Purpose: Adipose tissue is located beneath the skin, around internal organs, and in the bone marrow in humans. Its main role is to store energy in the form of fat, although it also cushions and insulates the body. Adipose tissue also has the ability to dynamically expand and shrink throughout the life of an adult. Recently, it has been shown that adipose tissue contains a population of adult multipotent mesenchymal stem cells and endothelial progenitor cells that, in cell culture conditions, have extensive proliferative capacity and are able to differentiate into several lineages, including, osteogenic, chondrogenic, endothelial cells, and myogenic lineages. Materials and Methods: This study focused on endothelial cell culture from the adipose tissue. Adipose tissues were harvested from buccal fat pad during bilateral sagittal split ramus osteotomy for surgical correction of mandibular prognathism. The tissues were treated with 0.075% type I collagenase. The samples were neutralized with DMEM/and centrifuged for 10 min at 2,400 rpm. The pellet was treated with 3 volume of RBC lysis buffer and filtered through a 100
Purpose: The ability to noninvasively track the migration of neural progenitor cells would have significant clinical and research implications. We generated stably transfected F3 human neural progenitor cells with human sodium/iodide symporter (hNIS) for noninvasively tracking F3. In this study, the expression patterns of hNIS gene in F3-NIS were examined according to the cultured time and the epigenetic modulation. Materials and Methods: F3 human neural stem cells had been obtained from Dr. Seung U. Kim (Ajou University, Suwon, Korea). hNIS and hygromycin resistance gene were linked with IRES (Internal Ribosome Entry Site) under control of CMV promoter. This construct was transfected to F3 with Liposome. To investigate the restoration of hNIS gene expression in F3-NIS, cells were treated with demethylating agent (5-Azacytidine) and Histone deacetylase inhibitor (Trichostatin A: TSA). The expression of hNIS was measured by I-125 uptake assay and RT-PCR analysis. Results: The iodide uptake of the F3-NIS was higher 12.86 times than F3 cell line. According to the cell passage number, hNIS expression in F3-NIS gradually diminished. After treatment of 5-Azacytidine and TSA with serial doses (up to
Recently, researches on Management Information Systems (MIS) have laid out theoretical foundation and academic paradigms by introducing diverse theories, themes, and methodologies. Especially, academic paradigms of MIS encourage a user-friendly approach by developing the technologies from the users' perspectives, which reflects the existence of strong causal relationships between information systems and user's behavior. As in other areas in social science the use of structural equation modeling (SEM) has rapidly increased in recent years especially in the MIS area. The SEM technique is important because it provides powerful ways to address key IS research problems. It also has a unique ability to simultaneously examine a series of casual relationships while analyzing multiple independent and dependent variables all at the same time. In spite of providing many benefits to the MIS researchers, there are some potential pitfalls with the analytical technique. The research objective of this study is to provide some guidelines for an appropriate use of SEM based on the assessment of current practice of using SEM in the MIS research. This study focuses on several statistical issues related to the use of SEM in the MIS research. Selected articles are assessed in three parts through the meta analysis. The first part is related to the initial specification of theoretical model of interest. The second is about data screening prior to model estimation and testing. And the last part concerns estimation and testing of theoretical models based on empirical data. This study reviewed the use of SEM in 164 empirical research articles published in four major MIS journals in Korea (APJIS, ISR, JIS and JITAM) from 1991 to 2007. APJIS, ISR, JIS and JITAM accounted for 73, 17, 58, and 16 of the total number of applications, respectively. The number of published applications has been increased over time. LISREL was the most frequently used SEM software among MIS researchers (97 studies (59.15%)), followed by AMOS (45 studies (27.44%)). In the first part, regarding issues related to the initial specification of theoretical model of interest, all of the studies have used cross-sectional data. The studies that use cross-sectional data may be able to better explain their structural model as a set of relationships. Most of SEM studies, meanwhile, have employed. confirmatory-type analysis (146 articles (89%)). For the model specification issue about model formulation, 159 (96.9%) of the studies were the full structural equation model. For only 5 researches, SEM was used for the measurement model with a set of observed variables. The average sample size for all models was 365.41, with some models retaining a sample as small as 50 and as large as 500. The second part of the issue is related to data screening prior to model estimation and testing. Data screening is important for researchers particularly in defining how they deal with missing values. Overall, discussion of data screening was reported in 118 (71.95%) of the studies while there was no study discussing evidence of multivariate normality for the models. On the third part, issues related to the estimation and testing of theoretical models on empirical data, assessing model fit is one of most important issues because it provides adequate statistical power for research models. There were multiple fit indices used in the SEM applications. The test was reported in the most of studies (146 (89%)), whereas normed-test was reported less frequently (65 studies (39.64%)). It is important that normed- of 3 or lower is required for adequate model fit. The most popular model fit indices were GFI (109 (66.46%)), AGFI (84 (51.22%)), NFI (44 (47.56%)), RMR (42 (25.61%)), CFI (59 (35.98%)), RMSEA (62 (37.80)), and NNFI (48 (29.27%)). Regarding the test of construct validity, convergent validity has been examined in 109 studies (66.46%) and discriminant validity in 98 (59.76%). 81 studies (49.39%) have reported the average variance extracted (AVE). However, there was little discussion of direct (47 (28.66%)), indirect, and total effect in the SEM models. Based on these findings, we suggest general guidelines for the use of SEM and propose some recommendations on concerning issues of latent variables models, raw data, sample size, data screening, reporting parameter estimated, model fit statistics, multivariate normality, confirmatory factor analysis, reliabilities and the decomposition of effects.
As a way of enhancing the intercultural ability needed for diverse cultural eras, this study focuses on the "narration" of the Italian education scholar Maddalena De Carlo in order to determine the "diverse values" created by the "symbolic representation" based on the folktales narrated by immigrants living in Korea. Through this, it specifically presents educational elements and contents that can raise relative sensitivity. The authors of this paper have connected, empathized, and communicated with people of various cultures in order to go beyond Carlo's discussion. The paper discusses the expansion of cultural sensitivity as an element of education through narrative topics using the folktales of immigrant narrators in Korea. It also recognizes the limitations of a desire for a homogeneous union within an intercultural society and thus formulates educational contents for creating a relationship with heterogeneous ideas through the elimination of communication barriers through heterogeneity and a consideration of the surface and the back. This is systemized in six steps. Step 1: Listening to oral folktales of immigrants, Step 2: Finding heterogeneous motifs imprinted in the immigrants' memories, Step 3: Understanding the meaning of the opposing qualities symbolized by heterogeneous motifs, Step 4: Creating narrative topics containing the key motifs, Step 5: Generating the value of symbolic representation as a narrative topic, and Step 6: Expanding the value of life into a cultural symbol. In Chapter 3, this study focuses on educational contents using immigrants' folktales by applying these six steps. The class contents include the recognition of the limitations of desire for a homogeneous union within an intercultural society and the consideration of how to create a relationship with heterogeneous ideas through the elimination of communication barriers through heterogeneity and consideration of the surface and the back. This paper then compares the Indonesian folktale, The Inverted Ship Mountain and the Mom's Mountain, with the world-famous Oedipus myth, to determine what the symbolic representation of these heterogeneous motifs is. In Step 6, when the symbolic system is culturally extended, the incestuous desire that appears in the "inverted ship" is interpreted as a fixation that was created when the character sought to unite with homogenous idea. The Cambodian folktale, The Girl and the Tiger, is a story that is reminiscent of the Korean folktale, The Old Man with a Lump. Through the motif in "Tiger," this paper generates a narrative topic that will enhance the students' intercultural abilities by culturally expanding their skills in how to relate with a heterogeneous being that is usually represented as an animal. The Vietnamese folktale, The Coconut Bowl, similar to the Korean folktale, GureongDeongDeong SinSeonBi, is a story that draws a variety of considerations about the surface and theback, and it shows readers how to build a relationship with a heterogeneous idea and how to develop and grow with such a relationship. Thus, if a narrative topic is generated and readers are able to empathize using an opposing feature formed by the core motif of the folktale, it becomes possible, through immigrant folklore, to construct a possibility of a new life through the formation of a relationship with an unfamiliar and heterogeneous culture.
Researches about the relationship between SST(Self Service Technology) and TRI(Technology Readiness Index) have been carried out after TRI was developed by Parasuraman and his colleagues(2000). We hypothesize Consumer Readiness can also influence consumer's motivation, attitude, and intent to use SST. Currently, there has been no research on this subject. In this study, we investigated the relationship between TR, Consumer Readiness and SST Core Attitudinal Model which Dabholkar & Bagozzi(1994) proposed. The researchers also investigated moderating effects of consumer traits and situational factors to verify the acceptance of such forms of service delivery by all kinds of consumers and under different situational contexts. Self consciousness, the need for interaction with an employee, and the technology anxiety were used as consumer trait variables. Perceived waiting time and perceived crowding were used as situational variables. 380 questionnaires were distributed to a sample group of people in their 20's and 30's, and the data were analyzed with structural equation model using AMOS 18.0 program. All of Cronbach's alpha values representing reliabilities were satisfactory. The values of Composite Reliability(CR) and Average Variance Extracted(AVE) also showed the above criteria, thus providing evidence of convergent validity. To confirm discriminant validity among the constructs, confirmatory factor analysis and correlations among all the variables were examined. The results were satisfactory. The results of this study are summarized as follows. 1. Optimism and innovativeness of TR partially influenced the motivation to use SST. People who tend to be optimistic use SST because of ease of use and fun. The innovative however, usually use SST due to its performance. However, consumer readiness of role clarity, ability and self-efficacy influence all the components of motivation to use SST, ease of use, performance and fun. The relative effect of consumer readiness on the motivation to use SST was much stronger and more significant than that of TR. No other previous studies have examined the effects of Consumer Readiness on SST usage motivation, attitude and intention. It is academically meaningful that the researchers verified that Consumer Readiness is the important precedent construct influencing the self service technology core Attitudinal Model. Our findings suggest that marketers should consider fun and ease of use attributes to promote the use of self service technology. In addition, the SST usage frequency will rise rapidly when role clarity, ability, and self-efficacy which anybody can easily handle SST is assured. If the SST usage rate is increased, waiting times for customers could be decreased. Shorter waiting time could lead to higher customer satisfaction. It may also result in making a long-term profit owing to the reduced number of employees. Thus, presentation of using SST by employees or videos showing how to use it will promote the usage attitude and intent. 2. In SST core attitudinal model, performance and fun factors among SST usage motivation affected attitudes of using SST. The attitude of using SST highly influenced intent to use SST. This result is consistent with previous researches that dealt with the relationship between motivation, attitude and intention. Expectation of using SST could result in good performance just like the effect of ordering menu to service employees and to have fun since fun during its use could promote more SST usage rate. 3. In the relationship among motivation, attitude and intent in SST core attitudinal model, the moderating effect of consumer traits(self-consciousness, need for interaction with service employees and technology anxiety) and situational factors(perceived crowding and perceived waiting time) were tested. The results also supported the hypothesized moderating effects except perceived crowding. The highly self-conscious tended to form attitudes to use SST because of its fun compared to those who were less self-conscious because of its performance. People who had a high need for interaction with service employees tended to use SST for its performance. This result indicates that if ordering results are assured, SST is easily accessible to even consumers who have a high need for interaction with a service employee. When SST is easy to use, attitudes strengthen intent among people who had a high level of anxiety of technology. People who had low technology anxiety formed attitudes to use SST because of its performance. Service firms must ensure their self service technology is designed to be easy to use for those who have a high level of technology anxiety. Shorter perceived waiting times strengthened the attitude to use self service technology because of its fun. If the fun aspect is assured, people willing to use self service technology even perceive waiting time to be shorter than it actually is. Greater perceived waiting times form higher level of intent to use self service technology than those of shorter perceived waiting times. This implies that people view self service technology as a faster alternative to ordering service employees. The fun aspect of self service technology will attract a higher rate of usage for self service technology. 4. It has been proven that ease of use, performance and fun aspects are very important factors in motivation to form attitudes and intent to use self service technology regardless of the amount of perceived waiting time, self-consciousness, need for interaction with service employees, and technology anxiety. Service firms must consider these motivation aspects(ease of use, performance and fun)strongly in their promotion to use self service technology. Ease of use, assuring absolute performance compared to interaction with service employees', and adding a fun aspect will positively strengthen consumers' attitudes and intent to use self service technology. Summarizing the moderating effects, fun is the most valuable factor triggering SST usage attitude and intention. Therefore, designing self service technology to be fun will be the key to its success. This study focused on the touch screen self service technology in fast food restaurant. Although it has its limits due to the fact that it is hard to generalize the results to any other self service technology, the conceptual framework of this study can be applied to future research of any other service site.
Brand equity is one of the most important concepts in business practice as well as in academic research. Successful brands can allow marketers to gain competitive advantage (Lassar et al.,1995), including the opportunity for successful extensions, resilience against competitors' promotional pressures, and the ability to create barriers to competitive entry (Farquhar, 1989). Branding plays a special role in service firms because strong brands increase trust in intangible products (Berry, 2000), enabling customers to better visualize and understand them. They reduce customers' perceived monetary, social, and safety risks in buying services, which are obstacles to evaluating a service correctly before purchase. Also, a high level of brand equity increases consumer satisfaction, repurchasing intent, and degree of loyalty. Brand equity can be considered as a mixture that includes both financial assets and relationships. Actually, brand equity can be viewed as the value added to the product (Keller, 1993), or the perceived value of the product in consumers' minds. Mahajan et al. (1990) claim that customer-based brand equity can be measured by the level of consumers' perceptions. Several researchers discuss brand equity based on two dimensions: consumer perception and consumer behavior. Aaker (1991) suggests measuring brand equity through price premium, loyalty, perceived quality, and brand associations. Viewing brand equity as the consumer's behavior toward a brand, Keller (1993) proposes similar dimensions: brand awareness and brand knowledge. Thus, past studies tend to identify brand equity as a multidimensional construct consisted of brand loyalty, brand awareness, brand knowledge, customer satisfaction, perceived equity, brand associations, and other proprietary assets (Aaker, 1991, 1996; Blackston, 1995; Cobb-Walgren et al., 1995; Na, 1995). Other studies tend to regard brand equity and other brand assets, such as brand knowledge, brand awareness, brand image, brand loyalty, perceived quality, and so on, as independent but related constructs (Keller, 1993; Kirmani and Zeithaml, 1993). Walters(1978) defined information search as, "A psychological or physical action a consumer takes in order to acquire information about a product or store." But, each consumer has different methods for informationsearch. There are two methods of information search, internal and external search. Internal search is, "Search of information already saved in the memory of the individual consumer"(Engel, Blackwell, 1982) which is, "memory of a previous purchase experience or information from a previous search."(Beales, Mazis, Salop, and Staelin, 1981). External search is "A completely voluntary decision made in order to obtain new information"(Engel & Blackwell, 1982) which is, "Actions of a consumer to acquire necessary information by such methods as intentionally exposing oneself to advertisements, taking to friends or family or visiting a store."(Beales, Mazis, Salop, and Staelin, 1981). There are many sources for consumers' information search including advertisement sources such as the internet, radio, television, newspapers and magazines, information supplied by businesses such as sales people, packaging and in-store information, consumer sources such as family, friends and colleagues, and mass media sources such as consumer protection agencies, government agencies and mass media sources. Understanding consumers' purchasing behavior is a key factor of a firm to attract and retain customers and improving the firm's prospects for survival and growth, and enhancing shareholder's value. Therefore, marketers should understand consumer as individual and market segment. One theory of consumer behavior supports the belief that individuals are rational. Individuals think and move through stages when making a purchase decision. This means that rational thinkers have led to the identification of a consumer buying decision process. This decision process with its different levels of involvement and influencing factors has been widely accepted and is fundamental to the understanding purchase intention represent to what consumers think they will buy. Brand equity is not only companies but also very important asset more than product itself. This paper studies brand equity model and influencing factors including information process such as information searching and information resources in the fashion market in Asia and Europe. Information searching and information resources are influencing brand knowledge that influences consumers purchase decision. Nine research hypotheses are drawn to test the relationships among antecedents of brand equity and purchase intention and relationships among brand knowledge, brand value, brand attitude, and brand loyalty. H1. Information searching influences brand knowledge positively. H2. Information sources influence brand knowledge positively. H3. Brand knowledge influences brand attitude. H4. Brand knowledge influences brand value. H5. Brand attitude influences brand loyalty. H6. Brand attitude influences brand value. H7. Brand loyalty influences purchase intention. H8. Brand value influence purchase intention. H9. There will be the same research model in Asia and Europe. We performed structural equation model analysis in order to test hypotheses suggested in this study. The model fitting index of the research model in Asia was
The large amount of data that emerges from the initial connection environment of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is a major factor that distinguishes the Fourth Industrial Revolution from the existing production environment. This environment has two-sided features that allow it to produce data while using it. And the data produced so produces another value. Due to the massive scale of data, future information systems need to process more data in terms of quantities than existing information systems. In addition, in terms of quality, only a large amount of data, Ability is required. In a small-scale information system, it is possible for a person to accurately understand the system and obtain the necessary information, but in a variety of complex systems where it is difficult to understand the system accurately, it becomes increasingly difficult to acquire the desired information. In other words, more accurate processing of large amounts of data has become a basic condition for future information systems. This problem related to the efficient performance of the information system can be solved by building a semantic web which enables various information processing by expressing the collected data as an ontology that can be understood by not only people but also computers. For example, as in most other organizations, IT has been introduced in the military, and most of the work has been done through information systems. Currently, most of the work is done through information systems. As existing systems contain increasingly large amounts of data, efforts are needed to make the system easier to use through its data utilization. An ontology-based system has a large data semantic network through connection with other systems, and has a wide range of databases that can be utilized, and has the advantage of searching more precisely and quickly through relationships between predefined concepts. In this paper, we propose a defense ontology as a method for effective data management and decision support. In order to judge the applicability and effectiveness of the actual system, we reconstructed the existing air force munitions situation management system as an ontology based system. It is a system constructed to strengthen management and control of logistics situation of commanders and practitioners by providing real - time information on maintenance and distribution situation as it becomes difficult to use complicated logistics information system with large amount of data. Although it is a method to take pre-specified necessary information from the existing logistics system and display it as a web page, it is also difficult to confirm this system except for a few specified items in advance, and it is also time-consuming to extend the additional function if necessary And it is a system composed of category type without search function. Therefore, it has a disadvantage that it can be easily utilized only when the system is well known as in the existing system. The ontology-based logistics situation management system is designed to provide the intuitive visualization of the complex information of the existing logistics information system through the ontology. In order to construct the logistics situation management system through the ontology, And the useful functions such as performance - based logistics support contract management and component dictionary are further identified and included in the ontology. In order to confirm whether the constructed ontology can be used for decision support, it is necessary to implement a meaningful analysis function such as calculation of the utilization rate of the aircraft, inquiry about performance-based military contract. Especially, in contrast to building ontology database in ontology study in the past, in this study, time series data which change value according to time such as the state of aircraft by date are constructed by ontology, and through the constructed ontology, It is confirmed that it is possible to calculate the utilization rate based on various criteria as well as the computable utilization rate. In addition, the data related to performance-based logistics contracts introduced as a new maintenance method of aircraft and other munitions can be inquired into various contents, and it is easy to calculate performance indexes used in performance-based logistics contract through reasoning and functions. Of course, we propose a new performance index that complements the limitations of the currently applied performance indicators, and calculate it through the ontology, confirming the possibility of using the constructed ontology. Finally, it is possible to calculate the failure rate or reliability of each component, including MTBF data of the selected fault-tolerant item based on the actual part consumption performance. The reliability of the mission and the reliability of the system are calculated. In order to confirm the usability of the constructed ontology-based logistics situation management system, the proposed system through the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which is a representative model for measuring the acceptability of the technology, is more useful and convenient than the existing system.
1. Introduction Today Internet is recognized as an important way for the transaction of products and services. According to the data surveyed by the National Statistical Office, the on-line transaction in 2007 for a year, 15.7656 trillion, shows a 17.1%(2.3060 trillion won) increase over last year, of these, the amount of B2C has been increased 12.0%(10.2258 trillion won). Like this, because the entry barrier of on-line market of Korea is low, many retailers could easily enter into the market. So the bigger its scale is, but on the other hand, the tougher its competition is. Particularly due to the Internet and innovation of IT, the existing market has been changed into the perfect competitive market(Srinivasan, Rolph & Kishore, 2002). In the early years of on-line business, they think that the main reason for success is a moderate price, they are awakened to its importance of on-line service quality with tough competition. If it's not sure whether customers can be provided with what they want, they can use the Web sites, perhaps they can trust their products that had been already bought or not, they have a doubt its viability(Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhotra, 2005). Customers can directly reserve and issue their air tickets irrespective of place and time at the Web sites of travel agencies or airlines, but its empirical studies about these Web sites for reserving and issuing air tickets are insufficient. Therefore this study goes on for following specific objects. First object is to measure service quality and service recovery of Web sites for reserving and issuing air tickets. Second is to look into whether above on-line service quality and on-line service recovery have an impact on overall service quality. Third is to seek for the relation with overall service quality and customer satisfaction, then this customer satisfaction and loyalty intention. 2. Theoretical Background 2.1 On-line Service Quality Barnes & Vidgen(2000; 2001a; 2001b; 2002) had invented the tool to measure Web sites' quality four times(called WebQual). The WebQual 1.0, Step one invented a measuring item for information quality based on QFD, and this had been verified by students of UK business school. The Web Qual 2.0, Step two invented for interaction quality, and had been judged by customers of on-line bookshop. The WebQual 3.0, Step three invented by consolidating the WebQual 1.0 for information quality and the WebQual2.0 for interactionquality. It includes 3-quality-dimension, information quality, interaction quality, site design, and had been assessed and confirmed by auction sites(e-bay, Amazon, QXL). Furtheron, through the former empirical studies, the authors changed sites quality into usability by judging that usability is a concept how customers interact with or perceive Web sites and It is used widely for accessing Web sites. By this process, WebQual 4.0 was invented, and is consist of 3-quality-dimension; information quality, interaction quality, usability, 22 items. However, because WebQual 4.0 is focusing on technical part, it's usable at the Website's design part, on the other hand, it's not usable at the Web site's pleasant experience part. Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhorta(2002; 2005) had invented the measure for measuring on-line service quality in 2002 and 2005. The study in 2002 divided on-line service quality into 5 dimensions. But these were not well-organized, so there needed to be studied again totally. So Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhorta(2005) re-worked out the study about on-line service quality measure base on 2002's study and invented E-S-QUAL. After they invented preliminary measure for on-line service quality, they made up a question for customers who had purchased at amazon.com and walmart.com and reassessed this measure. And they perfected an invention of E-S-QUAL consists of 4 dimensions, 22 items of efficiency, system availability, fulfillment, privacy. Efficiency measures assess to sites and usability and others, system availability measures accurate technical function of sites and others, fulfillment measures promptness of delivering products and sufficient goods and others and privacy measures the degree of protection of data about their customers and so on. 2.2 Service Recovery Service industries tend to minimize the losses by coping with service failure promptly. This responses of service providers to service failure mean service recovery(Kelly & Davis, 1994). Bitner(1990) went on his study from customers' view about service providers' behavior for customers to recognize their satisfaction/dissatisfaction at service point. According to them, to manage service failure successfully, exact recognition of service problem, an apology, sufficient description about service failure and some tangible compensation are important. Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhorta(2005) approached the service recovery from how to measure, rather than how to manage, and moved to on-line market not to off-line, then invented E-RecS-QUAL which is a measuring tool about on-line service recovery. 2.3 Customer Satisfaction The definition of customer satisfaction can be divided into two points of view. First, they approached customer satisfaction from outcome of comsumer. Howard & Sheth(1969) defined satisfaction as 'a cognitive condition feeling being rewarded properly or improperly for their sacrifice.' and Westbrook & Reilly(1983) also defined customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction as 'a psychological reaction to the behavior pattern of shopping and purchasing, the display condition of retail store, outcome of purchased goods and service as well as whole market.' Second, they approached customer satisfaction from process. Engel & Blackwell(1982) defined satisfaction as 'an assessment of a consistency in chosen alternative proposal and their belief they had with them.' Tse & Wilton(1988) defined customer satisfaction as 'a customers' reaction to discordance between advance expectation and ex post facto outcome.' That is, this point of view that customer satisfaction is process is the important factor that comparing and assessing process what they expect and outcome of consumer. Unlike outcome-oriented approach, process-oriented approach has many advantages. As process-oriented approach deals with customers' whole expenditure experience, it checks up main process by measuring one by one each factor which is essential role at each step. And this approach enables us to check perceptual/psychological process formed customer satisfaction. Because of these advantages, now many studies are adopting this process-oriented approach(Yi, 1995). 2.4 Loyalty Intention Loyalty has been studied by dividing into behavioral approaches, attitudinal approaches and complex approaches(Dekimpe et al., 1997). In the early years of study, they defined loyalty focusing on behavioral concept, behavioral approaches regard customer loyalty as "a tendency to purchase periodically within a certain period of time at specific retail store." But the loyalty of behavioral approaches focuses on only outcome of customer behavior, so there are someone to point the limits that customers' decision-making situation or process were neglected(Enis & Paul, 1970; Raj, 1982; Lee, 2002). So the attitudinal approaches were suggested. The attitudinal approaches consider loyalty contains all the cognitive, emotional, voluntary factors(Oliver, 1997), define the customer loyalty as "friendly behaviors for specific retail stores." However these attitudinal approaches can explain that how the customer loyalty form and change, but cannot say positively whether it is moved to real purchasing in the future or not. This is a kind of shortcoming(Oh, 1995). 3. Research Design 3.1 Research Model Based on the objects of this study, the research model derived is
This study is to empirically examine the primary dimensions of visual merchandising (VMD) of internet shopping mall, namely store design, merchandise, and merchandising cues, to be a attractive virtual store to the shoppers. The authors reviewed the literature related to the major components of VMD from the perspective of the AIDA model, which has been mainly applied to the offline store settings. The major purposes of the study are as follows; first, tries to derive the variables related with the components of visual merchandising through reviewing the existing literatures, establish the hypotheses, and test it empirically. Second, examines the relationships between the components of VMD and the attitude toward the VMD, however, putting more emphasis on finding out the component structure of the VMD. VMD needs to be examined with the perspective that an online shopping mall is a virtual self-service or clerkless store, which could reduce the number of employees, help the shoppers search, evaluate and purchase for themselves, and to be explored in terms of the in-store persuasion processes of customers. This study reviewed the literatures related to store design, merchandise, and merchandising cues which might be relevant to the store, product, and promotion respectively. VMD is a total communication tool, and AIDA model could explain the in-store consumer behavior of online shopping. Store design has to do with triggering a consumer attention to the online mall, merchandise with a product related interest, and merchandising cues with promotions such as recommendation and links that induce the desire to pruchase. These three steps might be seen as the processes for purchase actions. The theoretical rationale for the relationship between VMD and AIDA could be found in Tyagi(2005) that the three steps of consumer-oriented merchandising are a store, a product assortment, and placement, in Omar(1999) that three types of interior display are a architectural design display, commodity display, and point-of-sales(POS) display, and in Davies and Ward(2005) that the retail store interior image is related to an atmosphere, merchandise, and in-store promotion. Lee et al(2000) suggested as the web merchandising components a merchandising cues, a shopping metaphor which is an assistant tool for search, a store design, a layout(web design), and a product assortment. The store design which includes differentiation, simplicity and navigation is supposed to be related to the attention to the virtual store. Second, the merchandise dimensions comprising product assortments, visual information and product reputation have to do with the interest in the product offerings. Finally, the merchandising cues that refer to merchandiser(MD)'s recommendation of products and providing the hyperlinks to relevant goods for the shopper is concerned with attempt to induce the desire to purchase. The questionnaire survey was carried out to collect the data about the consumers who would shop at internet shopping malls frequently. To select the subject malls, the mall ranking data announced by a mall rating agency was used to differentiate the most popular and least popular five mall each. The subjects was instructed to answer the questions after navigating the designated mall for five minutes. The 300 questionnaire was distributed to the consumers, 166 samples were used in the final analysis. The empirical testing focused on identifying and confirming the dimensionality of VMD and its subdimensions using a structural equation modeling method. The confirmatory factor analysis for the endogeneous and exogeneous variables was carried out in four parts. The second-order factor analysis was done for a store design, a merchandise, and a merchandising cues, and first-order confirmatory factor analysis for the attitude toward the VMD. The model test results shows that the chi-square value of structural equation is 144.39(d.f 49), significant at 0.01 level which means the proposed model was rejected. But, judging from the ratio of chi-square value vs. degree of freedom, the ratio was 2.94 which smaller than an acceptable level of 3.0, RMR is 0.087 which is higher than a generally acceptable level of 0.08. GFI and AGFI is turned out to be 0.90 and 0.84 respectively. Both NFI and NNFI is 0.94, and CFI 0.95. The major test results are as follows; first, the second-order factor analysis and structural equational modeling reveals that the differentiation, simplicity and ease of identifying current status of the transaction are confirmed to be subdimensions of store design and to be a significant predictors of the dependent variable. This result implies that when designing an online shopping mall, it is necessary to differentiate visually from other malls to improve the effectiveness of the communications of store design. That is, the differentiated store design raise the contrast stimulus to sensory organs to promote the memory of the store and to have a favorable attitude toward the VMD of a store. The results that navigation which means the easiness of identifying current status of shopping affects the attitude to VMD could be interpreted that the navigating processes via the hyperlinks which is characteristics of an internet shopping is a complex and cognitive process and shoppers are likely to lack the sense of overall structure of the store. Consequently, shoppers are likely to be alost amid shopping not knowing where to go. The orientation tool enhance the accessibility of information to raise the perceptive power about the store environment.(Titus & Everett 1995) Second, the primary dimension of merchandise and its subdimensions was confirmed to be unidimensional respectively, have a construct validity, and nomological validity which the VMD dimensions supposed to have a positive correlation with the dependent variable. The subdimensions of product assortment, brand fame and information provision proved to have a positive effect on the attitude toward the VMD. It could be interpreted that the more plentiful the product and brand assortment of the mall is, the more likely the shoppers to favor it. Brand fame and information provision as well affect the VMD attitude, which means that the more famous the brand, the more likely the shoppers would trust and feel familiar with the mall, and the plentifully and visually presented information could have the shopper have a favorable attitude toward the store VMD. Third, it turned out to be that merchandising cue of product recommendation and hyperlinks affect the VMD attitude. This could be interpreted that recommended products could reduce the uncertainty related with the purchase decision, and the hyperlinks to relevant products would help the shopper save the cognitive effort exerted into the information search and gathering, which could lead to a favorable attitude to the VMD. This study tried to sheds some new light on the VMD of online store by reviewing the variables mentioned to be relevant with offline VMD in the existing literatures, and tried to link the VMD components from the perspective of AIDA model. The effect size of the VMD dimensions on the attitude was in the order of the merchandise, the store design and the merchandising cues.It is said that an internet has an unlimited place for display, however, the virtual store is not unlimited since the consumer has a limited amount of cognitive ability to process the external information and internal memory. Particularly, the shoppers are likely to face some difficulties in decision making on account of too many alternative and information overloads. Therefore, the internet shopping mall manager should take into consideration the cost of information search on the part of the consumer, to establish the optimal product placements and search routes. An efficient store composition would be possible by reducing the psychological burdens and cognitive efforts exerted to information search and alternatives evaluation. The store image is in most part determined by the product category and its brand it deals in. The results of this study support this proposition that the merchandise is most important to the VMD attitude than other components, the manager is required to take a strategic approach to VMD. The internet users are getting more accustomed and more knowledgeable about the internet media and more likely to accept the internet as a shopping channel as the period of time during which they use the internet to shop become longer. The web merchandiser should be aware that the product introduction using a moving pictures and a bulletin board become more important in order to present the interactive product information visually and communicate with customers more actively, therefore leading to making the quantity and quality of product information more rich.
. 3.2 Hypotheses 3.2.1 The Hypothesis of On-line Service Quality and Overall Service Quality shows, Step 1 and Step 2 are significant, and mediation variable has a significant effect on dependent variables and so does independent variables at Step 3, too. And there needs to prove the partial mediation effect, independent variable's estimate ability at Step 3(Standardized coefficient
shows, Step 1 and Step 2 are significant, and mediation variable has a significant effect on dependent variables and so does independent variables at Step 3, too. And there needs to prove the partial mediation effect, independent variable's estimate ability at Step 3(Standardized coefficient
An Exploratory Study on the Components of Visual Merchandising of Internet Shopping Mall
(인터넷쇼핑몰의 VMD 구성요인에 대한 탐색적 연구)
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