• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.207-216
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• 2013

The A low-cost carriers(LCC)' website represents their public face to the world. Futhermore, distribution through their own websites is generally regarded as the being most cost effective for airlines The Internet website has become an effective marketing vehicle for low-cost carriers(LCC). The objective of this study was to examine theoretical relationship of website quality, e-satisfaction, e-trust, and e-loyalty to the low-cost carriers' website. The study sample included respondents who had visited any LCC websites in the last 12 months. Data were collected by conducting a web-based survey to maintain respondents' anonymity and overcome time and place constraints. From the 334 usable data obtained, hypotheses are tested using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that website quality, e-satisfaction, and e-trust are antecedents of e-loyalty in loyalty relationships between passengers and low-cost carriers' websites. Website quality positively influences e-satisfaction, e-trust while e-satisfaction. However, contrary to our expectation, e-satisfaction has a negative effect on e-trust. Managerial implications are provided following presentation of the findings.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.125-151
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• 2008

Both companies and consumers are highly interested in on-line customer reviews which enable consumers to share their experience and knowledge about products. In this study, after classifying real reviews into context units and deriving categories, we analyzed differences between categories based on channel(manufacturers' homepage/ shopping mall), product attribute(search/experience) and price(high/low). The method to derive categories is based on roughly adopting constructs of ACSI model and elaborate and repetitive classification of real reviews. We set up the classification category with 3 levels. Level 1 consists of product and service, level 2 consists of function, design, price, purchase motive, suggestion/user-tip and recommendation/repurchase in product and AS/up-grade and delivery/others in service and level 3 is composed of details of level 2 of category. We could find remarkable differences between channels in all 8 items of level 2 of category. As the number of context units in homepage is more than in shopping mall, we found reviews in homepage is more concrete. Moreover, overall satisfaction in review was higher at homepage's. Also, in product attribute dimension, we found different patterns of reviews in design, purchase motive, suggestion/user-tip, recommendation/repurchase, AS/up-grade and delivery/others and no difference in overall customer's satisfaction. In price dimension, we found differences between high and low price in design, price and AS/up-grade and no difference in overall customer's satisfaction.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.23-38
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• 2016

Previous studies on information systems (IS) and finance suggest that information on stock message boards influence the investment decisions of individual investors. However, how information on online stock message boards influences an individual investor's buy or sell decisions is unclear. To address this research question, we investigate the relationship between a number of posts on stock message boards and order imbalance in stock markets. Order imbalance is defined as the difference between the daily sum of buy-side shares traded and the daily sum of sell-side shares traded. Therefore, order imbalance can suggest the direction of trades and the strength of the direction with trading volumes. In this regard, this study examines how the number of posts (information on stock message boards) influences order imbalance (stock trading behavior). We collected about 46,077 messages of 40 companies on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index from Paxnet, the most popular Korean online stock message board. The messages we collected were divided based on in-trading and after-trading hours to examine the relationship between the numbers of posts and trading volumes. We also collected order imbalance data on individual investors. We then integrated the balanced panel data sets and analyzed them through vector regression. We found that the number of posts on online stock message boards is positively related to prior order imbalance. We believe that our findings contribute to knowledge in IS and finance. Furthermore, this study suggests that investors should carefully monitor information on stock message boards to understand stock market sentiments.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.294-308
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to look into the service quality of websites and the attributes of review information thereon as perceived by visitors thereto and to analyze the effect that the service quality of festival websites and informative usefulness of testimonials would have on the satisfaction with use, along with the effect that the satisfaction with use would have on behavioral intention. Based on the results of this study, we intended to present measures that could help strengthen the intention to spread positive word-of-mouth for festivals and to visit a festival through satisfaction with a festival's website. The festival selected to achieve the objectives of this study was the Yeongdeok Snow Crab Festival, which is one of the most renowned local food festivals in the Gyeongbuk region, having been held for 17 consecutive years, and has been selected as the top festival of Gyeongsangbuk-do for 4 consecutive years. We surveyed visitors to Yeongdeok Snow Crab Festival who had searched for information on the Yeongdeok Snow Crab Festival prior to its opening, as well as those who had participated in Yeongdeok Snow Crab Festival before. The results of this study showed that review information on a food festival website, service quality design, adequacy of substance, responsiveness to customers, and system capability were found to have a positive effect on behavioral intention through satisfaction with use. The findings suggest that it is crucial to manage the service quality of websites in order to stimulate interest in, and induce visits to, food festivals.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.91-124
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• 2009

With the intensity of competition and the standardization of technical attributes in telecommunications service market increasing, differentiated activity and customer experience in service encounter is regarded as an important means for creating customer value, however, there is a dearth of good literature examining what MOT activity is composed of according to consumption chain, and how service quality of MOT has influenced customer performance. Especially there exist various services across different phase of Product life cycle(PLC) in household telecommunication service market, customer requirement for MOT might depend on whether its phase is introduction-growth stage or maturity-decline stage, the empirical study is completely lacking. This study classified household telecommunication services into two types by PLC, VOIP and IPTV as Introduction-growth stage services, Internet and PSTN as maturity-decline stage service, and investigated whether there exists a gap between service types in how consumer have experienced MOT, what they consider as important and the relative importance of quality dimension how service quality of MOT has influence on consumer performance. The empirical result from 858 participants shows that there is a difference in consumer experience and requirements across different phases of the PLC, tangibles and assurance are regarded as the most important service quality factors which have a positive influence on customer performance (consumer satisfaction, repurchase intention and word of mouth) at the introduction-growth stage, whereas, reliability, empathy and interactivity are at the maturity-decline stage. Finally, managerial implication is made, limitation is clarified and a direction for further studies is suggested.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.65-96
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• 2012

Brand has received much attention from considerable marketing research. When consumers consume product or services, they are exposed to a lot of brand related stimuli. These contain brand personality, brand experience, brand identity, brand communications and so on. A special kind of new crisis occasionally confronting companies' brand management today is the brand related rumor. An important influence on consumers' purchase decision making is the word-of-mouth spread by other consumers and most decisions are influenced by other's recommendations. In light of this influence, firms have reasonable reason to study and understand consumer-to-consumer communication such as brand rumor. The importance of brand rumor to marketers is increasing as the number of internet user and SNS(social network service) site grows. Due to the development of internet technology, people can spread rumors without the limitation of time, space and place. However relatively few studies have been published in marketing journals and little is known about brand rumors in the marketplace. The study of rumor has a long history in all major social science. But very few studies have dealt with the antecedents and consequences of any kind of brand rumor. Rumor has been generally described as a story or statement in general circulation without proper confirmation or certainty as to fact. And it also can be defined as an unconfirmed proposition, passed along from people to people. Rosnow(1991) claimed that rumors were transmitted because people needed to explain ambiguous and uncertain events and talking about them reduced associated anxiety. Especially negative rumors are believed to have the potential to devastate a company's reputation and relations with customers. From the perspective of marketer, negative rumors are considered harmful and extremely difficult to control in general. It is becoming a threat to a company's sustainability and sometimes leads to negative brand image and loss of customers. Thus there is a growing concern that these negative rumors can damage brands' reputations and lead them to financial disaster too. In this study we aimed to distinguish antecedents of brand rumor transmission and investigate the effects of brand rumor characteristics on rumor spread intention. We also found key components in personal acceptance of brand rumor. In contextualist perspective, we tried to unify the traditional psychological and sociological views. In this unified research approach we defined brand rumor's characteristics based on five major variables that had been found to influence the process of rumor spread intention. The five factors of usefulness, source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness, encompass multi level elements of brand rumor. We also selected product involvement as a control variable. To perform the empirical research, imaginary Korean 'Kimch' brand and related contamination rumor was created and proposed. Questionnaires were collected from 178 Korean samples. Data were collected from college students who have been experienced the focal product. College students were regarded as good subjects because they have a tendency to express their opinions in detail. PLS(partial least square) method was adopted to analyze the relations between variables in the equation model. The most widely adopted causal modeling method is LISREL. However it is poorly suited to deal with relatively small data samples and can yield not proper solutions in some cases. PLS has been developed to avoid some of these limitations and provide more reliable results. To test the reliability using SPSS 16 s/w, Cronbach alpha was examined and all the values were appropriate showing alpha values between .802 and .953. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted successfully. And structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model using smartPLS(ver. 2.0) s/w. Overall, R² of adoption of rumor is .476 and R² of intention of rumor transmission is .218. The overall model showed a satisfactory fit. The empirical results can be summarized as follows. According to the results, the variables of brand rumor characteristic such as source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness affect argument strength of rumor. And argument strength of rumor also affects rumor intention. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived usefulness and argument strength of rumor is not significant. The moderating effect of product involvement on the relations between argument strength of rumor and rumor W.O.M intention is not supported neither. Consequently this study suggests some managerial and academic implications. We consider some implications for corporate crisis management planning, PR and brand management. This results show marketers that rumor is a critical factor for managing strong brand assets. Also for researchers, brand rumor should become an important thesis of their interests to understand the relationship between consumer and brand. Recently many brand managers and marketers have focused on the short-term view. They just focused on strengthen the positive brand image. According to this study we suggested that effective brand management requires managing negative brand rumors with a long-term view of marketing decisions.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.55-78
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• 2021

Tosolve complex and diverse social problems and ensure the quality of life of individuals, social robots that can interact with humans are attracting attention. In the past, robots were recognized as beings that provide labor force as they put into industrial sites on behalf of humans. However, the concept of today's robot has been extended to social robots that coexist with humans and enable social interaction with the advent of Smart technology, which is considered an important driver in most industries. Specifically, there are service robots that respond to customers, the robots that have the purpose of edutainment, and the emotionalrobots that can interact with humans intimately. However, popularization of robots is not felt despite the current information environment in the modern ICT service environment and the 4th industrial revolution. Considering social interaction with users which is an important function of social robots, not only the technology of the robots but also other factors should be considered. The design elements of the robot are more important than other factors tomake consumers purchase essentially a social robot. In fact, existing studies on social robots are at the level of proposing "robot development methodology" or testing the effects provided by social robots to users in pieces. On the other hand, consumer emotions felt from the robot's appearance has an important influence in the process of forming user's perception, reasoning, evaluation and expectation. Furthermore, it can affect attitude toward robots and good feeling and performance reasoning, etc. Therefore, this study aims to verify the effect of appearance of social robot and consumer emotions on consumer's attitude toward social robot. At this time, a social robot design evaluation model is constructed by combining heterogeneous data from different sources. Specifically, the three quantitative indicator data for the appearance of social robots from the ABOT Database is included in the model. The consumer emotions of social robot design has been collected through (1) the existing design evaluation literature and (2) online buzzsuch as product reviews and blogs, (3) qualitative interviews for social robot design. Later, we collected the score of consumer emotions and attitudes toward various social robots through a large-scale consumer survey. First, we have derived the six major dimensions of consumer emotions for 23 pieces of detailed emotions through dimension reduction methodology. Then, statistical analysis was performed to verify the effect of derived consumer emotionson attitude toward social robots. Finally, the moderated regression analysis was performed to verify the effect of quantitatively collected indicators of social robot appearance on the relationship between consumer emotions and attitudes toward social robots. Interestingly, several significant moderation effects were identified, these effects are visualized with two-way interaction effect to interpret them from multidisciplinary perspectives. This study has theoretical contributions from the perspective of empirically verifying all stages from technical properties to consumer's emotion and attitudes toward social robots by linking the data from heterogeneous sources. It has practical significance that the result helps to develop the design guidelines based on consumer emotions in the design stage of social robot development.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.147-175
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of store choice criteria on customer satisfaction and store loyalty, and the moderating effects of customer emotions on the causal relationship between store choice criteria and customer satisfaction. In this regard, this study tries to identify the effects of store choice criteria on customer satisfaction and store loyalty in case of mass merchandisers, and to analyze the moderating effects of customer emotions on the causal relationship between store choice criteria and customer satisfaction. For this purpose, 300 customers, who have ever shopped at mass merchandisers, were surveyed and 246 valid responses were finally used for the data analysis. The results of this study are as follows. First, out of six store choice criteria, product factors, store reputation and physical environment turn out to have statistically significant effects on customer satisfaction. This result confirms those of the previous studies. On the other hand, store accessibility, subsidiary facilities and store atmosphere are not found to have statistically significant effects on customer satisfaction. This result is somewhat different from those of previous studies, and so further research on the subject needs to be carried out. Secondly, it turns out that customer satisfaction has a statistically significant effect on store loyalty, which is in line with the results of previous studies that perceived emotions affect customers' store attitudes which in turn influence their revisit intentions. Thirdly, as for the moderating effects of customer emotions on the relationship between store choice criteria and customer satisfaction, pleasure moderates the effects of store accessibility, subsidiary facilities and store atmosphere on customer satisfaction, arousal moderates the effects of product factors, subsidiary facilities and store reputation on customer satisfaction, and finally dominance moderates the effects of product factors and subsidiary facilities on customer satisfaction. These findings partially support the results of previous studies that customers' in-store emotional experiences such as feeling good or bad enhance their store loyalty.

• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.146-165
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• 2016

With the introduction of the system of recognizing masters of craft and performance skills in 1970, the principle of "preserving the original form," which was already in general use, was adopted as a legal principle in the Cultural Heritage Protection Act. While the concept "original form" can be related to tangible elements of heritage through the Act, the intangibility of craft and performance skills does not allow their pinpointing at a particular temporal period or the identification of a particular master from the past as the basis of an original form. Therefore, those craft or performance skills that are available at the point of recognition of relevant masters must serve as the basis of the original form for the intangible heritage concerned. This means that the principle of preserving the original form of intangible heritage has been implemented not based on a fundamental form of materiality, but rather on the craft or performance skills that may be held by a master at the time of his/her recognition as a "temporary original form." This principle has been observed through intangible heritage transmission and education policies for recognized masters and their trainees, contributing to establish an elitist transmission environment in which public were denied to join the education on intangible heritage. Even with policies guided by the principle of preserving the original form, designated craft and performance skills have been transformed contingent upon given social and environmental conditions, thus hindering the preservation of the original form. Despite the intrinsic limitations of the principle of preserving the original form when applied to intangible heritage, this principle has served as a practical guideline for protecting traditional Korean culture from external influences such as modernization and Westernization, and also as an ultimate goal for the safeguarding of intangible heritage, engendering actual policy effects. The Act on the Safeguarding and Promotion of Intangible Cultural Heritage that comes into effect in March 2016 takes the constantly evolving nature of intangible heritage into consideration and resultantly adopts a concept of "essential form" (jeonhyeong) in place of "original form" (wonhyeong). This new concept allows for any transformations that may take place in the environment surrounding the intangible heritage concerned, and is intended to mitigate the rigidity of the concept of "original form." However, it should be noted that "essential form," which is manifested as the unique significance, knowledge, and skills delivered by the intangible heritage concerned, should be maintained according to the guidelines and principles related to heritage conservation. Therefore, the new concept can be understood not as a rupture, but more as a continuum of the concept of "original form."