• Title/Summary/Keyword: Factors of technology adoption

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Appropriate App Services and Acceptance for Contact Tracing: Survey Focusing on High-Risk Areas of COVID-19 in South Korea (코로나 19 동선 관리를 위한 적정 앱 서비스와 도입: 고위험 지역 설문 연구)

  • Rho, Mi Jung
    • Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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    • v.27 no.2
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    • pp.16-33
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    • 2022
  • Purposes: Prompt evaluation of routes and contact tracing are very important for epidemiological investigations of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). To ensure better adoption of contact tracing apps, it is necessary to understand users' expectations, preferences, and concerns. This study aimed to identify main reasons why people use the apps, appropriate services, and basis for voluntary app services that can improve app participation rates and data sharing. Methodology/Approach: This study conducted an online survey from November 11 to December 6, 2020, and received a total of 1,048 survey responses. This study analyzed the questionnaire survey findings of 883 respondents in areas with many confirmed cases of COVID-19. This study used a multiple regression analysis. Findings: Respondents who had experience of using related apps showed a high intention to use contact-tracing apps. Participants wished for the contact tracking apps to be provided by the government or public health centers (74%) and preferred free apps (93.88%). The factors affecting the participants' intention to use these apps were their preventive value, performance expectancy, perceived risk, facilitative ability, and effort expectancy. The results highlighted the need to ensure voluntary participation to address participants' concerns regarding privacy protection and personal information exposure. Practical Implications: The results can be used to accurately identify user needs and appropriate services and thereby improve the development of contact tracking apps. The findings provide the basis for voluntary app that can enhance app participation rates and data sharing. The results will also serve as the basis for developing trusted apps that can facilitate epidemiological investigations.

A Study on Innovation Resistance and Adoption Regarding a EXtended Reality Devices (확장현실 기기의 혁신저항과 수용에 관한 연구)

  • Jin, Seok
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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    • v.21 no.5
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    • pp.918-940
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    • 2021
  • In this study, the concept of eXtended Reality Devices(XR) is defined, how it is applied by industry and how it will develop in the future, and based on the expanded integrated technology acceptance theory and innovation resistance, We tried to confirm through empirical analysis how the influencing variables affect. We carry out the analysis of the hypotheses using PLS Structural Equation Modeling. According to the empirical analysis results, this study confirms that innovativeness has a significant effect on UTAUT2's acceptance variables(performance expectation, effort expectation, hedonic motivation, price value) for XR devices, and these variables affect attitudes and acceptance of XR. and the pace of change of XR has a significant effect on perceived risk, and the perceived risk perceived by consumers mediates the pace of change and innovation resistance, and has a significant effect on innovation resistance. and innovation resistance to XR devices had a significant negative effect on acceptance. This study has its meaning because it found out that it deals expansively and comprehensively with personal innovation, the UTAUT2's acceptance variables, and the effects of perceived risk factors mediating the pace of change and resistance to innovation. In addition, it suggests that in order for innovative technologies such as XR to advance to the stage of market expansion, it is important to present strategies to reduce resistance to new technologies as much as the value to be provided to consumers.

An Analysis of the Roles of Experience in Information System Continuance (정보시스템의 지속적 사용에서 경험의 역할에 대한 분석)

  • Lee, Woong-Kyu
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.21 no.4
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    • pp.45-62
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    • 2011
  • The notion of information systems (IS) continuance has recently emerged as one of the most important research issues in the field of IS. A great deal of research has been conducted thus far on the basis of theories adapted from various disciplines including consumer behaviors and social psychology, in addition to theories regarding information technology (IT) acceptance. This previous body of knowledge provides a robust research framework that can already account for the determination of IS continuance; however, this research points to other, thus-far-unelucidated determinant factors such as habit, which were not included in traditional IT acceptance frameworks, and also re-emphasizes the importance of emotion-related constructs such as satisfaction in addition to conscious intention with rational beliefs such as usefulness. Experiences should also be considered one of the most important factors determining the characteristics of information system (IS) continuance and the features distinct from those determining IS acceptance, because more experienced users may have more opportunities for IS use, which would allow them more frequent use than would be available to less experienced or non-experienced users. Interestingly, experience has dual features that may contradictorily influence IS use. On one hand, attitudes predicated on direct experience have been shown to predict behavior better than attitudes from indirect experience or without experience; as more information is available, direct experience may render IS use a more salient behavior, and may also make IS use more accessible via memory. Therefore, experience may serve to intensify the relationship between IS use and conscious intention with evaluations, On the other hand, experience may culminate in the formation of habits: greater experience may also imply more frequent performance of the behavior, which may lead to the formation of habits, Hence, like experience, users' activation of an IS may be more dependent on habit-that is, unconscious automatic use without deliberation regarding the IS-and less dependent on conscious intentions, Furthermore, experiences can provide basic information necessary for satisfaction with the use of a specific IS, thus spurring the formation of both conscious intentions and unconscious habits, Whereas IT adoption Is a one-time decision, IS continuance may be a series of users' decisions and evaluations based on satisfaction with IS use. Moreover. habits also cannot be formed without satisfaction, even when a behavior is carried out repeatedly. Thus, experiences also play a critical role in satisfaction, as satisfaction is the consequence of direct experiences of actual behaviors. In particular, emotional experiences such as enjoyment can become as influential on IS use as are utilitarian experiences such as usefulness; this is especially true in light of the modern increase in membership-based hedonic systems - including online games, web-based social network services (SNS), blogs, and portals-all of which attempt to provide users with self-fulfilling value. Therefore, in order to understand more clearly the role of experiences in IS continuance, analysis must be conducted under a research framework that includes intentions, habits, and satisfaction, as experience may not only have duration-based moderating effects on the relationship between both intention and habit and the activation of IS use, but may also have content-based positive effects on satisfaction. This is consistent with the basic assumptions regarding the determining factors in IS continuance as suggested by Oritz de Guinea and Markus: consciousness, emotion, and habit. The principal objective of this study was to explore and assess the effects of experiences in IS continuance, with special consideration given to conscious intentions and unconscious habits, as well as satisfaction. IN service of this goal, along with a review of the relevant literature regarding the effects of experiences and habit on continuous IS use, this study suggested a research model that represents the roles of experience: its moderating role in the relationships of IS continuance with both conscious intention and unconscious habit, and its antecedent role in the development of satisfaction. For the validation of this research model. Korean university student users of 'Cyworld', one of the most influential social network services in South Korea, were surveyed, and the data were analyzed via partial least square (PLS) analysis to assess the implications of this study. In result most hypotheses in our research model were statistically supported with the exception of one. Although one hypothesis was not supported, the study's findings provide us with some important implications. First the role of experience in IS continuance differs from its role in IS acceptance. Second, the use of IS was explained by the dynamic balance between habit and intention. Third, the importance of satisfaction was confirmed from the perspective of IS continuance with experience.

The Impact of Service Level Management(SLM) Process Maturity on Information Systems Success in Total Outsourcing: An Analytical Case Study (토털 아웃소싱 환경 하에서 IT서비스 수준관리(Service Level Management) 프로세스 성숙도가 정보시스템 성공에 미치는 영향에 관한 분석적 사례연구)

  • Cho, Geun Su;An, Joon Mo;Min, Hyoung Jin
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.23 no.2
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    • pp.21-39
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    • 2013
  • As the utilization of information technology and the turbulence of technological change increase in organizations, the adoption of IT outsourcing also grows to manage IT resource more effectively and efficiently. In this new way of IT management technique, service level management(SLM) process becomes critical to derive success from the outsourcing in the view of end users in organization. Even though much of the research on service level management or agreement have been done during last decades, the performance of the service level management process have not been evaluated in terms of final objectives of the management efforts or success from the view of end-users. This study explores the relationship between SLM maturity and IT outsourcing success from the users' point of view by a analytical case study in four client organizations under an IT outsourcing vendor, which is a member company of a major Korean conglomerate. For setting up a model for the analysis, previous researches on service level management process maturity and information systems success are reviewed. In particular, information systems success from users' point of view are reviewed based the DeLone and McLean's study, which is argued and accepted as a comprehensively tested model of information systems success currently. The model proposed in this study argues that SLM process maturity influences information systems success, which is evaluated in terms of information quality, systems quality, service quality, and net effect proposed by DeLone and McLean. SLM process maturity can be measured in planning process, implementation process and operation and evaluation process. Instruments for measuring the factors in the proposed constructs of information systems success and SL management process maturity were collected from previous researches and evaluated for securing reliability and validity, utilizing appropriate statistical methods and pilot tests before exploring the case study. Four cases from four different companies under one vendor company were utilized for the analysis. All of the cases had been contracted in SLA(Service Level Agreement) and had implemented ITIL(IT Infrastructure Library), Six Sigma and BSC(Balanced Scored Card) methods since last several years, which means that all the client organizations pursued concerted efforts to acquire quality services from IT outsourcing from the organization and users' point of view. For comparing the differences among the four organizations in IT out-sourcing sucess, T-test and non-parametric analysis have been applied on the data set collected from the organization using survey instruments. The process maturities of planning and implementation phases of SLM are found not to influence on any dimensions of information systems success from users' point of view. It was found that the SLM maturity in the phase of operations and evaluation could influence systems quality only from users' view. This result seems to be quite against the arguments in IT outsourcing practices in the fields, which emphasize usually the importance of planning and implementation processes upfront in IT outsourcing projects. According to after-the-fact observation by an expert in an organization participating in the study, their needs and motivations for outsourcing contracts had been quite familiar already to the vendors as long-term partners under a same conglomerate, so that the maturity in the phases of planning and implementation seems not to be differentiating factors for the success of IT outsourcing. This study will be the foundation for the future research in the area of IT outsourcing management and success, in particular in the service level management. And also, it could guide managers in practice in IT outsourcing management to focus on service level management process in operation and evaluation stage especially for long-term outsourcing contracts under very unique context like Korean IT outsourcing projects. This study has some limitations in generalization because the sample size is small and the context itself is confined in an unique environment. For future exploration, survey based research could be designed and implemented.

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An Exploratory Study of REID Benefits for Apparel Retailing (의류소매업에서의 RFID 이점에 대한 탐색적 연구)

  • Kim, Hae-Jung;Kim, Eun-Young
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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    • v.30 no.12 s.159
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    • pp.1697-1707
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    • 2006
  • Relentless advances in information technology are constantly transforming market dynamics of the retail industry. RFID is an emerging innovative technology that can reduce labor costs, improve inventory control and increase sales by effective business processes. Apparel retailers need to recognize the benefits of RFID and identify critical success factors. By focusing on apparel retailers, this study attempts (1) to identify the reality of RFID associated with benefits; and (2) to prospect the implementation of RFID in apparel retailing. We conducted a focus group interview with selected six panels who were experts of retail industry in the United States to obtain data regarding RFID attributes. Content analysis was used to generate related excerpts and classify 31 attributes of RFID benefits from the meaningful 173 responses. For experience of RFID, retailers were familiar with RFID technology and expressed the belief that RFID basically would support an existing retail system for speed to markets. However, retailers addressed the level of experience with RFID technology that they were still in the early adoption stage among few innovative companies. The content analysis identified five dimensions of RFID benefits for apparel retailing: Visibility and Velocity, Revenue Enhancement, Customer Service, Security, and Employee Productivity. This result lends support to the belief that RFID has a significant potential to streamline supply chain management, store operation and customer service for apparel retailing. This study provides intellectual and managerial implications far practitioners and researchers by postulating the effective use of RFID in the apparel retail industry.

Attitude Confidence and User Resistance for Purchasing Wearable Devices on Virtual Reality: Based on Virtual Reality Headgears (가상현실 웨어러블 기기의 구매 촉진을 위한 태도 자신감과 사용자 저항 태도: 가상현실 헤드기어를 중심으로)

  • Sohn, Bong-Jin;Park, Da-Sul;Choi, Jaewon
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.22 no.3
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    • pp.165-183
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    • 2016
  • Over the past decade, there has been a rapid diffusion of technological devices and a rising number of various devices, resulting in an escalation of virtual reality technology. Technological market has rapidly been changed from smartphone to wearable devices based on virtual reality. Virtual reality can make users feel real situation through sensing interaction, voice, motion capture and so on. Facebook.com, Google, Samsung, LG, Sony and so on have investigated developing platform of virtual reality. the pricing of virtual reality devices also had decreased into 30% from their launched period. Thus market infrastructure in virtual reality have rapidly been developed to crease marketplace. However, most consumers recognize that virtual reality is not ease to purchase or use. That could not lead consumers to positive attitude for devices and purchase the related devices in the early market. Through previous studies related to virtual reality, there are few studies focusing on why the devices for virtual reality stayed in early stage in adoption & diffusion context in the market. Almost previous studies considered the reasons of hard adoption for innovative products in the viewpoints of Typology of Innovation Resistance, MIR(Management of Innovation Resistant), UTAUT & UTAUT2. However, product-based antecedents also important to increase user intention to purchase and use products in the technological market. In this study, we focus on user acceptance and resistance for increasing purchase and usage promotions of wearable devices related to virtual reality based on headgear products like Galaxy Gear. Especially, we added a variables like attitude confidence as a dimension for user resistance. The research questions of this study are follows. First, how attitude confidence and innovativeness resistance affect user intention to use? Second, What factors related to content and brand contexts can affect user intention to use? This research collected data from the participants who have experiences using virtual rality headgears aged between 20s to 50s located in South Korea. In order to collect data, this study used a pilot test and through making face-to-face interviews on three specialists, face validity and content validity were evaluated for the questionnaire validity. Cleansing the data, we dropped some outliers and data of irrelevant papers. Totally, 156 responses were used for testing the suggested hypotheses. Through collecting data, demographics and the relationships among variables were analyzed through conducting structural equation modeling by PLS. The data showed that the sex of respondents who have experience using social commerce sites (male=86(55.1%), female=70(44.9%). The ages of respondents are mostly from 20s (74.4%) to 30s (16.7%). 126 respondents (80.8%) have used virtual reality devices. The results of our model estimation are as follows. With the exception of Hypothesis 1 and 7, which deals with the two relationships between brand awareness to attitude confidence, and quality of content to perceived enjoyment, all of our hypotheses were supported. In compliance with our hypotheses, perceived ease of use (H2) and use innovativeness (H3) were supported with its positively influence for the attitude confidence. This finding indicates that the more ease of use and innovativeness for devices increased, the more users' attitude confidence increased. Perceived price (H4), enjoyment (H5), Quantity of contents (H6) significantly increase user resistance. However, perceived price positively affect user innovativeness resistance meanwhile perceived enjoyment and quantity of contents negatively affect user innovativeness resistance. In addition, aesthetic exterior (H6) was also positively associated with perceived price (p<0.01). Also projection quality (H8) can increase perceived enjoyment (p<0.05). Finally, attitude confidence (H10) increased user intention to use virtual reality devices. however user resistance (H11) negatively affect user intention to use virtual reality devices. The findings of this study show that attitude confidence and user innovativeness resistance differently influence customer intention for using virtual reality devices. There are two distinct characteristic of attitude confidence: perceived ease of use and user innovativeness. This study identified the antecedents of different roles of perceived price (aesthetic exterior) and perceived enjoyment (quality of contents & projection quality). The findings indicated that brand awareness and quality of contents for virtual reality is not formed within virtual reality market yet. Therefore, firms should developed brand awareness for their product in the virtual market to increase market share.

Performance of Drip Irrigation System in Banana Cultuivation - Data Envelopment Analysis Approach

  • Kumar, K. Nirmal Ravi;Kumar, M. Suresh
    • Agribusiness and Information Management
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    • v.8 no.1
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    • pp.17-26
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    • 2016
  • India is largest producer of banana in the world producing 29.72 million tonnes from an area of 0.803 million ha with a productivity of 35.7 MT ha-1 and accounted for 15.48 and 27.01 per cent of the world's area and production respectively (www.nhb.gov.in). In India, Tamil Nadu leads other states both in terms of area and production followed by Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. In Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh, Kurnool district had special reputation in the cultivation of banana in an area of 5765 hectares with an annual production of 2.01 lakh tonnes in the year 2012-13 and hence, it was purposively chosen for the study. On $23^{rd}$ November 2003, the Government of Andhra Pradesh has commenced a comprehensive project called 'Andhra Pradesh Micro Irrigation Project (APMIP)', first of its kind in the world so as to promote water use efficiency. APMIP is offering 100 per cent of subsidy in case of SC, ST and 90 per cent in case of other categories of farmers up to 5.0 acres of land. In case of acreage between 5-10 acres, 70 per cent subsidy and acreage above 10, 50 per cent of subsidy is given to the farmer beneficiaries. The sampling frame consists of Kurnool district, two mandals, four villages and 180 sample farmers comprising of 60 farmers each from Marginal (<1ha), Small (1-2ha) and Other (>2ha) categories. A well structured pre-tested schedule was employed to collect the requisite information pertaining to the performance of drip irrigation among the sample farmers and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model was employed to analyze the performance of drip irrigation in banana farms. The performance of drip irrigation was assessed based on the parameters like: Land Development Works (LDW), Fertigation costs (FC), Volume of water supplied (VWS), Annual maintenance costs of drip irrigation (AMC), Economic Status of the farmer (ES), Crop Productivity (CP) etc. The first four parameters are considered as inputs and last two as outputs for DEA modelling purposes. The findings revealed that, the number of farms operating at CRS are more in number in other farms (46.66%) followed by marginal (45%) and small farms (28.33%). Similarly, regarding the number of farmers operating at VRS, the other farms are again more in number with 61.66 per cent followed by marginal (53.33%) and small farms (35%). With reference to scale efficiency, marginal farms dominate the scenario with 57 per cent followed by others (55%) and small farms (50%). At pooled level, 26.11 per cent of the farms are being operated at CRS with an average technical efficiency score of 0.6138 i.e., 47 out of 180 farms. Nearly 40 per cent of the farmers at pooled level are being operated at VRS with an average technical efficiency score of 0.7241. As regards to scale efficiency, nearly 52 per cent of the farmers (94 out of 180 farmers) at pooled level, either performed at the optimum scale or were close to the optimum scale (farms having scale efficiency values equal to or more than 0.90). Majority of the farms (39.44%) are operating at IRS and only 29 per cent of the farmers are operating at DRS. This signifies that, more resources should be provided to these farms operating at IRS and the same should be decreased towards the farms operating at DRS. Nearly 32 per cent of the farms are operating at CRS indicating efficient utilization of resources. Log linear regression model was used to analyze the major determinants of input use efficiency in banana farms. The input variables considered under DEA model were again considered as influential factors for the CRS obtained for the three categories of farmers. Volume of water supplied ($X_1$) and fertigation cost ($X_2$) are the major determinants of banana farms across all the farmer categories and even at pooled level. In view of their positive influence on the CRS, it is essential to strengthen modern irrigation infrastructure like drip irrigation and offer more fertilizer subsidies to the farmer to enhance the crop production on cost-effective basis in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh, India. This study further suggests that, the present era of Information Technology will help the irrigation management in the context of generating new techniques, extension, adoption and information. It will also guide the farmers in irrigation scheduling and quantifying the irrigation water requirements in accordance with the water availability in a particular season. So, it is high time for the Government of India to pay adequate attention towards the applications of 'Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and its applications in irrigation water management' for facilitating the deployment of Decision Supports Systems (DSSs) at various levels of planning and management of water resources in the country.

A Study on the Moderating Effect of Perceived Voluntariness in the Organizational Information System Usage and Performance (정보시스템 사용과 성과에 있어서 자발성의 조절효과에 관한 연구)

  • Lee, Seung-Chang;Lee, Ho-Geun;Jung, Chang-Wook;Chung, Nam-Ho;Suh, Eung-Kyo
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.19 no.2
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    • pp.195-221
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    • 2009
  • According to an industry report, a large number of organizations have invested in Organizational Information System(OIS) in the past few years. Several research results indicate that successful investments in OIS lead to productivity enhancement, while failed ones result in undesirable consequences such as financial losses and dissatisfaction among employees. In spite of huge investments, however, many organizations have failed in achieving the hoped-for returns from OIS. Thus, understanding user acceptance, adoption, and usage of new IS(Information Systems) is an important issue for IS practitioners. Indeed, study of the user acceptance of new information system has been one of the most important research topics in the contemporary IS literature. Several theoretical models are tested to examine 'user acceptance' and 'usage behavior' in IS context. While many research models incorporate 'ease of use' or 'usefulness' as important factors in explaining user acceptance, Technology Acceptance Model(TAM) has been one of the most widely applied models in user acceptance and usage behavior. Even in recent IS studies that employ theories of innovation diffusion in the area of IS implementation, a major focus has been on the user's perception of information technologies. In this research, we study 'voluntariness' as an important factor in IS acceptance by users. Voluntariness is defined as "the degree to which the use of the innovation is perceived as being voluntary, or of free will" When examining the diffusion of accepting OIS, a thoughtful consideration should be given to 'perceived voluntariness.' Current article has following research questions: 1) What models are appropriate to explain the success of OIS? and 2) How does the 'voluntariness' affect the success of OIS? In order to answer these questions, a research model is proposed to describe the detailed nature of association among three independent variables (IT usage level, task interdependency, and organizational support), a mediating variable (IS usage), a dependent variable (perceived performance), and a moderating variable(perceived voluntariness). The central claim of this article is that organizations hardly realize expected returns from OIS investments unless perceived voluntariness is effectively managed after operating OIS. As an example of OIS in this study we have selected the Intranet of Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF). ROKAF has implemented the Intranet in an attempt to improve communication and coordination within the organization. To test our research model and hypotheses, survey questionnaires were first sent out to 400 Intranet users. With the assistance of ROKAF, Intranet users were initially identified among its members, and subjects were randomly drawn from the pool. 377 survey responses were finally returned. The unit of measurement and analysis in this research is a personal level. Path analysis based on structural equation modeling was used to test research hypotheses. Construct validity represents accordance between the theoretical base concept of constructs and its measurement items. Tests for the reliability and discriminant validity are accepted, thus verifying our survey instrument. In this research, we have proposed a conceptual framework to highlight the importance of perceived voluntariness after organization deploys OIS. The results of our analysis present several key finding. First, all three independent variables (IT usage level, task interdependency, and organizational support) have significant effects on IS usage, which will eventually improve performance. Thus, IS usage plays a mediating role between antecedent variables (IT usage level. task interdependency, and organizational support) and performance improvement. Second, the effect of the task dependency was the highest for IS usage among the three antecedent variables. This is highly plausible since one of the Intranet's major capabilities is to facilitate communication among members within an organization. Accordingly, we conclude that the higher the task dependency, the higher Intranet usage. The effect of user's IT usage level was the second, while the effect of the organizational support was the third. Finally, the perceived voluntariness plays a pivotal role in enhancing perceived performance in personal level after launching the Intranet. Relationships among investigated variables were significantly different between groups with a high level and a low level of voluntariness. The impact of the Intranet usage on the performance was greater in the higher level voluntariness group than in the lower one. For the lower level voluntariness group, the user's IT usage had the highest effect on the Intranet usage among the three antecedent variables. In short, our study suggests that the higher the perceived voluntariness is the more IS usage will be. Perceived voluntariness was found to have a moderating effect on the relationships among user IT usage level, task interdependency, IS usage, and perceived performance, supporting all the hypotheses on the moderating effect. Most of all, user IT usage level has the strongest influence on IS usage, indicating that users with superior IT usage are more likely to enjoy a high level of perceived performance.

Consumer's Negative Brand Rumor Acceptance and Rumor Diffusion (소비자의 부정적 브랜드 루머의 수용과 확산)

  • Lee, Won-jun;Lee, Han-Suk
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.14 no.2
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    • pp.65-96
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    • 2012
  • Brand has received much attention from considerable marketing research. When consumers consume product or services, they are exposed to a lot of brand related stimuli. These contain brand personality, brand experience, brand identity, brand communications and so on. A special kind of new crisis occasionally confronting companies' brand management today is the brand related rumor. An important influence on consumers' purchase decision making is the word-of-mouth spread by other consumers and most decisions are influenced by other's recommendations. In light of this influence, firms have reasonable reason to study and understand consumer-to-consumer communication such as brand rumor. The importance of brand rumor to marketers is increasing as the number of internet user and SNS(social network service) site grows. Due to the development of internet technology, people can spread rumors without the limitation of time, space and place. However relatively few studies have been published in marketing journals and little is known about brand rumors in the marketplace. The study of rumor has a long history in all major social science. But very few studies have dealt with the antecedents and consequences of any kind of brand rumor. Rumor has been generally described as a story or statement in general circulation without proper confirmation or certainty as to fact. And it also can be defined as an unconfirmed proposition, passed along from people to people. Rosnow(1991) claimed that rumors were transmitted because people needed to explain ambiguous and uncertain events and talking about them reduced associated anxiety. Especially negative rumors are believed to have the potential to devastate a company's reputation and relations with customers. From the perspective of marketer, negative rumors are considered harmful and extremely difficult to control in general. It is becoming a threat to a company's sustainability and sometimes leads to negative brand image and loss of customers. Thus there is a growing concern that these negative rumors can damage brands' reputations and lead them to financial disaster too. In this study we aimed to distinguish antecedents of brand rumor transmission and investigate the effects of brand rumor characteristics on rumor spread intention. We also found key components in personal acceptance of brand rumor. In contextualist perspective, we tried to unify the traditional psychological and sociological views. In this unified research approach we defined brand rumor's characteristics based on five major variables that had been found to influence the process of rumor spread intention. The five factors of usefulness, source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness, encompass multi level elements of brand rumor. We also selected product involvement as a control variable. To perform the empirical research, imaginary Korean 'Kimch' brand and related contamination rumor was created and proposed. Questionnaires were collected from 178 Korean samples. Data were collected from college students who have been experienced the focal product. College students were regarded as good subjects because they have a tendency to express their opinions in detail. PLS(partial least square) method was adopted to analyze the relations between variables in the equation model. The most widely adopted causal modeling method is LISREL. However it is poorly suited to deal with relatively small data samples and can yield not proper solutions in some cases. PLS has been developed to avoid some of these limitations and provide more reliable results. To test the reliability using SPSS 16 s/w, Cronbach alpha was examined and all the values were appropriate showing alpha values between .802 and .953. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted successfully. And structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model using smartPLS(ver. 2.0) s/w. Overall, R2 of adoption of rumor is .476 and R2 of intention of rumor transmission is .218. The overall model showed a satisfactory fit. The empirical results can be summarized as follows. According to the results, the variables of brand rumor characteristic such as source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness affect argument strength of rumor. And argument strength of rumor also affects rumor intention. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived usefulness and argument strength of rumor is not significant. The moderating effect of product involvement on the relations between argument strength of rumor and rumor W.O.M intention is not supported neither. Consequently this study suggests some managerial and academic implications. We consider some implications for corporate crisis management planning, PR and brand management. This results show marketers that rumor is a critical factor for managing strong brand assets. Also for researchers, brand rumor should become an important thesis of their interests to understand the relationship between consumer and brand. Recently many brand managers and marketers have focused on the short-term view. They just focused on strengthen the positive brand image. According to this study we suggested that effective brand management requires managing negative brand rumors with a long-term view of marketing decisions.

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