The Impact of Consumer Behavior Factors on Hallyu Consumption in Four Latin American Countries

This paper aims to examine the impact of consumer behavior factors on Hallyu consumption in Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, and Mexico. In particular, the paper explores the relationships between cultural, social, and psychological factors and consumer intention (and attachment) in the context of Hallyu attractiveness. To reach our research goal, we conducted a survey and measured each of the factors that impact consumer behavior, the degree of attachment toward Hallyu, and consumer or purchase intention. We then analyzed our hypotheses using the structural equation model. The main findings of the study indicate that social influence, motivation, perception, and attitude are strongly associated with attachment and consumption intention not only directly but also when the relationship is mediated by the characteristics of Hallyu attractiveness. We also found that the local culture’s orientation is weakly associated with attachment and consumption intention.

beings believe in having constant interactions with other individuals, such as their immediate family and friends, fellow workers, fellow commuters, official customers, and sometimes even strangers (Nair, 2009, p. 205). The literature supports the idea that people tend to be influenced by family members, friends, or influential groups of people when they make a decision. All these interactions will affect an individual's behavioral pattern.
The popularity of South Korean popular culture in Latin America is on the rise. According to the Korean Foundation, the number of online Hallyu fan groups in the Americas has been increasing since 2012. This means that more young people are getting involved in Hallyu and that social media platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube, are helping these fandom communities to grow every day.
Moreover, young people's desire to be part of the Korean Wave and stay connected with what others are doing regarding the Hallyu trend increases the phenomenon's popularity. Therefore, we propose that: H2: Social influence positively impacts the attachment to, and the consumption intention of, Korean cultural products.
Unlike cultural and social factors, the psychological factor is the internal force that influences the behavior of an individual. Concerning psychological factors, the focus of our research is on motivation, perception, and attitude. Motivation, perception, and attitude are the main forces that consumers use to decide or act.
When a person is motivated to buy a product or service, it is because they want to fulfill a personal need. Motivation is a psychological trait that may influence the behavior of an individual, especially when it comes to buying a product or not.
Regarding Hallyu, the variety of contents shown in Korean dramas encourage fans to emulate the country's family traditions and values. Fans may find Korean dramas cheerful, uncomplicated, relaxing, and even romantic. We think that through Hallyu, fans might fulfill psychological needs and that this fulfillment becomes a motive to follow the Korean Wave. This fulfillment is also a factor that influences their consumer pattern, especially when they are trapped by Hallyu attractiveness. Thus, we state that: H3: Motivation positively impacts the attachment to, and the consumption intention of, Hallyu products.
Perception is another psychological trait that may influence consumer behavior. Perception is related to the stimulus that the individual receives through sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. Based on this stimulus, the individual will define and create meaning for their environment. Regarding Hallyu, Madrid-Morales and Lovric (2015) argued that the exotic appeal of K-drama plots and the exuberant energy of beautiful idol band members are part of the appealing fantasy that fans enjoy. Furthermore, the superiority and excellence of Korean cultural content prompt fans to perceive it positively, which fits their expectations. Fans perceive Hallyu as enjoyable, appealing, and even exotic to consume, especially when it is mediated by Hallyu attractiveness. Therefore, we suggest that: H4: Perception positively impacts the attachment to, and the consumption intention of, Hallyu products.
Lastly, attitude is a psychological trait that is characterized by evaluative judgments toward an object, person, place, or issue. Attitude can be good or bad, favorable or unfavorable, positive or negative, depending on the person's evaluation of something. Given the emotional bonds that Korean dramas offer in terms of human relations and social realities, they are viewed favorably as being able to deal with love relationships in a way that is more tender, meaningful, and emotional. The attitude toward them is a source of popular pleasure, which increases their popularity among young people in Latin America. This positive attitude toward Hallyu and its influence on the consumption of Hallyu products suggest the following statement.
H5: Attitude positively impacts the attachment to, and the consumption intention of, Hallyu products.
Korean cultural products, such as TV dramas, music, and film, are developed in Korea and are characterized in terms of appeal, popularity, quality, (affordable) price, and availability. These attractiveness characteristics might leverage "the person's motivation in the sense of his or her conscious plan to exert effort to carry out a behavior" (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). In our case, the behavior will be translated into consuming or purchasing more Hallyu cultural products. Therefore, we suggest that the local culture's orientation, social influence, motivation, perception, and attitude positively impact the consumption intention of Korean cultural products when they are mediated by the above attractiveness characteristics. It is important to establish that our primary interest is the strength of the emotional bond that a Hallyu fan experiences with the Korean cultural product. We thus formulated the following hypotheses: H6: Local cultural orientation positively impacts the attachment to, and the consumption intention of, Korean cultural products when it is mediated by Hallyu's attractiveness.
H7: Social influence positively impacts the attachment to, and the consumption intention of, Korean cultural products when it is mediated by Hallyu's attractiveness.
H8: Motivation positively impacts the attachment to, and the consumption intention of, Korean cultural products when it is mediated by Hallyu's attractiveness.
H9: Perception positively impacts the attachment to, and the consumption intention of, Korean cultural products when it is mediated by Hallyu's attractiveness.
H10: Attitude positively impacts the attachment to, and the consumption intention of, Korean cultural products when it is mediated by Hallyu's attractiveness.

Research Model
The proposed research model is shown in Figure 1 influence of attractiveness characteristics might influence intention. We integrate the local culture's orientation and social influence as external behavioral factors, and perception, motivation, and attitude as internal behavioral factors.  Table 1. The initial questionnaire was developed in English and then translated into Spanish because the target population of this research was people from Latin American countries where Spanish is the mother tongue. The translation was made by the principal investigator, who is bilingual.
The questionnaire was designed based on the eight constructs above and a set of 30 measurement items adopted and modified from existing studies. The questions were divided into two parts, as follows: 1) The first part of the questionnaire contained questions on demographic information, including The survey gathered 129 questionnaires. However, after removing invalid data (due to missing responses), 102 correctly completed and acceptable questionnaires were analyzed.

Data Analysis and Results
Due to the characteristic of this study and the multiple variables being considered, we will use the general statistical technique Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). This technique is a statistical methodology that takes a confirmatory (i.e., hypothesis-testing) approach to the multivariate analysis of a structural theory bearing on a phenomenon (Note 1). This study conducted an exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to ensure that the items were loaded significantly and uniquely on the appropriate dimensions. Promax rotation was performed as a solution for each factor to be defined by the subset of measured variables with large loadings relative to the other measured variables (Cureton & Mulaik, 1975). Promax rotation revealed factor loadings above 0.60 for all the variables on their expected factors. The eight-factor solution and the factor loadings are presented in Table 2, with loadings of less than 0.30 omitted. In this case, all the constructs had loadings above 0.30.
Confirmatory factor analysis for each factor or construct was conducted to assess the validity of our measurement model by using Amos version 18.0. We aimed to select relevant items with increased accuracy by performing a validity assessment on individual constructs before investigating the validity of the overall measurement model (Singh & Rhoads, 1991). As a result, Item 3 of Social Influence; Convergent validity is found when each measurement item is strongly associated with its expected theoretical construct (Gefen & Straub, 2005). Convergent validity is established if the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) accounts for 0.50 or more (Webb, Webster, & Krepapa, 2000).
AVE measures the amount of variance that a construct captures from its indicators relative to the amount due to measurement error (Chin, 2010, p. 670). In our study, AVE values are all above 0.5 (see Table 3). Gefen and Straub (2005) suggest that convergent validity can also be confirmed when each measurement item loads with significant t-value at least at the 0.05 alpha protection level on its constructs. If the convergent validity of all the measurement items is confirmed, all the items loaded on their respective constructs are statistically significant with t-values of 5.44 or more (p<0.01) (see Table   3). The measurement items of each research construct satisfied the universal standards of C.R.≥0.7 and AVE≥0.5.
Discriminant validity checks whether constructs that are supposed to be distinct were distinct (Bagozzi, Yi, & Phillips, 1991). The discriminant validity of all the measurement items in this study is confirmed, as the smallest AVE value is 0.47.
To test our hypotheses, several criteria must be met. A global test of model fit must be met to support our hypotheses in a local test. Therefore, Table 4 shows the result of the model fit (the thresholds listed in the table are from Hu & Bentler, 1999).   each independent variable on the dependent variables (Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, & Tatham, 2006). Table 5 presents the standardized regression estimates and allows us to examine the direct association between the study constructs. The data presented in Table 5 shows the results of the multiple regressions, which were used to learn more about the relationships between the independent and dependent variables, indirectly mediated by Hallyu's attractiveness. Hypotheses H1 and H6 are rejected because the relationships between the