• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.51-89
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• 2007

INTRODUCTION Due to the high broadband internet penetration rate and its group-oriented culture, various types of online communities operate in Korea. This study use 'Uses and Gratification Approach, and argue that members' usage-needs satisfaction with brand community is an important factor for promoting community commitment. Based on previous studies identifying the effect of brand image on consumers' responses to various marketing stimuli, this study hypothesizes that brand image can be a moderate variable affecting the relationship between usage-needs satisfaction with brand community and members' commitment to brand community. This study analyzes the influence of usage-needs satisfaction on brand community commitment and how apparel brand image affects the relationships between usage-needs satisfactions and community commitments. The hypotheses of this study are proposed as follows. H1-3: The usage-needs satisfaction of apparel brand community (interest, transaction, relationship needs) influences emotional (H1), continuous (H2), and normative (H3) commitments to apparel brand communities. H4-6: Apparel brand image has a moderating effect on the relationship between usage-needs satisfaction and emotional (H4), continuous (H5), and normative (H6) commitments to apparel brand communities. METHODS Brand communities founded by non-company affiliates were excluded and emphasis was placed instead on communities created by apparel brand companies. Among casual apparel brands registered in 6 Korean portal sites in August 2003, a total of 9 casual apparel brand online communities were chosen, depending on the level of community activity and apparel brand image. Data from 317 community members were analyzed by exploratory factor analysis, moderated regression analysis, ANOVA, and scheffe test. Among 317 respondents answered an online html-type questionnaire, 80.5% were between 16 to 25 years old. There were a total of 150 respondents from apparel brand communities(n=3) recording higher-than-average brand image scores (Mean > 3.75) and a total of 162 respondents from apparel brand communities(n=6) recording lower-than-average brand image scores(Mean < 3.75). In this study, brand community commitment was measured by a 5-point Likert scale: emotional, continuous and normative commitment. The degree of usage-needs satisfaction (interest, transaction, relationship needs) was measured on a 5-point Likert scale. The level of brand image was measured by a 5-point Likert scale: strength, favorability, and uniqueness of brand associations. RESULTS In the results of exploratory factor analysis, the three usage-needs satisfactions with brand community were classified as interest, transaction, and relationship needs. Brand community commitment was also divided into the multi-dimensional factors: emotional, continuous, and normative commitments. The regression analysis (using a stepwise method) was used to test the influence of 3 independent variables (interest-needs satisfaction, transaction-needs, and relationship-needs satisfactions) on the 3 dependent variables (emotional, continuous and normative commitments). The three types of usage-needs satisfactions are positively associated with the three types of commitments to apparel brand communities. Therefore, hypothesis 1, 2, and 3 were significantly supported. Moderating effects of apparel brand image on the relationship between usage-needs satisfaction and brand community commitments were tested by moderated regression analysis. The statistics result showed that the influence of transaction-needs on emotional commitment was significantly moderated by apparel brand image. In addition, apparel brand image had moderating effects on the relationship between relationship-needs satisfaction and emotional, continuous and normative commitments to apparel brand communities. However, there were not significant moderate effects of apparel brand image on the relationships between interest-needs satisfaction and 3 types of commitments (emotional, continuous and normative commitments) to apparel brand communities. In addition, the influences of transaction-needs satisfaction on 2 types of commitments (continuous and normative commitments) were not significantly moderated by apparel brand image. Therefore, hypothesis 4, 5 and 6 were partially supported. To explain the moderating effects of apparel brand image, four cross-tabulated groups were made by averages of usage-needs satisfaction (interest-needs satisfaction avg. M=3.09, transaction-needs satisfaction avg. M=3.46, relationship-needs satisfaction M=1.62) and the average apparel brand image (M=3.75). The average scores of commitments in each classified group are presented in Tables and Figures. There were significant differences among four groups. As can be seen from the results of scheffe test on the tables, emotional commitment in community group with high brand image was higher than one in community group with low brand image when transaction-needs satisfaction was high. However, when transaction-needs satisfaction was low, there was not any difference between the community group with high brand image and community group with low brand image regarding emotional commitment to apparel brand communities. It means that emotional commitment didn't increase significantly without high satisfaction of transaction-needs, despite the high apparel brand image. In addition, when apparel brand image was low, increase in transaction-needs did not lead to the increase in emotional commitment. Therefore, the significant relationship between transaction-needs satisfaction and emotional commitment was found in only brand communities with high apparel brand image, and the moderating effect of apparel brand image on this relationship between two variables was found in the communities with high satisfaction of transaction-needs only. Statistics results showed that the level of emotional commitment is related to the satisfaction level of transaction-needs, while overall response is related to the level of apparel brand image. We also found that the role of apparel brand image as a moderating factor was limited by the level of transaction-needs satisfaction. In addition, relationship-needs satisfaction brought significant increase in emotional commitment in both community groups (high and low levels of brand image), and the effect of apparel brand image on emotional commitment was significant in both community groups (high and low levels of relationship-needs satisfaction). Especially, the effect of brand image was greater when the level of relationship-needs satisfaction was high. in contrast, increase in emotional commitment responding to increase in relationship-needs satisfaction was greater when apparel brand image is high. The significant influences of relationship-needs satisfaction on community commitments (continuous and normative commitments) were found regardless of apparel brand image(in both community groups with low and high brand image). However, the effects of apparel brand image on continuous and normative commitments were found in only community group with high satisfaction level of relationship-needs. In the case of communities with low satisfaction levels of relationship needs, apparel brand image marginally increases continuous and normative commitments. Therefore, we could not find the moderating effect of apparel brand image on the relationship between relationship-needs satisfaction and continuous and normative commitments in community groups with low satisfaction levels of relationship needs, CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS From the results of this study, we draw several conclusions; First, the increases in usage-needs satisfactions through apparel brand communities result in the increases in commitments to apparel brand communities, wheres the degrees of such relationship depends on the level of apparel brand image. That is, apparel brand image is a moderating factor strengthening the relationship between usage-needs satisfaction and commitment to apparel brand communities. In addition, the effect of apparel brand image differs, depending on the level and types of community usage-needs satisfactions. Therefore, marketers of apparel brand companies must determine the appropriate usage-needs, depending on the type of commitment they wish to increase and the level of their apparel brand image, to promote member's commitments to apparel brand communities. Especially, relationship-needs satisfaction was very important factor for increasing emotional, continuous and normative commitments to communities. However the level of relationship-needs satisfaction was lower than interest-needs and transaction-needs. satisfaction. According to previous study on apparel brand communities, relationship-need satisfaction was strongly related to member's intention of participation in their communities. Therefore, marketers need to develope various strategies in order to increase the relationship- needs as well as interest and transaction needs. In addition, despite continuous commitment was higher than emotional and normative commitments, all types of commitments to apparel brand communities had scores lower than 3.0 that was mid point in 5-point scale. A Korean study reported that the level of members' commitment to apparel brand community influenced customers' identification with a brand and brand purchasing behavior. Therefore, marketers should try to increase members' usage-needs satisfaction and apparel brand image as the necessary conditions for bringing about community commitments. Second, marketers should understand that they should keep in mind that increasing the level of community usage needs (transaction and relationship) is most effective in raising commitment when the level of apparel brand image is high, and that increasing usage needs (transaction needs) satisfaction in communities with low brand image might not be as effective as anticipated. Therefore, apparel companies with desirable brand image such as luxury designer goods firms need to create formal online brand communities (as opposed to informal communities with rudimentary online contents) to satisfy transaction and relationship needs systematically. It will create brand equity through consumers' increased emotional, continuous and normative commitments. Even though apparel brand is very famous, emotional commitment to apparel brand communities cannot be easily increased without transaction-needs satisfaction. Therefore famous fashion brand companies should focus on developing various marketing strategies to increase transaction-needs satisfaction.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.97-112
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• 2019

Currently, in China, mobile live broadcasts are more popular compared to online live broadcasts. Accordingly, this research focused on Wanghong, SNS's flagship live broadcasting app. In other words, Wanghong refers to an internet celebrity who acts online on social network services (SNS) influencing many other people. This study specifically focused on one social network service and conducted a study on live app users. The study first analyzed the quality factors of an SNS to users using China's live app. Secondly, the research investigated in finding out the impact of quality on the satisfaction of live app users and how this affects the live app user's satisfaction on their intention of continuous use. Studies have shown that information quality, system quality, and social quality among SNS quality have a positive influence on live app user satisfaction. However, the quality of service and the quality of emotion was rejected by the hypothesis. Throughout this study, we hope to create an app that allows users to share more satisfying mobile images, thereby establishing various episodes holding beautiful places of their life on a real-time basis. It is hoped that live broadcasting businesses will spread a significant impact around the world. Finally, in the future, research on the study of collective comparison between Korea and China on SNS is believed to be meaningful.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.22 no.8
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• pp.416-434
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• 2022

This study, for learners using online and offline tools, understood the structural relationship of user experience of smart learning app on continuous use intention through the technology acceptance model, and classified the learning type characteristics. In addition, based on the experience of using the smart learning app, we explored ways to improve the design of the user experience design for learning tools and contents. For this purpose, the usage perception of 84 middle and high school students of the developed smart learning learning app was investigated after using it for 2 months, and the data were analyzed using the PLS structural equation technique. The main results of this study are as follows. First, system and content user experience had a significant effect on perceived usability and perceived ease of use, and the effect on continued use intention through attitude was significant. Second, there was a significant difference in the effect of system user experience on perceived usefulness in multi-group comparative analysis and gender group. In the preferred learning group, it was the path from perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness to attitude and intention to continue using that showed a significant path difference. Third, as a result of classifying the most commonly used learning types by the multidimensional scale method, the types separated into low dimensions were found to be four types: offline sync type, online sync type, ubiquitous learning type, and self-direct learning type.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.15 no.12
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• pp.163-173
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• 2010

PKI(Public Key Infrastructure)-based information certification technology has some limitations to be universally applied to mobile banking services, using smart phones, since PKI is dependent on the specific kind of web browser, Internet Explorer. OTP(One Time Password) is considered to be a substitute or complementary service of PKI, but it still shows low acceptance rate. Therefore, in this research, we analyze why OTP has not been very popular, and provide useful implications of making OTP more extensively and frequently used in the mobile environment. Perceived security of OTP was set as a higher-order construct of integrity, confidentiality, authentication, and non-repudiation. Research findings show that security awareness and perceived security of OTP is positively associated, and the relationship between perceived security and trust on OTP is statistically significant. Also, trust is positively related to intention to use OTP continuously.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.1-22
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• 2016

News contents has been collected, selected, edited and sometimes distorted by the news recommendation mechanisms of online portals in nowadays. Prior studies had not confirmed the consensus of newsworthiness, and they had not tried to empirically validate the impacts of newsworthiness on audience reactions. This study challenged to summarize the concepts of newsworthiness and validate the impact of representativeness of both editor's and audience's perspective on audience reactions as perceived news quality, trust on news portal, perceived usefulness, service satisfaction, loyalty, continuous usage intention, and word-of-mouth intention by adopting the representativeness heuristics method and information adoption model. 357 valid data had been collected using a scenario survey method. Subjects in each groups are exposed by 3 news recommendation mechanisms: 1) the time-priority news exposure mechanism (control group), 2) the reference-score-based news recommendation mechanism (a single treatment group), and 3) the major-news-priority exposure mechanism sorting by the reference scores made by peer audiences (the mixed treatment group). Data had been analyzed by the MANOVA and PLS method. MANOVA results indicate that only mixed method of both editor and audience recommendation mechanisms impacts on perceived news quality and trust. PLS results indicate that perceived news quality and trust could significantly affect on the perceived usefulness, service satisfaction, loyalty, continuance usage, and word-of-mouth intention. This study would contributions to empathize the role of information technology in media industry, to conceptualize the news value in the balanced views of both editors and audiences, and to empirically validate the benefits of news recommendation mechanisms in academy. For practice, the results of this study suggest that online news portals would be better to make mixed news recommendation mechanisms to attract audiences.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.27-36
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• 2017

SNS has been emerged as an effective educational tool in college and many studies on various teaching models and methodologies have been made in order to utilize SNS in education. The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the effect of affecting factors of SNS on learner's attitude, intention to re-use and performance in converging college educational environment. Self-efficacy on media usage, educational expectancy, subjective norm, habit, and enjoyment were identified as affecting factors based on prior researches. An empirical analysis was attempted by survey targeting college students. The results of structural equation model using Smart PLS shows that educational expectancy, subjective norm, and enjoyment are significantly related to the learner's attitude on use of SNS in college education, but Self-efficacy on media usage and habit are not. Learner's attitude on SNS in college education was found to be significantly related to the intention to continuous use and performance. This study implicates that using SNS in university class makes learner's attitude positively and finally lead to good performance. The analysis results can provide a guideline of effective strategy for SNS utilization in college education.

• Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.5-20
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• 2020

The study aimed at identifying the causes of the high level of health application but the low level of use. In other words, the effects of user's innovation resistance (use barrier, value barrier, risk barrier, traditional barrier, image barrier, etc.) were examined. For this study, 378 valid responses were collected by conducting surveys with college students. Findings indicated the higher the level of image barrier of the user, the higher the degree of innovation resistance for the health application, and the higher the degree of innovation resistance, the lower intention of continuous use and recommendation. In addition, the level of use barriers, value barriers and traditional barriers did not have a significant effect on the degree of innovation resistance, suggesting that users familiar with smartphones have low resistance to health applications. The study deepens the theoretical discussion about the adoption and continuous use of new technologies by explaining the use of health applications in the theory of innovation resistance. The findings of the study provide the practical implications that lowering the image barriers rather than the usage barriers, value barriers and traditional barriers will be effective for the adoption and continuous use of health applications.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.77-88
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• 2021

Cloud computing is getting a lot of attention by many people and businesses due to IT environmental changes such as the proliferation of smart devices, the increase of digital data, and the cost of IT resources. More individuals use personal cloud computing services for storing and managing information and data. Therefore, this study proposed determinants that are expected to have an influence on evaluating the value of cloud computing based on the value-based adoption model, examining the relationship between the continuous use intention of cloud computing. Results of the study show that usefulness, convenience of information access, extensibility had a positive impact on perceived value while privacy concerns and costs had a negative impact on perceived value. In addition, perceived value was found to have a significant effect on the intention to continue use of cloud computing. Finally, trust was found to have a significant effect on the perceived value and the intention to continue use of cloud computing. The findings are expected to provide useful information for understanding the factors that individual users consider important in the steadily growing cloud computing market.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.1-10
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• 2024

Purpose: The study aims to identify the key factors that influence consumers' propensity to utilize community group buying platforms, employing the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as a theoretical framework. Research design, data and methodology: The research design involved selecting 192 consumers with experience in community group buying and analyzing the data statistically using SPSS 23.0. Hypotheses were tested utilizing the structural equation modeling software AMOS. Results: Key findings indicate that the attributes of products offered on community group buying platforms significantly enhance consumers' perceptions of usefulness and ease of use. Furthermore, these perceptions directly correlate with consumers' intentionsto use the platform. Conclusions: Thisresearch, grounded in the TAM, delves into how external factors of the community group buying platform impact perceived usefulness and ease of use, and subsequently, how these perceptions affect consumers' purchasing intentions. Based on these insights, several recommendations can be proposed for the platform's development: The platform should strive to enhance product quality and cultivate a positive reputation. Strategic promotional initiatives should be designed to attract new users while retaining existing customers. Continuous optimization of platform functionalities is necessary to augment users' perception of usefulness. These measures are anticipated to foster user engagement, increase adoption rates, and contribute to the overall success and sustainability of the community group buying platform.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.1832-1843
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• 2015

Recently, since the "Capital Market Consolidation Act" has been effective in 2009, the competition among the securities companies in Korean security market has been fierce. Thus, securities business lately are needed by the market environmental requirements rapidly changed for various strategies. The purpose of this study was to identify the effect of corporate attribute, employee attribute, financial product attribute securities on customer satisfaction, trust with the firm, and usage intention. As the subjects I selected the customer of securities in Seoul in 2014 and conducted survey with questionnaires. Among total 400, I chose 378 as the valid sample by convenience sampling. For the data process, I used SPSS 20.0 I verified the perspective hypotheses after testing reliability and validity of fit by the data process. The results are as following. First, it was shown that the sub-factors of corporate attribute, employee attribute, financial product attribute in securities as ethics, innovation, size, kind, professionalism, ethics, profitability and diversity had significant effect on usage intention. Second, the study confirms that reliability and satisfaction influences customer loyalty as moderate variable. The industrial and academic significance of this study is that it may serve as a useful base date to understand customer behavior and draw new strategies in a financial management environment.