• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.233-244
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to improve awareness of network marketing business in South Korea, which takes a quite negative view of network marketing, to raise awareness of "starting up a business" as independent business owners, to assist them in building their own subjecthood in network business and entrepreneurial identity, and ultimately to give some suggestions on how to improve their self-directed entrepreneurial competency and the quality of their business management. To make an empirical analysis of 121 independent business owners of Korean native network marketing, the personal and background variables of the entrepreneurs were selected as independent variables, and entrepreneurship was selected as a mediator variable. The selected dependent variables were financial and non-financial business performances. A multiple regression analysis was conducted by inputting the variables. The findings of the study were as follows: It produced an effect of more financial performance when the innovation of the independent business owners of network marketing was better, and this innovation was possible to have only when they improved in entrepreneurial efficacy and locus of control. In contrast, only authenticity had an effect on boosting non-financial business performance among the factors of entrepreneurship. To have authenticity, it's necessary to strengthen achievement needs and awareness of locus of control among the personal characteristics of the independent business owners of network marketing. Among the factors of entrepreneurship, there was better authenticity when their personal networks were broader among their background characteristics. In addition, self-efficacy that was one of personal characteristics made a direct contribution to the enhancement of non-financial performance. As a result, independent business owners of network marketing are required to hold a strong belief in their own business, to be active in business activities and to have a high efficacy as spontaneous principal agents, and they also are required to have more adventurous, planned, active and propulsive achievement needs that enable them to attain the goals of their business and keep moving forward. Besides, they should foster their locus-of-control competency that is to control, endure and be responsible for a variety of phenomena or incidents that they face, and there will be better financial performance or non-financial performance only when they demonstrate their self-belief and confidence and when they have faith in and conviction about themselves. For independent business owners of network marketing, a consumer-centered thinking that entails authenticity and trustworthiness and touches the hearts of customers is a more effective marketing strategy than an egocentric thinking as sellers when they approach customers. And they are expected to make progress in terms of the quality of business management when their business attachment or enthusiasm is great enough to match their own efficacy with entrepreneurial identity or strike a balance between them.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.161-177
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• 2015

With the rapid evolution of technology, the size, number, and the type of databases has increased concomitantly, so data mining approaches face many challenging applications from databases. One such application is discovery of fraud patterns from agricultural product wholesale transaction instances. The agricultural product wholesale market in Korea is huge, and vast numbers of transactions have been made every day. The demand for agricultural products continues to grow, and the use of electronic auction systems raises the efficiency of operations of wholesale market. Certainly, the number of unusual transactions is also assumed to be increased in proportion to the trading amount, where an unusual transaction is often the first sign of fraud. However, it is very difficult to identify and detect these transactions and the corresponding fraud occurred in agricultural product wholesale market because the types of fraud are more intelligent than ever before. The fraud can be detected by verifying the overall transaction records manually, but it requires significant amount of human resources, and ultimately is not a practical approach. Frauds also can be revealed by victim's report or complaint. But there are usually no victims in the agricultural product wholesale frauds because they are committed by collusion of an auction company and an intermediary wholesaler. Nevertheless, it is required to monitor transaction records continuously and to make an effort to prevent any fraud, because the fraud not only disturbs the fair trade order of the market but also reduces the credibility of the market rapidly. Applying data mining to such an environment is very useful since it can discover unknown fraud patterns or features from a large volume of transaction data properly. The objective of this research is to empirically investigate the factors necessary to detect fraud transactions in an agricultural product wholesale market by developing a data mining based fraud detection model. One of major frauds is the phantom transaction, which is a colluding transaction by the seller(auction company or forwarder) and buyer(intermediary wholesaler) to commit the fraud transaction. They pretend to fulfill the transaction by recording false data in the online transaction processing system without actually selling products, and the seller receives money from the buyer. This leads to the overstatement of sales performance and illegal money transfers, which reduces the credibility of market. This paper reviews the environment of wholesale market such as types of transactions, roles of participants of the market, and various types and characteristics of frauds, and introduces the whole process of developing the phantom transaction detection model. The process consists of the following 4 modules: (1) Data cleaning and standardization (2) Statistical data analysis such as distribution and correlation analysis, (3) Construction of classification model using decision-tree induction approach, (4) Verification of the model in terms of hit ratio. We collected real data from 6 associations of agricultural producers in metropolitan markets. Final model with a decision-tree induction approach revealed that monthly average trading price of item offered by forwarders is a key variable in detecting the phantom transaction. The verification procedure also confirmed the suitability of the results. However, even though the performance of the results of this research is satisfactory, sensitive issues are still remained for improving classification accuracy and conciseness of rules. One such issue is the robustness of data mining model. Data mining is very much data-oriented, so data mining models tend to be very sensitive to changes of data or situations. Thus, it is evident that this non-robustness of data mining model requires continuous remodeling as data or situation changes. We hope that this paper suggest valuable guideline to organizations and companies that consider introducing or constructing a fraud detection model in the future.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.161-178
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• 1998

In spite of the great progress of the theory and skill of the Nursing Care & Medical area in relation to pregnancy, nurses in clinics face up to many challenges in maternity nursing care areas. The reason is that the mobility and mortality of mothers was sharply decreased and the unknown high-risk diseases of pregnancy woman in the past is made public. That's why it is difficult to meet the pregnancy woman in natural process from pregnancy to delivery in recently. Admission rooms are filled with high-risk pregnancy women. As a matter of fact, we have done nursing care into the surface symptoms and diseases of high-risk pregnancy women so far. We have been indifferent to a long period hospitalization, separation from family, and conflict of repeated examination. Therefore, it is widely spread to understand the emotional conflict experienced by high-risk pregnancy women and to need for nursing intervention to bring up about emotional support and the ability of perception in psychological crisis. Although the pregnancy woman judged in high-risk should carry out normal task of pregnancy, she have to be confronted with secondary risk situation. The health of self & fetus threatened by the risk situation could be decreased through care plan, but psychological stress increases. Therefore, the pregnancy brings into non-control state. It is important to ask that what the hospitalized pregnancy women in high-risk think of themselves status. Because misunderstanding or serious anxiety of themselves status put into mother and fetus in danger. And adaptation mode makes all the difference. I would like to consider how nurses could deal with this high-risk circumstances in the position of pregnancy woman on the basis of the above fact. This study uses phenomenological method to suggest the basis material for nurses to do nursing intervention in view of pregnancy woman. Because this method understands the nature of true life of pregnancy woman throughly. The phenomenological method is the sources to describe or explain affluently the process generated in confirmation areas and environment and is the application for readers to understand and recognize clinic reality and then apply this method to reasoning study place or other places. Specifically, the phenomenon study method, one of the phenomenological method, is applied. The use of that method is to describe and generalize the experience in environment exactly. The study of this study is as follows : Among 187 descriptive stamens from 8 study participants are classified into 42 theme cluster at the stage of the first analysis. Those theme is categorized into 8 sub-subjects such as anxiety of uncertainty, foreknowledge about risk circumstance, will power about overcome, unsettled feeling about hospital, relief, optimistic thought, family support, and indifferences. At the last stage of analysis, those things are categorized into 3 subjects. When high-risk pregnancy woman foretell the situation, they feel unsettlement about uncertainty and untrust feeling about hospital. But they are ease with family support and hospital support. On the other hand, they express indifferent 3-way structure response to the situation having will of overcome and exceeding optimistic thought. In those statements, the experience by pregnancy woman shows 3 respect subjects. 1. They are anxious of this situation and are in desperation and don't recognize their role to be carried out 2. They think of this situation as normal process of pregnancy and are not concerned that this can give themselves and fetus fatal damage. 3. The pregnancy women will never confront this situation. This study shows the pregnancy woman has anxiety and optimistic relief about the situation, and ignores and optimistic relief about the situation, and ignores many things. Therefore, nurses in clinic should give pregnancy woman knowledge and information about the high-risk and help them to deal with the situation spontaneously. High-risk pregnancy woman should have the care plan in respect of the right perception. And the nurse know that their support help out pregnancy woman overcome the crisis in this respect of the special nursing intervention.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.167-178
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to analyze the direct investment decision factors in the Kaesong Industrial Complex and Vietnam, and to contribute to the creation of domestic jobs and the revitalization of the inter-Korean economy. According to the analysis, most of the Kaesong Industrial Complex and Vietnamese investment companies are entering the complex for the purpose of utilizing cheap labor, cheap factory locations, sales/development of local markets, and bypass export production bases in third countries. This can be divided into production-efficient investors using differences in production price such as labor costs and market-oriented investors to sell and expand the local market, which seems to be consistent with global direct investment patterns such as Nike, Apple, and Amazon. However, even if the North Korea-U.S. denuclearization talks ease or lift sanctions, Vietnamese investors' willingness to invest in the North Korea has been most burdened by the possibility of closing special economic zones due to political risks. Last but not least, it is important to note that those willing to invest in North Korea are mostly smaller enterprises in textiles, sewing, footwear and leather industries-those that benefit from low-cost labor. Since their size is small, they need policy support in financing, especially in the early stages of their business. Even after they grow past the early stages, those without collateral would still need state guarantee letters to get financing. Thus, it is worth considering to use the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund to compensate commercial banks for bad loan loss or for low-interest loans for smaller SMEs. The interviews with SMEs found that red-tape is one of the biggest difficulties they face. Thus, it is recommended that a one-stop service agency should be established to cover all processes and issues related to inter-Korean economic cooperation to eliminate redundancy and expediate government support for SMEs.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.28 no.11
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• pp.1354-1360
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• 2018

The aim of this study was to develop a simple, environmentally friendly synthesis of silver nanoparticles (SNPs) without the use of chemical reducing agents by exploiting the extracellular synthesis of SNPs in a culture supernatant of Bacillus thuringiensis CH3. Addition of 5 mM $AgNO_3$ to the culture supernatant at a ratio of 1:1 caused a change in the maximum absorbance at 418 nm corresponding to the surface plasmon resonance of the SNPs. Synthesis of SNPs occurred within 8 hr and reached a maximum at 40-48 hr. The structural characteristics of the synthesized SNPs were investigated by various instrumental analysis. FESEM observations showed the formation of well-dispersed spherical SNPs, and the presence of silver was confirmed by EDS analysis. The X-ray diffraction spectrum indicated that the SNPs had a face-centered cubic crystal lattice. The average SNP size, calculated using DLS, was about 51.3 nm and ranged from 19 to 110 nm. The synthesized SNPs exhibited a broad spectrum of antimicrobial activity against a variety of pathogenic Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and yeasts. The highest antimicrobial activity was observed against C. albicans, a human pathogenic yeast. The FESEM observations determined that the antimicrobial activity of the SNPs was due to destruction of the cell surface, cytoplasmic leakage, and finally cell lysis. This study suggests that B. thuringiensis CH3 is a potential candidate for efficient synthesis of SNPs, and that these SNPs have potential uses in a variety of pharmaceutical applications.

• Analyses & Alternatives
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.115-162
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• 2022

The Rules of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), revised at the eighth Party Congress in 2021, reflect the Kim Jong Un regime's changes in strategic lines and ideological justifications on North Korea's socialism and communism, and its recent stances against the external environment. Moreover, they contain critical changes in the party's organizational system encompassing the central and the provinces. This study explores the organizational changes of the "monolithic guidance system of the party core" stipulated by the new party rules in January 2021, based on the analysis of the entire nine revised rules of the WPK since 1945. In the 2021 Party Congress, the Kim Jong Un regime, which officially came to power after the fourth Party Conference in 2012, has institutionalized the monolithic guidance system centered on the party core, or the head of state, Kim Jong Un. The newly set leadership and execution system, which reorganized party, government, and military organizational structure and accompanied the relevant personnel changes, was derived from the attempts for reinstating the Kim Jong Un regime as a more normalized party-state structure before its 10th year in power in April 2022. The "monolithic leadership system of the party core" established a system of "organizational leadership" through the organization of the Central Committee, directed by the Party Head, or General Secretary. The institutionalization of the new system resulted from the ten-year development of the revival of the party-state structure, which compromised the status of the military and reconfirmed the party's control of the military. This study explains the new system from the perspectives of both institutionalization and top-down unity, shedding light on the new party-military-government relations of the Kim Jong Un regime. The analysis contributes to a better understanding and forecasting of the Kim Jong Un regime's governance, which currently strengthens the monolithic leadership system as a crisis management system in the face of the "triple hardships" of sanctions, Covid and disaster.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.83 no.3
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• pp.669-679
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• 2022

Purpose To evaluate the feasibility of pediatric low-dose facial CT reconstructed with filtered back projection (FBP) using adequate kernels. Materials and Methods We retrospectively reviewed the clinical and imaging data of children aged < 10 years who underwent facial CT at our emergency department. The patients were divided into two groups: low-dose CT (LDCT; Group A, n = 73) with a fixed 80-kVp tube potential and automatic tube current modulation (ATCM) and standard-dose CT (SDCT; Group B, n = 40) with a fixed 120-kVp tube potential and ATCM. All images were reconstructed with FBP using bone and soft tissue kernels in Group A and only bone kernel in Group B. The groups were compared in terms of image noise, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR). Two radiologists subjectively scored the overall image quality of bony and soft tissue structures. The CT dose index volume and dose-length product were recorded. Results Image noise was higher in Group A than in Group B in bone kernel images (p < 0.001). Group A using a soft tissue kernel showed the highest SNR and CNR for all soft tissue structures (all p < 0.001). In the qualitative analysis of bony structures, Group A scores were found to be similar to or higher than Group B scores on comparing bone kernel images. In the qualitative analysis of soft tissue structures, there was no significant difference between Group A using a soft tissue kernel and Group B using a bone kernel with a soft tissue window setting (p > 0.05). Group A showed a 76.9% reduction in radiation dose compared to Group B (3.2 ± 0.2 mGy vs. 13.9 ± 1.5 mGy; p < 0.001). Conclusion The addition of a soft tissue kernel image to conventional CT reconstructed with FBP enables the use of pediatric low-dose facial CT protocol while maintaining image quality.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.29-41
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• 2012

This paper undertakes a conceptual review of transaction cost to broaden the understanding of the transaction cost analysis (TCA) approach. More than 40 years have passed since Coase's fundamental insight that transaction, coordination, and contracting costs must be considered explicitly in explaining the extent of vertical integration. Coase (1937) forced economists to identify previously neglected constraints on the trading process to foster efficient intrafirm, rather than interfirm, transactions. The transaction cost approach to economic organization study regards transactions as the basic units of analysis and holds that understanding transaction cost economy is central to organizational study. The approach applies to determining efficient boundaries, as between firms and markets, and to internal transaction organization, including employment relations design. TCA, developed principally by Oliver Williamson (1975,1979,1981a) blends institutional economics, organizational theory, and contract law. Further progress in transaction costs research awaits the identification of critical dimensions in which transaction costs differ and an examination of the economizing properties of alternative institutional modes for organizing transactions. The crucial investment distinction is: To what degree are transaction-specific (non-marketable) expenses incurred? Unspecialized items pose few hazards, since buyers can turn toalternative sources, and suppliers can sell output intended for one order to other buyers. Non-marketability problems arise when specific parties' identities have important cost-bearing consequences. Transactions of this kind are labeled idiosyncratic. The summarized results of the review are as follows. First, firms' distribution decisions often prompt examination of the make-or-buy question: Should a marketing activity be performed within the organization by company employees or contracted to an external agent? Second, manufacturers introducing an industrial product to a foreign market face a difficult decision. Should the product be marketed primarily by captive agents (the company sales force and distribution division) or independent intermediaries (outside sales agents and distribution)? Third, the authors develop a theoretical extension to the basic transaction cost model by combining insights from various theories with the TCA approach. Fourth, other such extensions are likely required for the general model to be applied to different channel situations. It is naive to assume the basic model appliesacross markedly different channel contexts without modifications and extensions. Although this study contributes to scholastic research, it is limited by several factors. First, the theoretical perspective of TCA has attracted considerable recent interest in the area of marketing channels. The analysis aims to match the properties of efficient governance structures with the attributes of the transaction. Second, empirical evidence about TCA's basic propositions is sketchy. Apart from Anderson's (1985) study of the vertical integration of the selling function and John's (1984) study of opportunism by franchised dealers, virtually no marketing studies involving the constructs implicated in the analysis have been reported. We hope, therefore, that further research will clarify distinctions between the different aspects of specific assets. Another important line of future research is the integration of efficiency-oriented TCA with organizational approaches that emphasize specific assets' conceptual definition and industry structure. Finally, research of transaction costs, uncertainty, opportunism, and switching costs is critical to future study.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.139-166
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• 2010

The supply chain management (SCM) systems have emerged as strong managerial tools for manufacturing firms in enhancing competitive strength. Despite of large investments in the SCM systems, many companies are not fully realizing the promised benefits from the systems. A review of literature on adoption, implementation and success factor of IOS (inter-organization systems), EDI (electronic data interchange) systems, shows that this issue has been examined from multiple theoretic perspectives. And many researchers have attempted to identify the factors which influence the success of system implementation. However, the existing studies have two drawbacks in revealing the determinants of systems implementation success. First, previous researches raise questions as to the appropriateness of research subjects selected. Most SCM systems are operating in the form of private industrial networks, where the participants of the systems consist of two distinct groups: focus companies and vendors. The focus companies are the primary actors in developing and operating the systems, while vendors are passive participants which are connected to the system in order to supply raw materials and parts to the focus companies. Under the circumstance, there are three ways in selecting the research subjects; focus companies only, vendors only, or two parties grouped together. It is hard to find researches that use the focus companies exclusively as the subjects probably due to the insufficient sample size for statistic analysis. Most researches have been conducted using the data collected from both groups. We argue that the SCM success factors cannot be correctly indentified in this case. The focus companies and the vendors are in different positions in many areas regarding the system implementation: firm size, managerial resources, bargaining power, organizational maturity, and etc. There are no obvious reasons to believe that the success factors of the two groups are identical. Grouping the two groups also raises questions on measuring the system success. The benefits from utilizing the systems may not be commonly distributed to the two groups. One group's benefits might be realized at the expenses of the other group considering the situation where vendors participating in SCM systems are under continuous pressures from the focus companies with respect to prices, quality, and delivery time. Therefore, by combining the system outcomes of both groups we cannot measure the system benefits obtained by each group correctly. Second, the measures of system success adopted in the previous researches have shortcoming in measuring the SCM success. User satisfaction, system utilization, and user attitudes toward the systems are most commonly used success measures in the existing studies. These measures have been developed as proxy variables in the studies of decision support systems (DSS) where the contribution of the systems to the organization performance is very difficult to measure. Unlike the DSS, the SCM systems have more specific goals, such as cost saving, inventory reduction, quality improvement, rapid time, and higher customer service. We maintain that more specific measures can be developed instead of proxy variables in order to measure the system benefits correctly. The purpose of this study is to find the determinants of SCM systems success in the perspective of vendor companies. In developing the research model, we have focused on selecting the success factors appropriate for the vendors through reviewing past researches and on developing more accurate success measures. The variables can be classified into following: technological, organizational, and environmental factors on the basis of TOE (Technology-Organization-Environment) framework. The model consists of three independent variables (competition intensity, top management support, and information system maturity), one mediating variable (collaboration), one moderating variable (government support), and a dependent variable (system success). The systems success measures have been developed to reflect the operational benefits of the SCM systems; improvement in planning and analysis capabilities, faster throughput, cost reduction, task integration, and improved product and customer service. The model has been validated using the survey data collected from 122 vendors participating in the SCM systems in Korea. To test for mediation, one should estimate the hierarchical regression analysis on the collaboration. And moderating effect analysis should estimate the moderated multiple regression, examines the effect of the government support. The result shows that information system maturity and top management support are the most important determinants of SCM system success. Supply chain technologies that standardize data formats and enhance information sharing may be adopted by supply chain leader organization because of the influence of focal company in the private industrial networks in order to streamline transactions and improve inter-organization communication. Specially, the need to develop and sustain an information system maturity will provide the focus and purpose to successfully overcome information system obstacles and resistance to innovation diffusion within the supply chain network organization. The support of top management will help focus efforts toward the realization of inter-organizational benefits and lend credibility to functional managers responsible for its implementation. The active involvement, vision, and direction of high level executives provide the impetus needed to sustain the implementation of SCM. The quality of collaboration relationships also is positively related to outcome variable. Collaboration variable is found to have a mediation effect between on influencing factors and implementation success. Higher levels of inter-organizational collaboration behaviors such as shared planning and flexibility in coordinating activities were found to be strongly linked to the vendors trust in the supply chain network. Government support moderates the effect of the IS maturity, competitive intensity, top management support on collaboration and implementation success of SCM. In general, the vendor companies face substantially greater risks in SCM implementation than the larger companies do because of severe constraints on financial and human resources and limited education on SCM systems. Besides resources, Vendors generally lack computer experience and do not have sufficient internal SCM expertise. For these reasons, government supports may establish requirements for firms doing business with the government or provide incentives to adopt, implementation SCM or practices. Government support provides significant improvements in implementation success of SCM when IS maturity, competitive intensity, top management support and collaboration are low. The environmental characteristic of competition intensity has no direct effect on vendor perspective of SCM system success. But, vendors facing above average competition intensity will have a greater need for changing technology. This suggests that companies trying to implement SCM systems should set up compatible supply chain networks and a high-quality collaboration relationship for implementation and performance.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.69-98
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• 2009

We investigated what factors motivate gamers to participate in a guild and why they continue to be engaged as members of the guild. We find that, based on the result of focus group interviews with MMORPG gamers, social support and self-esteem factors play important roles. Considering both prior research and the focus group interviews we have conducted, we define social support and character control as independent variables. Character identity, guild identity, and self-esteem are proposed as mediating variables while guild flow and game loyalty as dependent variables. Accordingly, we develop the research model and hypotheses, and verify them empirically. Based on our experiences of playing the WoW game, we proposed a research model and conducted focus-group interviews (FGIs). FGIs involve formulating a hypothesis and then collecting some relevant data. FGIs were conducted face-to-face with students of C University in Korea. We formulated structured interview schedules, and the questions were based on our research variables and personal experiences. The questions for the interviews encompassed the following areas: (a) the demographic characteristics of the focus group; (b) the number of years for which respondents had played online games; (c) the motive for starting a game; (d) the number of game-characters assumed by each gamer; (e) the type of game played; and (f) other issues such as the reasons for involvement in the play, the willingness to reuse the game in case new versions were released, etc. On average, it took two hours to interview each of three groups. A primary set of FGIs was conducted with three groups on the premise that there would be some differences caused by character race (Horde vs. Alliance) or by playable server (Normal vs. Combat). With respect to the manner of playing, we found that guild members shared information, felt a sense of belonging, and played computer games for quite a long time through the guild; however, they did not undergo these experiences when playing alone. Gamers who belonged to a specific guild helped other players without expecting compensation for that, freely shared information about the game, gave away items for free, and more generous with other members who made mistakes. The guild members were aware of the existence other members and experienced a sense of belonging through interactions with, and evaluations from, other players. It was clear that social support was shown within the guild and that it played an important role as a major research variable. Based on the results of the first FGIs, a second set of in-depth FGIs was carried out with a focus on the psychology of the individual within the guild and the social community of the guild. The second set of FGIs also focused on the guild's offline meetings. Gamers, over all, recognize the necessity of joining a community, not only off-line but also online world of the guild. They admit that the guild is important for them to easily and conveniently enjoy playing online computer games. The active behavior and positive attitudes of existing guild members can motivate new members of the guild to adapt themselves to the guild environment. They then adopt the same behaviors and attitudes of established guild members. In this manner, the new members of the guild strengthen the bonds with other gamers while feeling a sense of belonging, and developing social identity, thereby. It was discovered that the interaction among guild members and the social support encouraged new gamers to quickly develop a sense of social identity and increase their self-esteem. The guild seemed to play the role of socializing gamers. Sometimes, even in the real world, the guild members helped one another; therefore, the features of the guild also spilled over to the offline environment. We intend to use self-esteem, which was found through the second set of FGIs, as an important research variable. To collect data, an online survey was designed with a questionnaire to be completed by WoW gamers, who belong to a guild. The survey was registered on the best three domestic game-sites: 'WoW playforum,' 'WoW gamemeca,' and 'Wow invent.' The selected items to be measured in the questionnaire were decided based on prior research and data from FGIs. To verify the content of the questionnaire, we carried out a pilot test with the same participants to point out ambiguous questions as a way to ensure maximum accuracy of the survey result. A total of 244 responses were analyzed from the 250 completed questionnaires. The SEM analysis was used to test goodness-of-fit of the model. As a result, we found important results as follows: First, according to the statistics, social support had statistically significant impacts on character control, character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Second, character control had significant effects on character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Third, character identity shows its clear impact on self-esteem and game loyalty. Fourth, guild identity affected self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Fifth, self-esteem had a positive influence on the guild flow. These days, the number of virtual community is rising along with its significance largely because of the nature of the online games. Accordingly, this study is designed to clarify the psychological relationship between gamers within the guild that has been generally established by gamers to play online games together. This study focuses on the relationships in which social support influences guild flow or game loyalty through character control, character identity, guild identity, and self-esteem, which are present within a guild in the MMORPG game environment. The study results are as follows. First, the effects of social support on character control, character identity, guild identity and self-esteem are proven to be statistically significant. It was found that character control improves character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Among the seven variables, social support, which is derived from FGIs, plays an important role in this study. With the active support of other guild members, gamers can improve their ability to develop good characters and to control them. Second, character identity has a positive effect on self-esteem and game loyalty, while guild identity has a significant effect on self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Self-esteem affects guild flow. It was found that the higher the character and guild identities become, the greater the self-esteem is established. Contrary to the findings of prior research, our study results indicate that the relationship between character identity and guild flow is not significant. Rather, it was found that character identity directly affects game players' loyalty. Even though the character identity had no direct effect on increasing guild flow, it has indirectly affected guild flow through self-esteem. The significant relationship between self-esteem and guild flow indicates that gamers achieve flow, i.e., a feeling of pleasure and excitement through social support. Several important implications of this study should be noted. First, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to conduct this study. Through FGIs, it was observed that both social support and self-esteem are important variables. Second, because guilds had been rarely studied, this research is expected to play an important role in the online community. Third, according to the result, six hypotheses (H1, H5, H6, H7, H8, and H11) setup based on FGIs, were statistically significant; thus, we can suggest the corresponding relationships among the variables as a guideline for follow-up research. Our research is significant as it has following implications: first, the social support of the guild members is important when establishing character control, character identity, guildidentity and self-esteem. It is also a major variable that affects guild flow and game loyalty. Second, character control when improved by social support shows notable influence on the development of character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Third, character identity and guild identity are major factors to help establish gamers' own self-esteem. Fourth, character identity affects guild flow through self-esteem and game loyalty. The gamers usually express themselves through characters; the higher character identity is, the more loyalty a gamer has. Fifth, guild identity, established within the guild, has clear effects on self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Sixth, qualitative and quantitative methods are employed to conduct this study. Based on the results of focus group interviews and SEM analysis, we find that the social support by guild members and psychological factors are significant in strengthening the flow of guild and loyalty to the game. As such, game developers should provide some extra functions for guild community, through which gamers can play online games in collaboration with one another. Also, we suggest that positive self-esteem which is built up through social support can help gamers achieve higher level of flow and satisfaction, which will consequently contribute to minimizing the possibility for the players to develop negative attitude toward the guild they belong to.