• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.149-176
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• 2009

In the recent e-learning environment, avatars are often used to help learners get familiar with the contents, which is ultimately to motivate them to study more. Therefore, it is important to investigate whether avatars have actually the desirable effect on users of e-learning materials. Surprisingly, however, no extensive study has been conducted on this crucial issue Accordingly, main objectives this study are summarized as follows. First, we need to gain better understanding of how much learners' trust towards avatars (termed as "avatar trust") is transferred to learners' trust towards e-learning contents (termed as "contents trust"). Second, we need to investigate how much learners' personal relationships with avatars as well as learning behaviors change depending on avatar types (attractive vs. professional) and contents complexity (easy vs. difficult). As described in the study objectives, in order for us to analyze empirical data more systematically, we classified avatar types into two: "attractive" and "professional;" the contents are categorized as either "easy" or "difficult." Therefore, it is essential for this study to build a prototype e-learning website on which our research purpose can be realized and tested effectively with proper avatar types and e-learning contents. For this purpose, we built a prototype e-learning website, in which avatars are invited from currently working avatar instructors used in real-world e-learning websites, and e-learning contents are adapted from real-world contents about Java programming topic, which have been proved to have shown high quality and reliability. Our research method includes questionnaire survey by inviting a number of valid respondents comprised of office workers who are believed to have high demands for the e-learning contents as well as those who have previous experience with avatar instructors. Respondents were given one of the four e-learning experiment conditions (2 avatar types x 2 contents types) on a random basis. Each experimental e-learning condition is framed to have the same quality but different avatar type and content complexity. Then the respondents are asked to fill out the survey form which has questions about avatar trust, contents trust, personal relationships with avatar, and learning behavior, among others. Regarding the constructs used in research model, we based them rigorously on previous studies. For example, we used six constructs such as behavior to give information (BGI), behavior to obtain information (BOI), need for inclusion wanted, need for control wanted, contents trust, and avatar trust. To measure them, 7-Likert scales were used in the questionnaire. E-learning performance was measured indirectly through two constructs such as BGI and BOI. Six constructs used in the research model were adopted and revised from the FIRO-B model suggested by Schutz. Empirical results are as follows: First, professional avatars are more effective for difficult contents, while attractive avatars were not as effective for easy contents. Second, our study results ascertained that avatar trust transfers to contents trust regardless of avatar types and contents complexity.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.11 no.12
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• pp.71-81
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• 2013

Purpose - This study investigated the effects of consumers' selection criteria for environment-friendly agricultural products on purchase intention and the effects of consumers' attitudes and the reliability of environment-friendly agricultural products on purchase intention by using the theory of planned behavior. Subjective norms of variables of behavioral intention, attitudes toward behavior and control of the behavior were used to create selection criteria, consumers' attitudes and reliability of environment-friendly agricultural products. The study investigated the effects of consumers' selection criteria, attitudes, and reliability of environment-friendly agricultural products on purchase intention constructing models and hypotheses of mediation and moderation between selection criteria for agricultural products and purchase intention by consumers' attitudes and reliability. Research design, data, and methodology - The findings were as follows: first, consumers' selection criteria for environment-friendly agricultural products had a significantly affirmative influence upon purchase intention. Health was the most important factor of selection criteria convenience was more important than quality and familiarity was next. Consumers' attitudes and trust had a significant influence on purchase intention. Second, testing showed that consumers' attitude and trust partially mediated selection criteria: sub-factors and purchase intention were important in selection criteria. Third, testing showed that consumers' attitude and trust had a significant moderation effect between selection criteria and purchase intention. In the test of the moderation effect between sub-factors of selection criteria and purchase intention, consumers' attitude had a significantly positive influence upon health, convenience, and familiarity, and had no significant influence upon quality and purchase intention. Consumers' trust had no significant influence upon health, convenience, and quality. Results - The study provided several theoretical implications: first, an empirical analysis was undertaken with selection criteria for environmental-friendly agricultural products, consumers' attitude, and trust to investigate subjective norms, attitude toward behavior and control of behavior based on the theory of planned behavior. Second, this study investigated both the mediation effect and moderation effect of consumers' subjective norms on attitudes toward behavior, the mediating effects of perceived behavior control and changes of behavioral intention depending upon size and direction of the variables. This study also provided several practical implications. Conclusions - First, consumption of environment-friendly agricultural products did not increase despite rapid increase of production therefore, promotion of consumption and distribution was needed considering the supply and demand of the products. Second, definite standards for selection criteria were suggested to build up consumers' attitude and trust. Consumers' attitude could be improved by factors including the brand of environment-friendly agricultural products, consistent quality, solving physiological problems caused by adverse effects of environmental problems, supplementary approaches, treatment of adverse effects by eating food, and the development and supply of products in accordance with changes of lifestyle. Finally, consumers' demand for sub-factors of selection criteria could be much higher than health, convenience, and quality of the products. Therefore, a process was needed that could continuously check consumers' needs for the products. Limitations were described at the end of the study.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.75-97
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• 2012

Fostering trusting belief in financial transactions is a challenging task in Internet banking services. Authenticated Certificate had been regarded as an effective method to guarantee the trusting belief for online transactions. However, previous research claimed that this method has some loopholes for such abusers as hackers, who intend to attack the financial accounts of innocent transactors in Internet. Two types of methods have been suggested as alternatives for securing user identification and activity in online financial services. Control transparency uses information over the transaction process to verify and to control the transactions. Outcome feedback, which refers to the specific information about exchange outcomes, provides information over final transaction results. By using these two methods, financial service providers can send signals to involved parties about the robustness of their security mechanisms. These two methods-control transparency and outcome feedback-have been widely used in the IS field to enhance the quality of IS services. In this research, we intend to verify that these two methods can also be used to reduce risks and to increase the security protections in online banking services. The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the effects of the control transparency and the outcome feedback on the risk perceptions in Internet banking services. Our assumption is that these two methods-control transparency and outcome feedback-can reduce perceived risks involved with online financial transactions, while increasing perceived trust over financial service providers. These changes in user attitudes can increase the level of user satisfactions, which may lead to the increased user loyalty as well as users' willingness to pay for the financial transactions. Previous research in IS suggested that the increased level of transparency on the process and the result of transactions can enhance the information quality and decision quality of IS users. Transparency helps IS users to acquire the information needed to control the transaction counterpart and thus to complete transaction successfully. It is also argued that transparency can reduce the perceived transaction risks in IS usage. Many IS researchers also argued that the trust can be generated by the institutional mechanisms. Trusting belief refers to the truster's belief for the trustee to have attributes for being beneficial to the truster. Institution-based trust plays an important role to enhance the probability of achieving a successful outcome. When a transactor regards the conditions crucial for the transaction success, he or she considers the condition providers as trustful, and thus eventually trust the others involved with such condition providers. In this process, transparency helps the transactor complete the transaction successfully. Through the investigation of these studies, we expect that the control transparency and outcome feedback can reduce the risk perception on transaction and enhance the trust with the service provider. Based on a theoretical framework of transparency and institution-based trust, we propose and test a research model by evaluating research hypotheses. We have conducted a laboratory experiment in order to validate our research model. Since the transparency artifact(control transparency and outcome feedback) is not yet adopted in online banking services, the general survey method could not be employed to verify our research model. We collected data from 138 experiment subjects who had experiences with online banking services. PLS is used to analyze the experiment data. The measurement model confirms that our data set has appropriate convergent and discriminant validity. The results of testing the structural model indicate that control transparency significantly enhances the trust and significantly reduces the risk perception of online banking users. The result also suggested that the outcome feedback significantly enhances the trust of users. We have found that the reduced risk and the increased trust level significantly improve the level of service satisfaction. The increased satisfaction finally leads to the increased loyalty and willingness to pay for the financial services.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.123-140
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• 2022

Recently, research on solving problems that have introduced the concept of smart city in countries and companies around the world is in progress due to various urban problems. A smart city converges the city's ICT, connects all the city's components with a network, collects and delivers data, and consists of a supply chain composed of various IoT products and services. The increase in various cyber security threats and supply chain threats in smart cities is inevitable, in addition to establishing a framework such as supply chain security policy, authentication of each data provider and service according to data linkage and appropriate access control are required in a Zero-Trust point of view. To this end, a smart city security model has been developed for smart city security threats in Korea, but security requirements related to supply chain security and zero trust are insufficient. This paper examines overseas smart city security trends, presents international standard security requirements related to ISMS-P and supply chain security, as well as security requirements for applying zero trust related technologies to domestic smart city security models.

• Journal of Internet of Things and Convergence
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.55-60
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• 2023

Recently, demand for cloud computing has increased and remote access due to home work and external work has increased. In addition, a new security paradigm is required in the current situation where the need to be vigilant against not only external attacker access but also internal access such as internal employee access to work increases and various attack techniques are sophisticated. As a result, the network security model applying Zero-Trust, which has the core principle of doubting everything and not trusting it, began to attract attention in the security industry. Zero Trust Security monitors all networks, requires authentication in order to be granted access, and increases security by granting minimum access rights to access requesters. In this paper, we explain zero trust and zero trust architecture, and propose a new cloud security system for strengthening access control that overcomes the limitations of existing security systems using zero trust and blockchain and can be used by various companies.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.291-300
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• 2014

Background: The efficient knowledge management in hospital organization is generally known as the important activities relevant to employees' knowledge sharing behavior and work performance. This research examined factors affecting employees' knowledge sharing behavior and work performance in top 4 university hospitals. This study is based on individual factors such as incentives, reciprocity, behavioral control, and subjective norms. Also, there are organizational factors such as CEO support, learning climate, IT system, rewards system, and trust. Methods: Data was collected from employees who are working at 3 hospitals university in Seoul and 1 university hospital in Gyeonggi-Do through the self-administered questionnaires. A total of 779 questionnaires were analyzed by PASW SPSS ver. 18.0. (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Results: The significant variables affecting knowledge sharing behavior are behavioral control (in individual factor) and CEO, IT system, and trust (in organization factor). Also the significant variables affecting work performance are incentives, reciprocity, subjective norms, and behavioral control (in individual factor) and CEO support, IT system, reward system, and trust (in organization factor). Conclusion: The personality and organization characteristics factors is important to improve knowledge sharing behavior and work performance of hospital employees. Therefore, to make more efficient knowledge management is to build and system knowledge sharing culture, system, and leadership and to develop practical strategies.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.9-18
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• 2008

Mobile devices do not need the fixed network infrastructure in ad-hoc network, these devices communicate each other through the distributed control. Accordingly, mobile devices can discover several services using dynamic searching method and provide safely public ownership of these services. Ad-hoc network needs the distributed control and topology of dynamic network because the limited power for processing and network communication. This paper is devoted to provide the secure protocol that provides efficient services discovery using SDP(Service Discovery Protocol) and considers the security requirements. Proposed protocol provides the distributed control based on PKI without central server, the discovery of trusted service, secure telecommunication, the identification among mobile devices, and service access control by user authority.

• Convergence Security Journal
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.9-19
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• 2023

Smart cars, which incorporate information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve driving safety and convenience for drivers, have recently emerged. However, the increasing risk of automotive cybersecurity due to the vulnerability of electronic control units (ECUs) and automotive networks, which are essential for realizing the autonomous driving functions of smart cars, is a major obstacle to the widespread adoption of smart cars. Although there have been only a few real-world cases of smart car hacking, drivers' concerns about the security of smart cars can have a negative impact on their proliferation. Therefore, it is important to understand the risk factors perceived by drivers and the trust in smart cars formed through them in order to promote the future diffusion of smart cars. This study examines the risk factors that affect the formation of trust in smart cars, focusing on security and privacy, and analyzes how these factors affect safety perceptions and trust in smart cars.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.73-96
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• 2012

With emergence of smart technologies(e.g., smartphones), Location-Based Services(LBS) are expected to provide more enhanced values utilizing consumers' personal information than other smart services. However, in contrast to existing smartphone applications, LBS could raised severe consumer's privacy concerns because of rapidly changing information sensitive to consumers. In this context, the purpose of this study is to explore relationships among privacy concerns reduction, trust and intention to use LBS by examining the effect of precedence factors(social presence, reputation, mobile literacy, ability of information control) of privacy concern reduction. In addition, the study investigates the role of personal innovation as a moderating effect between privacy concern reduction and intention to use LBS. The results showed that the proposed precedence factors of privacy concerns with a exception of Mobile Literacy had a positive impact on privacy concerns reduction that then positively affected trust and intention to use LBS. In addition, the relationship between trust and intention to use LBS was significantly supported. Finally, personal innovation as a moderating effect significantly influenced the relationship between privacy concern reduction and intention to use LBS. This study is expected to be a reference for a subsequent study about the spread of LBS application of smartphone. Also, the finding of this study is meaningful for helping service direction to firms providing LBS.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.68-93
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• 2018

With the emergence of partnerships with private actors in public and cultural diplomacies, complexity in the relations among the various stakeholders involved has arisen, and yet the relevant research is insufficient to shed any beneficial light on such issues. By looking at public-private partnerships, the present study determined that resource dependence, trust, and risk are the main factors affecting the feasibility of partnerships, and inductively developed propositions on their effects. In an explorative case study, Germany (decentralized mode of governance) and South Korea (centralized mode of governance) were compared as exemplary contrasting system designs. The results revealed that risk and trust are likely to affect the feasibility of partnerships, whereas resource dependence is not. The following additional findings also were made: (1) there are cultural actors in a 'for profit, but with non-profit purposes' sector; (2) an interpersonal level of trust positively affects partnerships; (3) 'taking risks' brings about 'innovation'; (4) the existence of international commonalities between any two cases depending on the actors' shared role, whether public or private; (5) public actors' emphasis on mutual trust, program budget and execution, innovations coming from taking risks, commitment and ownership, and unexpected situations; (6) private actors' consideration of 'publicness' and grant-seeking or financial support as important incentives, and their desire that public actors to show more trust, professionalism, and ownership with less control over budget execution. With its qualitative approach and in-depth analysis, the present study yielded new insights, notwithstanding the relatively small sample data.