• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.31-52
• /
• 2011

The cutthroat competition of the market for the medical services caused changes and developments of hospital management from the traditional provider-oriented management to a consumer-oriented management toward the customer. And the popularization of on-line community through the growth and spread of internet technology is developed into an important exploration activity to provide various medical information to patient(or customer) who wishes a high-quality medical services. This is an on-line Word-of-Mouth(WOM). It is a kind of information exploration that is performed by customers before choosing the hospital with off-line word-of-mouth. In this study, we develop our research model to verify the causal relationships among on/off-line WOM, key determinants of hospital choice and the customer's will to make use of the hospitals, and total effect of these variables. We adopt a component-based PSL method for an empirical analysis of the patients experienced dermatology or obstetrics gynecology. Finally, we understand the characteristics of the various medical services and draw new and significant strategic previews.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.312-321
• /
• 2011

Recently, lots of corporations take effect preannouncing activity before launching new product as communication strategy. Preannouncing information of new product is diffused in internet community which relate to the product. This study notes the effect of external vividness and internal vividness among information characteristics of new product to e-WOM(electronic word-of-mouth). The author aims to identify how to trigger intention of e-WOM on preannounced new products, and external vividness and internal vividness of determinants of e-WOM and intention of internet posting. The main findings are that external vividness and internal vividness positively influence e-WOM in internet community, and the e-WOM positively affects intention of internet posting.

• The Journal of Information Systems
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.209-236
• /
• 2010

Recently, utilization of mobile Internet services is rapidly increasing. To properly accelerate the vitalization of mobile Internet usage, we have to know exactly about the factors affecting potential users' value recognition and intention to use. Technology acceptance model (TAM) is one of the most powerful reference framework for the individual user's adoption of IT innovations. This research borrowed core concept of TAM, and tried to explain users' intention to use mobile Internet by understanding the direct and indirect effects of subjective norm and perceived usefulness. To increase the explanatory power of the model, this paper introduced personal innovativeness as a key moderator variable. The research findings include; i) subjective norm has strong positive influence on perceived usefulness and intention to use, ii) perceived usefulness has positive influence on intention to use, iii) the influence of subject norm is greater than that of perceived usefulness, iv) positive influence of subjective norm on the perceived usefulness and intention to use are significantly stronger in the case of low personal innovativeness sub-group than the case of high personal innovativeness sub-group, and v) high personal innovativeness sub-group have shown strongly positive influence of perceived usefulness on the intention to use while there is no such significant relationship in the case of low personal innovativeness sub-group. Based on these findings, this paper proposed several guidelines to increase the adoption and the usage of mobile Internet; i) word-of-mouth is extremely important, ii) to form a good word-of-mouth, it will be very important to make early adopters and heavy users have positive direct experiences of using mobile Internet.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
• /
• v.31 no.8
• /
• pp.1157-1167
• /
• 2007

Internet communications have provoked new forms of online word-of-mouth(WOM) communication and it has become more powerful. At this point, this study analyses the effects of information characteristics(direction, consensus) of online WOM. Especially, quasi-experiment can systematically manipulate the direction and the consensus of online WOM information and it perceived the difference in the effects in this study. Female consumers who have purchased clothing at online shopping mall in past 6 months participated in the experiment by completing 4 type questionnaires(N=600). Data are analyzed using Cronbach's ${\alpha}$, t-test, one way ANOVA, two-way ANOVA, Duncan's multiple range test. The Results of this study are as follows: (1) The direction of online WOM information significantly influences consumer's reliability of information, attitude, and purchase intentions. These effects are more significant when negative WOM information than positive information and two-sided information was given. (2) Though there is the difference in reliability of information, the consensus of online WOM information does not have influences on consumer's attitude and purchase intentions. (3) Consumer's clothing involvement is related to WOM information searching. The highly involved consumer is more effected by online WOM information than the lowly one.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.39-60
• /
• 2010

It becomes common thing that many customers buy the goods through the online shopping mall as internet grows very fast. The information cascades that happen when a person imitates the other's acts also it occurs in online. Many people buy the goods referring on other people's purchasing experiences and such cases are spreading more and more. Through numerous existing researches, the researches in association with this issue have been studied on the information cascades effect on offline or online separately. The research of comparing the information cascades effects from the offline word of mouth (WOM) and the online review has not studied yet. On that reason this study shows that the online review induces the information cascades. We also compared the effects with information cascades effects from traditional offline word of mouth. In result of this study, the following points have been concluded. Firstly, we examined that information cascades was occurred through both the online review and offline word of mouth. Secondly, the information cascades effect through the online review is greater than through the offline words of mouth. It means the company has to understand the importance of the online review and manage it. Thirdly, the information cascades effects are occurred differently in accordance with the goods brands. Therefore a company has to know whether its products is superior to the competitor's one or not.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
• /
• v.9 no.12
• /
• pp.1657-1668
• /
• 2006

The last few years have represented a boom for the online gaming industry. Internet-based online games have been an increasingly popular form of entertainment. The gaming industry estimates there will be over 26 million online gaming participants in 2002. The rapid development of online game content and related information technology will increase the size of the industry and have a profound impact on many aspects of our lives and our society. This paper develops the exploratory LISREL model for identifying the factors affecting the players' loyalty to a specific brand of online game. The concepts of flow, word of mouth, feedback, challenge, social norms, and online community activities, etc, are all introduced into the model, as the independent variables directly and indirectly affecting loyalty. Based on data collected from an online survey, the validity of the model has been tested and interesting conclusions have been developed concerning the relationships between loyalty and flow, word of mouth, and other independent variables. It is hoped that this result might provide useful guidelines for developing successful online game content.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.215-227
• /
• 2013

Currently, improved quality of life has facilitated consumers' indulgence in a diverse range of cultural cuisines. Consequently, the evolvement of the food service industry has been developing itself according to the diversified needs of the consumers. In particular, a great amount of interest has been expressed in a new form of food service known as family restaurants. Family restaurant service providers have begun to provide information regarding family restaurant usage, including various foods and services, through their websites in order to yield better service to consumers. For family restaurant service providers, comprehending the consumers' purpose of using the company's websites is a crucial managerial issue and it plays an important role in the development of good marketing strategies. There exists a distinction in websites usage purposes according to the different values of consumers; the hedonic value and the utilitarian value. When consumers gain satisfaction through family restaurant websites usage, this satisfaction extends to word of mouth communication effect. In order to develop good Internet marketing strategies, this study is prepared to assist family restaurant service providers understand the relationships among customer value, usage purpose, customer satisfaction, and word of mouth communication with regards to the family restaurant websites. The results of this study provide useful implications to understand consumer behavior and to develop marketing strategies in a family restaurant websites.

• International Commerce and Information Review
• /
• v.8 no.4
• /
• pp.23-41
• /
• 2006

The present paper aims to examine the Influences of on line word of mouth(WOM) information valence and information contents to the information searcher. Specially, to examine the interaction effect it's two variables. For that purpose, we categorize WOM information valence into two subcategories; positive and negative, and WOM content into two subcategories; objective evaluation and subjective evaluation. We conducted experimentation design 2*2 and subjects are asked to their attitude and purchase intention after they are exposed each of four different types of WOM information. The result can be summarized as follow; First, the negative WOM has stronger effect on consumer's attitude and purchase intention than positive. Second, factual WOM has stronger effect on consumer's attitude and purchase intention than subject. Finally, when consumer face negative WOM, subjective WOM has more effect on consumer's attitude and purchase intention than factual. On the contrary, when consumer face positive WOM, factual WOM has more effect on consumer's attitude and purchase intention than subject. In conclusion, the korean Foreign Trade Act and other relative acts should be revised, and both educational services and health services should be contained within the definition of "the international trade" for the governmental benefits of supporting the services exportation.

• Korean Management Science Review
• /
• v.28 no.3
• /
• pp.95-112
• /
• 2011

The Internet has generated a number of online review sites where dissatisfied consumers can easily articulate their opinions and comments on products or services. Little attention, however, has been directed to investigating the relationship between negative electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and its critical determinants that affect consumers' purchasing behaviors. This study attempts to explore the influence of the key determinants of consumers' negative eWOM behaviors, including their social relationships online. The results show that tie strength is positively associated with the proposed determinants, such as information credibility, external search efforts, and product involvement. Further, we find that perceived risk plays a mediating role in the relationship between consumers' intention to spread eWOM and its key determinants.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
• /
• v.19 no.4
• /
• pp.675-685
• /
• 2010

This study analyzed risk perception and risk reduction behaviors of male and female college students in their twenties who purchased fashion products in internet shopping malls. It also investigated the relationship between risk perception and risk reduction behavior as well as the ways in which groups, categorized by risk perception, differed in their risk reduction behaviors. The results of this study were as follows: first, seven factors of risk perception were identified. These were product quality, shipping, product image, payment, economic feasibility, fear of other people's reactions, and size. Six types of risk reduction behavior were also identified. These were product comparison, word-of-mouth information search, price search, preference for name-brand, service comparison, and referring to experiences. Next, a correlational analysis of the factors of risk perception and those of risk reduction behavior showed several patterns. The highest positive correlation was between economic risk perception and product comparison behavior. In addition, shipping risk perception was positively correlated with service comparison behavior and product quality and product image had a positive correlation with word-of-mouth information search behavior. Third, customers of internet shopping malls could be categorized into three groups: shipping risk perception group, high risk perception group, and product quality risk perception group. The groups were shown by factor analysis to be significantly different to each other. Finally, risk reduction behavior was investigated according to the different groups of risk perception of the internet shopping malls and the results showed significant differences among groups.