• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.24 no.5 s.91
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• pp.89-108
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• 2006

Korea has been entering the ageing society as the population of age over 65 shared over 7% since the year 2000. The ageing society needs to have transportation facility considering elderly people's travel behavior. This study aims to understand the elderly people's travel behavior using recent data in Korea. The activity schedule approach begins with travel outcomes are part of an activitv scheduling decision. For tho?e approach. used discrete choice models (especially. Nested Logit Model) to address the basic modeling problem capturing decision interaction among the many choice dimensions of the immense activity schedule choice set The day activity schedule is viewed as a sot of tours and at-home activity episodes tied togather with overarching day activity pattern using the Seoul Metropolitan Area Transportation Survey data, which was conducted in June, 2002. Decisions about a specific tour in the schedule are conditioned by the choice of day activity pattern. The day activity scheduling model estimated in this study consists of tours interrelated in a day activity pattern. The day activity pattern model represents the basic decision of activity participation and priorities and places each activity in a configuration of tours and at-home episodes. Each pattern alternative is defined by the primary activity of the day, whether the primary activity occurs at home or away, and the type of tour for the primary activity. In travel mode choice of the elderly and non-workers, especially, travel cost was found to be important in understanding interpersonal variations in mode choice behavior though, travel time was found to be less important factor in choosing travel mode. In addition, although, generally, the elderly was likely to choose transit mode, private mode was preferred for the elderly over 75 years old owing to weakened physical health for such things as going up and down of stairs. Therefore. as entering the ageing society, transit mode should be invested heavily in transportation facility Planning tor improving elderly transportation service. Although the model has not yet been validated in before-and-after prediction studies. this study gives strong evidence of its behavioral soundness, current practicality. and potential for improving reliability of transportation Projects superior to those of the best existing systems in Korea.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.103-128
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• 2013

When a consumer needs a product or service and multiple sellers are available online, the process of selecting a seller to buy online from is complex since the process involves many behavioral dimensions that have to be taken into account. As a part of this selection process, consumers may set minimum trust expectation that can be used to screen out less trustworthy sellers. In the previous research, the level of consumers' trust expectation has been anchored on two important factors: product involvement and perceived risk. Product involvement refers to the extent to which a consumer perceives a specific product important. Thus, the higher product involvement may result in the higher trust expectation in sellers. On the other hand, other related studies found that when consumers perceived a higher level of risk (e.g., credit card fraud risk), they set higher trust expectation as well. While abundant research exists addressing the relationship between product involvement and perceived risk, little attention has been paid to the integrative view of the link between the two constructs and their impacts on the trust expectation. The present paper is a step toward filling this research gap. The purpose of this paper is to understand the process by which a consumer chooses an online merchant by examining the relationships among product involvement, perceived risk, trust expectation, and intention to buy from an e-tailer. We specifically focus on the mediating role of perceived risk in the relationships between enduring product involvement and the trust expectation. That is, we question whether product involvement affects the trust expectation directly without mediation or indirectly mediated by perceived risk. The research model with four hypotheses was initially tested using data gathered from 635 respondents through an online survey method. The structural equation modeling technique with partial least square was used to validate the instrument and the proposed model. The results showed that three out of the four hypotheses formulated were supported. First, we found that the intention to buy from a digital storefront is positively and significantly influenced by the trust expectation, providing support for H4 (trust expectation ${\rightarrow}$ purchase intention). Second, perceived risk was found to be a strong predictor of trust expectation, supporting H2 as well (perceived risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust expectation). Third, we did not find any evidence of direct influence of product involvement, which caused H3 to be rejected (product involvement ${\rightarrow}$ trust expectation). Finally, we found significant positive relationship between product involvement and perceived risk (H1: product involvement ${\rightarrow}$ perceived risk), which suggests that the possibility of complete mediation of perceived risk in the relationship between enduring product involvement and the trust expectation. As a result, we conducted an additional test for the mediation effect by comparing the original model with the revised model without the mediator variable of perceived risk. Indeed, we found that there exists a strong influence of product involvement on the trust expectation (by intentionally eliminating the variable of perceived risk) that was suppressed (i.e., mediated) by the perceived risk in the original model. The Sobel test statistically confirmed the complete mediation effect. Results of this study offer the following key findings. First, enduring product involvement is positively related to perceived risk, implying that the higher a consumer is enduringly involved with a given product, the greater risk he or she is likely to perceive with regards to the online purchase of the product. Second, perceived risk is positively related to trust expectation. A consumer with great risk perceptions concerning the online purchase is likely to buy from a highly trustworthy online merchant, thereby mitigating potential risks. Finally, product involvement was found to have no direct influence on trust expectation, but the relationship between the two constructs was indirect and mediated by the perceived risk. This is perhaps an important theoretical integration of two separate streams of literature on product involvement and perceived risk. The present research also provides useful implications for practitioners as well as academicians. First, one implication for practicing managers in online retail stores is that they should invest in reducing the perceived risk of consumers in order to lower down the trust expectation and thus increasing the consumer's intention to purchase products or services. Second, an academic implication is that perceived risk mediates the relationship between enduring product involvement and trust expectation. Further research is needed to elaborate the theoretical relationships among the constructs under consideration.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.125-139
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• 2013

Big data refers to the data that cannot be processes with conventional contemporary data technologies. As smart devices and social network services produces vast amount of data, big data attracts much attention from researchers. There are strong demands form governments and industries for bib data as it can create new values by drawing business insights from data. Since various new technologies to process big data introduced, academic communities also show much interest to the big data domain. A notable advance related to the big data technology has been in various fields. Big data technology makes it possible to access, collect, and save individual's personal data. These technologies enable the analysis of huge amounts of data with lower cost and less time, which is impossible to achieve with traditional methods. It even detects personal information that people do not want to open. Therefore, people using information technology such as the Internet or online services have some level of privacy concerns, and such feelings can hinder continued use of information systems. For example, SNS offers various benefits, but users are sometimes highly exposed to privacy intrusions because they write too much personal information on it. Even though users post their personal information on the Internet by themselves, the data sometimes is not under control of the users. Once the private data is posed on the Internet, it can be transferred to anywhere by a few clicks, and can be abused to create fake identity. In this way, privacy intrusion happens. This study aims to investigate how perceived personal information overload in SNS affects user's risk perception and information privacy concerns. Also, it examines the relationship between the concerns and user resistance behavior. A survey approach and structural equation modeling method are employed for data collection and analysis. This study contributes meaningful insights for academic researchers and policy makers who are planning to develop guidelines for privacy protection. The study shows that information overload on the social network services can bring the significant increase of users' perceived level of privacy risks. In turn, the perceived privacy risks leads to the increased level of privacy concerns. IF privacy concerns increase, it can affect users to from a negative or resistant attitude toward system use. The resistance attitude may lead users to discontinue the use of social network services. Furthermore, information overload is mediated by perceived risks to affect privacy concerns rather than has direct influence on perceived risk. It implies that resistance to the system use can be diminished by reducing perceived risks of users. Given that users' resistant behavior become salient when they have high privacy concerns, the measures to alleviate users' privacy concerns should be conceived. This study makes academic contribution of integrating traditional information overload theory and user resistance theory to investigate perceived privacy concerns in current IS contexts. There is little big data research which examined the technology with empirical and behavioral approach, as the research topic has just emerged. It also makes practical contributions. Information overload connects to the increased level of perceived privacy risks, and discontinued use of the information system. To keep users from departing the system, organizations should develop a system in which private data is controlled and managed with ease. This study suggests that actions to lower the level of perceived risks and privacy concerns should be taken for information systems continuance.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.159-189
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• 2012

What attracts consumers to bloggers' reviews? Consumers would be attracted both by the Bloggers' expertise (i.e., knowledge and experience) and by his/her unbiased manner of delivering information. Expertise and trustworthiness are both virtues of information sources, particularly when there is uncertainty in decision-making. Noting this point, we postulate that consumers' motives determine the relative weights they place on expertise and trustworthiness. In addition, our hypotheses assume that tie strength moderates consumers' expectation on bloggers' expertise and trustworthiness: with expectation on expertise enhanced for power-blog user-group (weak-ties), and an expectation on trustworthiness elevated for personal-blog user-group (strong-ties). Finally, we theorize that the effect of credibility on willingness to accept a review is moderated by tie strength; the predictive power of credibility is more prominent for the personal-blog user-groups than for the power-blog user groups. To support these assumptions, we conducted a field survey with blog users, collecting retrospective self-report data. The "gourmet shop" was chosen as a target product category, and obtained data analyzed by structural equations modeling. Findings from these data provide empirical support for our theoretical predictions. First, we found that the purposive motive aimed at satisfying instrumental information needs increases reliance on bloggers' expertise, but interpersonal connectivity value for alleviating loneliness elevates reliance on bloggers' trustworthiness. Second, expertise-based credibility is more prominent for power-blog user-groups than for personal-blog user-groups. While strong ties attract consumers with trustworthiness based on close emotional bonds, weak ties gain consumers' attention with new, non-redundant information (Levin & Cross, 2004). Thus, when the existing knowledge system, used in strong ties, does not work as smoothly for addressing an impending problem, the weak-tie source can be utilized as a handy reference. Thus, we can anticipate that power bloggers secure credibility by virtue of their expertise while personal bloggers trade off on their trustworthiness. Our analysis demonstrates that power bloggers appeal more strongly to consumers than do personal bloggers in the area of expertise-based credibility. Finally, the effect of review credibility on willingness to accept a review is higher for the personal-blog user-group than for the power-blog user-group. Actually, the inference that review credibility is a potent predictor of assessing willingness to accept a review is grounded on the analogy that attitude is an effective indicator of purchase intention. However, if memory about established attitudes is blocked, the predictive power of attitude on purchase intention is considerably diminished. Likewise, the effect of credibility on willingness to accept a review can be affected by certain moderators. Inspired by this analogy, we introduced tie strength as a possible moderator and demonstrated that tie strength moderated the effect of credibility on willingness to accept a review. Previously, Levin and Cross (2004) showed that credibility mediates strong-ties through receipt of knowledge, but this credibility mediation is not observed for weak-ties, where a direct path to it is activated. Thus, the predictive power of credibility on behavioral intention - that is, willingness to accept a review - is expected to be higher for strong-ties.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.1-24
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• 2010

Typically, marketing literature on innovation diffusion has focused on the pre-adoption process and only a few studies explicitly examined consumers' post-adoption behavior of innovative mobile services. Besides, prior use diffusion research has considered the variables that determine the consumers' initial adoption in explaining the post adoption usage behavior. However, behavioral sciences and individual psychology suggest that social influences are a potentially important determinant of usage behavior as well. The purpose of this study is to investigate into the effects of network factor and brand identification as social influences on the consumers' use diffusion or continued usage intention of a mobile service. Network factor designates consumer perception of the usefulness of a network, which embraces the concept of network externality and that of critical mass. Brand identification captures distinct aspects of social influence on technology acceptance that is not captured by subjective norm in situations where the technology use is voluntary. Additionally, this study explores the effect of the use diffusion on the brand switching intention, a generally unexplored form of post-adoption behavior. There are only a few empirical studies in the literature addressing the issue of IT user switching. In this study, the use diffusion comprises of rate of use and variety of use. The research hypotheses are as follows; H1. Network factor will have a positive influence on the rate of use of mobile services. H2. Network factor will have a positive influence on variety of use of mobile services. H3. Network factor will have a positive influence on continued usage intention. H4. Brand identification will have a positive influence on the rate of use. H5. Brand identification will have a positive influence on variety of use. H6. Brand identification will have a positive influence on continued usage intention. H7. Rate of use of mobile services are positively related to continued usage intention. H8. Variety of Use of mobile services are positively related to continued usage intention. H9. Rate of use of mobile services are negatively related to brand switching intention. H10. Variety of Use of mobile services are negatively related to brand switching intention. With the assistance of a marketing service company, a total of 1023 questionnaires from an online survey were collected. The survey was conducted only on those who have received or given a mobile service called "Gifticon". Those who answered insincerely were excluded from the analysis, so we had 936 observations available for a further stage of data analysis. We used structural equation modeling and overall fit was good enough (CFI=0.933, TLI=0.903, RMSEA=0.081). The results show that network factor and brand identification significantly increase the rate of use. But only brand identification increases variety of use. Also, network factor, brand identification and the use diffusion are positively related to continued usage intention. But the hypotheses that the use diffusion are positively related to brand switching intention were rejected. This result implies that continued usage intention cannot guarantee reducing brand switching intention.

• Korean small business review
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.77-93
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• 2011

Since 2000, the employment rate of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has dwindled while the creation of new jobs and the emergence of healthy SMEs have been stagnant. The fundamental reason for these symptoms is that the economic structure is disadvantageous to SMEs. In particular, the greater gap between SMEs and large enterprises has resulted in polarization, and the resulting imbalance has become the largest obstacle to improving SMEs' competitiveness. For example, the total productivity has continued to drop, and the average productivity of SMEs is now merely 30% of that of large enterprises, and the average wage of SMEs' employees is only 53% of that of large enterprises. Along with polarization, rapid industrialization has also caused anti-enterprise consensus, the collapse of the middle class, hostility towards establishments, and other aftereffects. The general consensus is that unless these problems are solved, South Korea will not become an advanced country. Especially, South Korea is now facing issues that need urgent measures, such as the decline of its economic growth, the worsening distribution of profits, and the increased external volatility. Recognizing such negative trends, the MB administration proposed a win-win growth policy and recently introduced a new national value called "ecosystemic development." As the terms in such policy agenda are similar, however, the conceptual differences among such terms must first be fully understood. Therefore, in this study, the concepts of win-win growth policy and ecosystemic development, and the need for them, were surveyed, and their differences from and similarities with other policy concepts like win-win cooperation and symbiotic development were examined. Based on the results of the survey and examination, the study introduced a South Korean model of win-win growth, targeting the promotion of a sound balance between large enterprises and SMEs and an innovative ecosystem, and finally, proposing future policy tasks. Win-win growth is not an academic term but a policy term. Thus, it is less advisable to give a theoretical definition of it than to understand its concept based on its objective and method as a policy. The core of the MB administration's win-win growth policy is the creation of a partnership between key economic subjects such as large enterprises and SMEs based on each subject's differentiated capacity, and such economic subjects' joint promotion of growth opportunities. Its objective is to contribute to the establishment of an advanced capitalistic system by securing the sustainability of the South Korean economy. Such win-win growth policy includes three core concepts. The first concept, ecosystem, is that win-win growth should be understood from the viewpoint of an industrial ecosystem and should be pursued by overcoming the issues of specific enterprises. An enterprise is not an independent entity but a social entity, meaning it exists in relationship with the society (Drucker, 2011). The second concept, balance, points to the fact that an effort should be made to establish a systemic and social infrastructure for a healthy balance in the industry. The social system and infrastructure should be established in such a way as to create a balance between short- term needs and long-term sustainability, between freedom and responsibility, and between profitability and social obligations. Finally, the third concept is the behavioral change of economic entities. The win-win growth policy is not merely about simple transactional relationships or determining reasonable prices but more about the need for a behavior change on the part of economic entities, without which the objectives of the policy cannot be achieved. Various advanced countries have developed different win-win growth models based on their respective cultures and economic-development stages. Japan, whose culture is characterized by a relatively high level of group-centered trust, has developed a productivity improvement model based on such culture, whereas the U.S., which has a highly developed system of market capitalism, has developed a system that instigates or promotes market-oriented technological innovation. Unlike Japan or the U.S., Europe, a late starter, has not fully developed a trust-based culture or market capitalism and thus often uses a policy-led model based on which the government leads the improvement of productivity and promotes technological innovation. By modeling successful cases from these advanced countries, South Korea can establish its unique win-win growth system. For this, it needs to determine the method and tasks that suit its circumstances by examining the prerequisites for its success as well as the strengths and weaknesses of each advanced country. This paper proposes a South Korean model of win-win growth, whose objective is to upgrade the country's low-trust-level-based industrial structure, in which large enterprises and SMEs depend only on independent survival strategies, to a high-trust-level-based social ecosystem, in which large enterprises and SMEs develop a cooperative relationship as partners. Based on this objective, the model proposes the establishment of a sound balance of systems and infrastructure between large enterprises and SMEs, and to form a crenovative social ecosystem. The South Korean model of win-win growth consists of three axes: utilization of the South Koreans' potential, which creates community-oriented energy; fusion-style improvement of various control and self-regulated systems for establishing a high-trust-level-oriented social infrastructure; and behavioral change on the part of enterprises in terms of putting an end to their unfair business activities and promoting future-oriented cooperative relationships. This system will establish a dynamic industrial ecosystem that will generate creative energy and will thus contribute to the realization of a sustainable economy in the 21st century. The South Korean model of win-win growth should pursue community-based self-regulation, which promotes the power of efficiency and competition that is fundamentally being pursued by capitalism while at the same time seeking the value of society and community. Already existing in Korea's traditional roots, such objectives have become the bases of the Shinbaram culture, characterized by the South Koreans' spontaneity, creativity, and optimism. In the process of a community's gradual improvement of its rules and procedures, the trust among the community members increases, and the "social capital" that guarantees the successful control of shared resources can be established (Ostrom, 2010). This basic ideal can help reduce the gap between large enterprises and SMEs, alleviating the South Koreans' victim mentality in the face of competition and the open-door policy, and creating crenovative corporate competitiveness. The win-win growth policy emerged for the purpose of addressing the polarization and imbalance structure resulting from the evolution of 21st-century capitalism. It simultaneously pursues efficiency and fairness on one hand and economic and community values on the other, and aims to foster efficient interaction between the market and the government. This policy, however, is also evolving. The win-win growth policy can be considered an extension of the win-win cooperation that the past 'Participatory Government' promoted at the enterprise management level to the level of systems and culture. Also, the ecosystemic development agendum that has recently emerged is a further extension that has been presented as a national ideal of "a new development model that promotes the co-advancement of environmental conservation, growth, economic development, social integration, and national and individual development."

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.29-52
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• 2012

Consumers differ in the way they make a purchase. An audio mania would willingly make a bold, yet serious, decision to buy a top-of-the-line home theater system, while he is not interested in replacing his two-decade-old shabby car. On the contrary, an automobile enthusiast wouldn't mind spending forty thousand dollars to buy a new Jaguar convertible, yet cares little about his junky component system. It is product involvement that helps us explain such differences among individuals in the purchase style. Product involvement refers to the extent to which a product is perceived to be important to a consumer (Zaichkowsky, 2001). Product involvement is an important factor that strongly influences consumer's purchase decision-making process, and thus has been of prime interest to consumer behavior researchers. Furthermore, researchers found that involvement is closely related to perceived risk (Dholakia, 2001). While abundant research exists addressing how product involvement relates to overall perceived risk, little attention has been paid to the relationship between involvement and different types of perceived risk in an electronic commerce setting. Given that perceived risk can be a substantial barrier to the online purchase (Jarvenpaa, 2000), research addressing such an issue will offer useful implications on what specific types of perceived risk an online firm should focus on mitigating if it is to increase sales to a fullest potential. Meanwhile, past research has focused on such consumer responses as information search and dissemination as a consequence of involvement, neglecting other behavioral responses like online merchant selection. For one example, will a consumer seriously considering the purchase of a pricey Guzzi bag perceive a great degree of risk associated with online buying and therefore choose to buy it from a digital storefront rather than from an online marketplace to mitigate risk? Will a consumer require greater trust on the part of the online merchant when the perceived risk of online buying is rather high? We intend to find answers to these research questions through an empirical study. This paper explores the impact of enduring product involvement and perceived risks on required trust level, and further on online merchant choice. For the purpose of the research, five types or components of perceived risk are taken into consideration, including financial, performance, delivery, psychological, and social risks. A research model has been built around the constructs under consideration, and 12 hypotheses have been developed based on the research model to examine the relationships between enduring involvement and five components of perceived risk, between five components of perceived risk and required trust level, between enduring involvement and required trust level, and finally between required trust level and preference toward an e-tailer. To attain our research objectives, we conducted an empirical analysis consisting of two phases of data collection: a pilot test and main survey. The pilot test was conducted using 25 college students to ensure that the questionnaire items are clear and straightforward. Then the main survey was conducted using 295 college students at a major university for nine days between December 13, 2010 and December 21, 2010. The measures employed to test the model included eight constructs: (1) enduring involvement, (2) financial risk, (3) performance risk, (4) delivery risk, (5) psychological risk, (6) social risk, (7) required trust level, (8) preference toward an e-tailer. The statistical package, SPSS 17.0, was used to test the internal consistency among the items within the individual measures. Based on the Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ coefficients of the individual measure, the reliability of all the variables is supported. Meanwhile, the Amos 18.0 package was employed to perform a confirmatory factor analysis designed to assess the unidimensionality of the measures. The goodness of fit for the measurement model was satisfied. Unidimensionality was tested using convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity. The statistical evidences proved that the three types of validity were all satisfied. Now the structured equation modeling technique was used to analyze the individual paths along the relationships among the research constructs. The results indicated that enduring involvement has significant positive relationships with all the five components of perceived risk, while only performance risk is significantly related to trust level required by consumers for purchase. It can be inferred from the findings that product performance problems are mostly likely to occur when a merchant behaves in an opportunistic manner. Positive relationships were also found between involvement and required trust level and between required trust level and online merchant choice. Enduring involvement is concerned with the pleasure a consumer derives from a product class and/or with the desire for knowledge for the product class, and thus is likely to motivate the consumer to look for ways of mitigating perceived risk by requiring a higher level of trust on the part of the online merchant. Likewise, a consumer requiring a high level of trust on the merchant will choose a digital storefront rather than an e-marketplace, since a digital storefront is believed to be trustworthier than an e-marketplace, as it fulfills orders by itself rather than acting as an intermediary. The findings of the present research provide both academic and practical implications. The first academic implication is that enduring product involvement is a strong motivator of consumer responses, especially the selection of a merchant, in the context of electronic shopping. Secondly, academicians are advised to pay attention to the finding that an individual component or type of perceived risk can be used as an important research construct, since it would allow one to pinpoint the specific types of risk that are influenced by antecedents or that influence consequents. Meanwhile, our research provides implications useful for online merchants (both online storefronts and e-marketplaces). Merchants may develop strategies to attract consumers by managing perceived performance risk involved in purchase decisions, since it was found to have significant positive relationship with the level of trust required by a consumer on the part of the merchant. One way to manage performance risk would be to thoroughly examine the product before shipping to ensure that it has no deficiencies or flaws. Secondly, digital storefronts are advised to focus on symbolic goods (e.g., cars, cell phones, fashion outfits, and handbags) in which consumers are relatively more involved than others, whereas e- marketplaces should put their emphasis on non-symbolic goods (e.g., drinks, books, MP3 players, and bike accessories).