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The Mediating Role of Perceived Risk in the Relationships Between Enduring Product Involvement and Trust Expectation (지속적 제품관여도와 소비자 요구신뢰수준 간의 영향관계: 인지된 위험의 매개 역할에 대한 실증분석을 중심으로)

  • Hong, Ilyoo B.;Kim, Taeha;Cha, Hoon S.
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.23 no.4
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    • pp.103-128
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    • 2013
  • When a consumer needs a product or service and multiple sellers are available online, the process of selecting a seller to buy online from is complex since the process involves many behavioral dimensions that have to be taken into account. As a part of this selection process, consumers may set minimum trust expectation that can be used to screen out less trustworthy sellers. In the previous research, the level of consumers' trust expectation has been anchored on two important factors: product involvement and perceived risk. Product involvement refers to the extent to which a consumer perceives a specific product important. Thus, the higher product involvement may result in the higher trust expectation in sellers. On the other hand, other related studies found that when consumers perceived a higher level of risk (e.g., credit card fraud risk), they set higher trust expectation as well. While abundant research exists addressing the relationship between product involvement and perceived risk, little attention has been paid to the integrative view of the link between the two constructs and their impacts on the trust expectation. The present paper is a step toward filling this research gap. The purpose of this paper is to understand the process by which a consumer chooses an online merchant by examining the relationships among product involvement, perceived risk, trust expectation, and intention to buy from an e-tailer. We specifically focus on the mediating role of perceived risk in the relationships between enduring product involvement and the trust expectation. That is, we question whether product involvement affects the trust expectation directly without mediation or indirectly mediated by perceived risk. The research model with four hypotheses was initially tested using data gathered from 635 respondents through an online survey method. The structural equation modeling technique with partial least square was used to validate the instrument and the proposed model. The results showed that three out of the four hypotheses formulated were supported. First, we found that the intention to buy from a digital storefront is positively and significantly influenced by the trust expectation, providing support for H4 (trust expectation ${\rightarrow}$ purchase intention). Second, perceived risk was found to be a strong predictor of trust expectation, supporting H2 as well (perceived risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust expectation). Third, we did not find any evidence of direct influence of product involvement, which caused H3 to be rejected (product involvement ${\rightarrow}$ trust expectation). Finally, we found significant positive relationship between product involvement and perceived risk (H1: product involvement ${\rightarrow}$ perceived risk), which suggests that the possibility of complete mediation of perceived risk in the relationship between enduring product involvement and the trust expectation. As a result, we conducted an additional test for the mediation effect by comparing the original model with the revised model without the mediator variable of perceived risk. Indeed, we found that there exists a strong influence of product involvement on the trust expectation (by intentionally eliminating the variable of perceived risk) that was suppressed (i.e., mediated) by the perceived risk in the original model. The Sobel test statistically confirmed the complete mediation effect. Results of this study offer the following key findings. First, enduring product involvement is positively related to perceived risk, implying that the higher a consumer is enduringly involved with a given product, the greater risk he or she is likely to perceive with regards to the online purchase of the product. Second, perceived risk is positively related to trust expectation. A consumer with great risk perceptions concerning the online purchase is likely to buy from a highly trustworthy online merchant, thereby mitigating potential risks. Finally, product involvement was found to have no direct influence on trust expectation, but the relationship between the two constructs was indirect and mediated by the perceived risk. This is perhaps an important theoretical integration of two separate streams of literature on product involvement and perceived risk. The present research also provides useful implications for practitioners as well as academicians. First, one implication for practicing managers in online retail stores is that they should invest in reducing the perceived risk of consumers in order to lower down the trust expectation and thus increasing the consumer's intention to purchase products or services. Second, an academic implication is that perceived risk mediates the relationship between enduring product involvement and trust expectation. Further research is needed to elaborate the theoretical relationships among the constructs under consideration.

Antecedents of Manufacturer's Private Label Program Engagement : A Focus on Strategic Market Management Perspective (제조업체 Private Labels 도입의 선행요인 : 전략적 시장관리 관점을 중심으로)

  • Lim, Chae-Un;Yi, Ho-Taek
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.17 no.1
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    • pp.65-86
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    • 2012
  • The $20^{th}$ century was the era of manufacturer brands which built higher brand equity for consumers. Consumers moved from generic products of inconsistent quality produced by local factories in the $19^{th}$ century to branded products from global manufacturers and manufacturer brands reached consumers through distributors and retailers. Retailers were relatively small compared to their largest suppliers. However, sometime in the 1970s, things began to slowly change as retailers started to develop their own national chains and began international expansion, and consolidation of the retail industry from mom-and-pop stores to global players was well under way (Kumar and Steenkamp 2007, p.2) In South Korea, since the middle of the 1990s, the bulking up of retailers that started then has changed the balance of power between manufacturers and retailers. Retailer private labels, generally referred to as own labels, store brands, distributors own private-label, home brand or own label brand have also been performing strongly in every single local market (Bushman 1993; De Wulf et al. 2005). Private labels now account for one out of every five items sold every day in U.S. supermarkets, drug chains, and mass merchandisers (Kumar and Steenkamp 2007), and the market share in Western Europe is even larger (Euromonitor 2007). In the UK, grocery market share of private labels grew from 39% of sales in 2008 to 41% in 2010 (Marian 2010). Planet Retail (2007, p.1) recently concluded that "[PLs] are set for accelerated growth, with the majority of the world's leading grocers increasing their own label penetration." Private labels have gained wide attention both in the academic literature and popular business press and there is a glowing academic research to the perspective of manufacturers and retailers. Empirical research on private labels has mainly studies the factors explaining private labels market shares across product categories and/or retail chains (Dahr and Hoch 1997; Hoch and Banerji, 1993), factors influencing the private labels proneness of consumers (Baltas and Doyle 1998; Burton et al. 1998; Richardson et al. 1996) and factors how to react brand manufacturers towards PLs (Dunne and Narasimhan 1999; Hoch 1996; Quelch and Harding 1996; Verhoef et al. 2000). Nevertheless, empirical research on factors influencing the production in terms of a manufacturer-retailer is rather anecdotal than theory-based. The objective of this paper is to bridge the gap in these two types of research and explore the factors which influence on manufacturer's private label production based on two competing theories: S-C-P (Structure - Conduct - Performance) paradigm and resource-based theory. In order to do so, the authors used in-depth interview with marketing managers, reviewed retail press and research and presents the conceptual framework that integrates the major determinants of private labels production. From a manufacturer's perspective, supplying private labels often starts on a strategic basis. When a manufacturer engages in private labels, the manufacturer does not have to spend on advertising, retailer promotions or maintain a dedicated sales force. Moreover, if a manufacturer has weak marketing capabilities, the manufacturer can make use of retailer's marketing capability to produce private labels and lessen its marketing cost and increases its profit margin. Figure 1. is the theoretical framework based on a strategic market management perspective, integrated concept of both S-C-P paradigm and resource-based theory. The model includes one mediate variable, marketing capabilities, and the other moderate variable, competitive intensity. Manufacturer's national brand reputation, firm's marketing investment, and product portfolio, which are hypothesized to positively affected manufacturer's marketing capabilities. Then, marketing capabilities has negatively effected on private label production. Moderating effects of competitive intensity are hypothesized on the relationship between marketing capabilities and private label production. To verify the proposed research model and hypotheses, data were collected from 192 manufacturers (212 responses) who are producing private labels in South Korea. Cronbach's alpha test, explanatory / comfirmatory factor analysis, and correlation analysis were employed to validate hypotheses. The following results were drawing using structural equation modeling and all hypotheses are supported. Findings indicate that manufacturer's private label production is strongly related to its marketing capabilities. Consumer marketing capabilities, in turn, is directly connected with the 3 strategic factors (e.g., marketing investment, manufacturer's national brand reputation, and product portfolio). It is moderated by competitive intensity between marketing capabilities and private label production. In conclusion, this research may be the first study to investigate the reasons manufacturers engage in private labels based on two competing theoretic views, S-C-P paradigm and resource-based theory. The private label phenomenon has received growing attention by marketing scholars. In many industries, private labels represent formidable competition to manufacturer brands and manufacturers have a dilemma with selling to as well as competing with their retailers. The current study suggests key factors when manufacturers consider engaging in private label production.

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