencing PSS purchase intentions produced four factors: functional benefit, social agreement, economic risk, and psychological risk. Regression analysis shows that factors differ by types of PSSs. The implications of this study can be summarized as follows: First, the main types of PSSs produced in Korea are product-oriented which are the most basic types of PSSs as they merely add maintenance services and, therefore, use-oriented and result-oriented types of PSSs must be more rigorously developed for supporting consumers' daily lives more environment friendly. Second, there are plenty of opportunities in developing new PSS commodities that are consumer life friendly as those activities are rarely supported in exercise & leisure, food & beverage, education, personal care, and social-life & communication. Third, product-oriented PSS commodities should focus on the product’s competitiveness in addition to added service elements. Use-oriented PSS commodities should be able to mitigate psychological risks by providing a sense of trust and security of consumers’ privacy, and service encounters must be managed so that consumers do not sense any threat from face-to-face home visit services. Result-oriented PSS commodities should be able to reveal real benefits by offsetting negative impacts from economic risk with better product quality through effective communications with consumers. Lastly, consumers should realize that PSSs let them need less to buy, maintain, dispose of, and eventually replace products, so that PSSs can lead to reduced resource use and waste and finally to fulfill the ultimate goal of sustainable consumption and production (SCP). Consumer Education should emphasize the enhanced role of consumers worldwide in SCP.