• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.93-104
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• 2021

Most of the existing studies on the volume and valence of the eWOM (electronic word of mouth) about movies and box-office revenues were conducted using online actual data (secondary data) at Yahoo Movies, IMDB.com, Naver Movies, etc. However, it is difficult to grasp psychological variables from online actual data. Therefore, existing studies using online actual data could not identify the causal relationship among volume, valence and psychological variables. This study fills this gap in the literature. This study aims to examine the direct and indirect effects (i.e. mediating effect) of the volume and valence of online reviews about movies on purchase intention through review credibility as a mediator. We conducted a survey on the South Korean consumers and a structural equation modeling. The outcomes show that the total effects of both volume and valence are significant. In addition, volume has an indirect effect only (i.e. full mediating effect) on purchase intention through review credibility, but valence has both direct and indirect effects (i.e. partial mediating effect) on purchase intention through review credibility. The theoretical and practical implications for these results are presented.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.115-134
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• 2024

In an age where consumers can easily search and pass on their opinions of products and purchasing decisions through the internet, Electronic-word-of-mouth(Ewom) plays an important role in decision making of other potential customers. In this study, we empirically analyze the impact EWOM on consumer purchase decisions, when contradictory Ewom is presented from varying sources of information, such as experts and general consumers. First, we find that when there is a consensus among different information sources there exists a positive relationship between Ewom sentiment and purchase intent, confirming the results of previous literature. However, when expert opinion and consumer opinion do not match we find that consumer opinion is more impactful on purchasing decisions compared to the expert opinion, regardless of product types. The findings of this study add insight to the current literature by examining the effect of contradictory Ewom on purchase decisions, and also to industry marketers by presenting a more efficient strategy in promoting positive Ewom for different product types.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.1-25
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• 2010

Motion pictures are so typical experience goods that consumers tend to look for more credible information. Hence, movie audiences consider movie viewers' reviews more important than the information provided by the film distributor. Recently many portal sites allow consumers to post their reviews and opinions so that other people check the number of consumer reviews and scores before going to the theater. There are a few previous researches studying the electronic word of mouth(eWOM) effect in the movie industry. They found that the volume of eWOM influenced the revenue of the movie significantly but the valence of eWOM did not affect it much (Liu 2006). The goal of our research is also to investigate the eWOM effects in general. But our research is different from the previous studies in several aspects. First, we study the eWOM effect in Korean movie industry. In other words, we would like to check whether we can generalize the results of the previous research across countries. The similar econometric models are applied to Korean movie data that include 746,282 consumer reviews on 439 movies. Our results show that both the valence(RATING) and the volume(LNMSG) of the eWOM influence weekly movie revenues. This result is different from the previous research findings that the volume only influences the revenue. We conjectured that the difference of self construal between Asian and American culture may explain this difference (Kitayama 1991). Asians including Koreans have more interdependent self construal than American, so that they are easily affected by other people's thought and suggestion. Hence, the valence of the eWOM affects Koreans' choice of the movie. Second, we find the critical defect of the previous eWOM models and, hence, attempt to correct it. The previous eWOM model assumes that the volume of eWOM (LNMSG) is an independent variable affecting the movie revenue (LNREV). However, the revenue can influence the volume of the eWOM. We think that treating the volume of eWOM as an independent variable a priori is too restrictive. In order to remedy this problem, we employed a simultaneous equation in which the movie revenue and the volume of the eWOM can affect each other. That is, our eWOM model assumes that the revenue (LNREV) and the volume of eWOM (LNMSG) have endogenous relationship where they influence each other. The results from this simultaneous equation model showed that the movie revenue and the eWOM volume interact each other. The movie revenue influences the eWOM volume for the entire 8 weeks. The reverse effect is more complex. Both the volume and the valence of eWOM affect the revenue in the first week, but only the volume affect the revenue for the rest of the weeks. In the first week, consumers may be curious about the movie and look for various kinds of information they can trust, so that they use the both the quantity and quality of consumer reviews. But from the second week, the quality of the eWOM only affects the movie revenue, implying that the review ratings are more important than the number of reviews. Third, our results show that the ratings by professional critics (CRATING) had negative effect to the weekly movie revenue (LNREV). Professional critics often give low ratings to the blockbuster movies that do not have much cinematic quality. Experienced audiences who watch the movie for fun do not trust the professionals' ratings and, hence, tend to go for the low-rated movies by them. In summary, applied to the Korean movie ratings data and employing a simultaneous model, our results are different from the previous eWOM studies: 1) Koreans (or Asians) care about the others' evaluation quality more than quantity, 2) The volume of eWOM is not the cause but the result of the revenue, 3) Professional reviews can give the negative effect to the movie revenue.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.129-135
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• 2013

With the increasing use of the SNS, WOM(Word of Mouth) has become an even more powerful and useful resource for consumers and marketers. In this paper, we investigated the effects of message polarity (positive, neutral, negative) and type (factual, evaluative) on WOM through SNS (twitter). A total of 13.4 million twitter messages were collected and 1.0 million retweeted messages were analyzed. The results showed that message orientation, type, URL and hashtag have a significant (<0.01) effect on retweet counts and the interaction between message orientation and other factors were observed. It also observed that message type, URL and hashtag have significant (0.05) relationships with retweet speed.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.53-68
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• 2015

This study analyzed online word-of-mouth information using content analysis to help practical categorization of two-sided eWOM. A total of 402 online consumer reviews on search goods and experience goods were collected. Descriptive characteristics(information direction, length of review line) and content structural characteristics(product benefit types, information presentation methods) were used as analysis criteria. The study results are as follows. First, the types of two-sided e-WOM direction were made of positive/negative, negative/positive, positive/negative/ positive, and negative/positive/negative. Second, the length of two-sided eWOM was longer than the length of one-sided eWOM and blended type accounted for the highest proportion both one-sided and two-sided eWOM at the aspect of product benefit. Third, holistic presentation method was overwhelmingly high in one-sided eWOM, whereas blended and analytic presentation methods were somewhat high in two-sided eWOM. Fourth, holistic presentation method was high in search goods, whereas blended and analytic presentation methods were high in experience goods. Based on these results, implications for two-sided e-WOM study and further research issues were discussed.

• 한국벤처창업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2017.04a
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• pp.46-46
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• 2017

최근 경기 침체에 불구하고 피부관리에 아낌없이 투자하는 소비자들이 늘어나면서 가정용 안면피부미용기기 (뷰티디바이스) 열기가 거세다. 시간과 장소에 제약이 없이 가성비가 뛰어난 가정용 안면피부미용기기 시장은 지난해 약 1000억으로 전년 대비 약 25%의 성장을 보이고 있으며 당분간 이 열기는 지속될 것이다. 본 연구는 이런 가정용 안면피부미용기기 시장이 이제 막 주목받고 있는 분야임에도 불구하고 연구된 바가 거의 없다. 라서 본 연구는 기업의 중요한 마케팅수단인 SNS의 구전 정보의 특성이 가정용 안면피부미용기기 (뷰티디바이스) 구매의도에 어떠한 영향을 미치는가를 분석하고 구매의도에 중요한 역할하는 소비자의 태도가 어떤 매개역할을 하지는 분석하여 성장해가고 있는 가정용 안면피부미용기기(뷰티디바이스) 창업기업의 마케팅 전략에 기여할 것으로 판단된다. 연구모형에 있어서 SNS의 구전정보의 특성으로는 구전정보의 방향성, 구전정보의 수량, 구전정보의 내용 품질, 구전정보의 유형 들로 독립변수를 설정하였고, 종속변수인 구매의도사이에 매개변수로서 소비자태도를 선정하였다. 서울지역 여성 소비자들 중에서 가정용 안면 피부 미용기기를 사용해 본 경험이 있는 조건부 불특정 다수를 대상으로 150개의 표본을 추출하였다. 분석 방법은 확인적 요인분석과 크론바하 알파 계수로 변수의 타당성, 신뢰성 분석을 하고 경로분석을 통하여 변수간 가설 검정을 분석중에 있다.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.177-186
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• 2016

This study aims to explore the effect of characteristics of eWOM(Word-of-mouth) on consumer attitude in SNS(Social Network Service). The characteristics of WOM were classified into characteristics of message (polarity, verifiability, consensus) and characteristics of SNS (social presence, interaction). Data of 554 samples were collected from the university students of SNS users. The key results showed that the polarity of the WOM has a strong positive effect on consumer's attitude, and the degree of verifiability and consensus has a moderating effect on the polarity-attitude relationship. On the contrary, characteristics of SNS such as social presence and interaction have a direct effect on consumer attitude and have no significant moderating effect on the polarity-attitude relationship. This study provides an academic enhancement in the research of the relationship between the characteristics of WOM and consumer's attitude in the SNS environment. Practical implications are also drawn from these findings.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.49-65
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• 2014

Word of Mouth (WOM) is a behavior used by consumers to transfer or communicate their product or service experience to other consumers. Due to the popularity of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and online communities, electronic WOM (e-WOM) has become important to the success of products or services. As a result, most enterprises pay close attention to e-WOM for their products or services. This is especially important for movies, as these are experiential products. This paper aims to identify the network factors of an online movie community that impact box office revenue using social network analysis. In addition to traditional WOM factors (volume and valence of WOM), network centrality measures of the online community are included as influential factors in box office revenue. Based on previous research results, we develop five hypotheses on the relationships between potential influential factors (WOM volume, WOM valence, degree centrality, betweenness centrality, closeness centrality) and box office revenue. The first hypothesis is that the accumulated volume of WOM in online product communities is positively related to the total revenue of movies. The second hypothesis is that the accumulated valence of WOM in online product communities is positively related to the total revenue of movies. The third hypothesis is that the average of degree centralities of reviewers in online product communities is positively related to the total revenue of movies. The fourth hypothesis is that the average of betweenness centralities of reviewers in online product communities is positively related to the total revenue of movies. The fifth hypothesis is that the average of betweenness centralities of reviewers in online product communities is positively related to the total revenue of movies. To verify our research model, we collect movie review data from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), which is a representative online movie community, and movie revenue data from the Box-Office-Mojo website. The movies in this analysis include weekly top-10 movies from September 1, 2012, to September 1, 2013, with in total. We collect movie metadata such as screening periods and user ratings; and community data in IMDb including reviewer identification, review content, review times, responder identification, reply content, reply times, and reply relationships. For the same period, the revenue data from Box-Office-Mojo is collected on a weekly basis. Movie community networks are constructed based on reply relationships between reviewers. Using a social network analysis tool, NodeXL, we calculate the averages of three centralities including degree, betweenness, and closeness centrality for each movie. Correlation analysis of focal variables and the dependent variable (final revenue) shows that three centrality measures are highly correlated, prompting us to perform multiple regressions separately with each centrality measure. Consistent with previous research results, our regression analysis results show that the volume and valence of WOM are positively related to the final box office revenue of movies. Moreover, the averages of betweenness centralities from initial community networks impact the final movie revenues. However, both of the averages of degree centralities and closeness centralities do not influence final movie performance. Based on the regression results, three hypotheses, 1, 2, and 4, are accepted, and two hypotheses, 3 and 5, are rejected. This study tries to link the network structure of e-WOM on online product communities with the product's performance. Based on the analysis of a real online movie community, the results show that online community network structures can work as a predictor of movie performance. The results show that the betweenness centralities of the reviewer community are critical for the prediction of movie performance. However, degree centralities and closeness centralities do not influence movie performance. As future research topics, similar analyses are required for other product categories such as electronic goods and online content to generalize the study results.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.111-130
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• 2013

As the number of online social networking service (SNS) users is increasing, various efforts are being deployed to take advantage of SNS from the perspective of business and management. Especially, researches in the field of marketing such as word-of-mouth (WOM) effect have been actively conducted. This paper examined the impact of the SNS messages of users' friends on the users' attitude and the moderating effect of the friends' opinion leadership on the WOM effect. Fifty-one Facebook users responded to the questions on their four friends each. Regression analyses showed that there existed WOM effect under the SNS environment and the opinion leadership of the message creators positively moderated the WOM effect. We discussed the contributions and implications of this study.

• Journal of Information Management
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.109-134
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• 2012

This study, focusing on process of online Word-of-Mouth(oWOM) adoption in applications market which is a major issue of recent mobile industry, tried to empirically analyze how main characteristics of oWOM affect trust and process of oWOM adoption. To do this, based on understanding about applications market and precedent studies on online communication and Elaboration Likelihood Model(ELM), I developed the research model and proposed seven hypotheses. The subjects were smart phone users who ever used review in mobile applications market. The study method was questionnaire survey. As a result, trust in review was suggested as prerequisite for consumers to accept on-line review in mobile applications market. And it was empirically proved that for the customers to feel trust, these are necessary - positive assessment on argument quality, vividness of delivered explanation, and neutrality of message. The theoretical implications of this study are that based on studies on oWOM, factors affecting trust in review were explored in the environment of mobile applications market with less judgement clues for decision making compared to other on-line media and then, these factors were conceptualized. From the practical view, this study suggested implication on what attributes companies or developers can strategically utilize while investigating prerequisites of oWOM adoption.