• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.3-27
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• 2015

As hostile online reviews can have a negative impact on a company's reputation, it is not surprising that online reviewers and business owners often get involved in conflicts which sometimes evolve into legal disputes. This research examines the legal dispute case in which the business owner charges an online reviewer for a defamation. Further, this research compares the supreme court's decision with general public's view on this defamation case, using a survey method. From the legal point of view, an online reviewer's primary motive determines whether the online reviews are defamatory statements or not. Specifically, if an online reviewer's primary motive is to increase the overall benefits for the public society, the online review does not bear any legal liability. According to our survey, consumers' view aligns with the final decision of the supreme court. They believe that online reviews should bear a minimum level of legal liability as online reviews often contain useful and valuable information which can enhance overall public benefits.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.233-253
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• 2014

Can the stock market really be predicted? Stock market prediction has attracted much attention from many fields including business, economics, statistics, and mathematics. Early research on stock market prediction was based on random walk theory (RWT) and the efficient market hypothesis (EMH). According to the EMH, stock market are largely driven by new information rather than present and past prices. Since it is unpredictable, stock market will follow a random walk. Even though these theories, Schumaker [2010] asserted that people keep trying to predict the stock market by using artificial intelligence, statistical estimates, and mathematical models. Mathematical approaches include Percolation Methods, Log-Periodic Oscillations and Wavelet Transforms to model future prices. Examples of artificial intelligence approaches that deals with optimization and machine learning are Genetic Algorithms, Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Neural Networks. Statistical approaches typically predicts the future by using past stock market data. Recently, financial engineers have started to predict the stock prices movement pattern by using the SNS data. SNS is the place where peoples opinions and ideas are freely flow and affect others' beliefs on certain things. Through word-of-mouth in SNS, people share product usage experiences, subjective feelings, and commonly accompanying sentiment or mood with others. An increasing number of empirical analyses of sentiment and mood are based on textual collections of public user generated data on the web. The Opinion mining is one domain of the data mining fields extracting public opinions exposed in SNS by utilizing data mining. There have been many studies on the issues of opinion mining from Web sources such as product reviews, forum posts and blogs. In relation to this literatures, we are trying to understand the effects of SNS exposures of firms on stock prices in Korea. Similarly to Bollen et al. [2011], we empirically analyze the impact of SNS exposures on stock return rates. We use Social Metrics by Daum Soft, an SNS big data analysis company in Korea. Social Metrics provides trends and public opinions in Twitter and blogs by using natural language process and analysis tools. It collects the sentences circulated in the Twitter in real time, and breaks down these sentences into the word units and then extracts keywords. In this study, we classify firms' exposures in SNS into two groups: positive and negative. To test the correlation and causation relationship between SNS exposures and stock price returns, we first collect 252 firms' stock prices and KRX100 index in the Korea Stock Exchange (KRX) from May 25, 2012 to September 1, 2012. We also gather the public attitudes (positive, negative) about these firms from Social Metrics over the same period of time. We conduct regression analysis between stock prices and the number of SNS exposures. Having checked the correlation between the two variables, we perform Granger causality test to see the causation direction between the two variables. The research result is that the number of total SNS exposures is positively related with stock market returns. The number of positive mentions of has also positive relationship with stock market returns. Contrarily, the number of negative mentions has negative relationship with stock market returns, but this relationship is statistically not significant. This means that the impact of positive mentions is statistically bigger than the impact of negative mentions. We also investigate whether the impacts are moderated by industry type and firm's size. We find that the SNS exposures impacts are bigger for IT firms than for non-IT firms, and bigger for small sized firms than for large sized firms. The results of Granger causality test shows change of stock price return is caused by SNS exposures, while the causation of the other way round is not significant. Therefore the correlation relationship between SNS exposures and stock prices has uni-direction causality. The more a firm is exposed in SNS, the more is the stock price likely to increase, while stock price changes may not cause more SNS mentions.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.83-110
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• 2010

Dissatisfied customers may express their dissatisfaction behaviorally. These behavioral responses may impact the firms' profitability. How do we model the impact of self regulatory orientation on emotions and subsequent customer behaviors? Obviously, the positive and negative emotions experienced in these situations will influence the overall degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the service(Zeelenberg and Pieters 1999). Most likely, these specific emotions will also partly determine the subsequent behavior in relation to the service and service provider, such as the likelihood of complaining, the degree to which customers will switch or repurchase, and the extent of word of mouth communication they will engage in(Zeelenberg and Pieters 2004). This study investigates the antecedents, consequences of negative consumption emotion and the moderate effect of attribution processing in an integrated model(self regulatory mode → specific emotions → behavioral responses). We focused on the fact that regret and disappointment have effects on consumer behavior. Especially, There are essentially two approaches in this research: the valence based approach and the specific emotions approach. The authors indicate theoretically and show empirically that it matters to distinguish these approaches in services research. and The present studies examined the influence of two regulatory mode concerns(Locomotion orientation and Assessment orientation) with making comparisons on experiencing post decisional regret and disappointment(Pierro, Kruglanski, and Higgins 2006; Pierro et al. 2008). When contemplating a decision with a negative outcome, it was predicted that high (vs low) locomotion would induce more disappointment than regret, whereas high (vs low) assessment would induce more regret than disappointment. The validity of the measurement scales was also confirmed by evaluations provided by the participating respondents and an independent advisory panel; samples provided recommendations throughout the primary, exploratory phases of the study. The resulting goodness of fit statistics were RMR or RMSEA of 0.05, GFI and AGFI greater than 0.9, and a chi-square with a 175.11. The indicators of the each constructs were very good measures of variables and had high convergent validity as evidenced by the reliability with a more than 0.9. Some items were deleted leaving those that reflected the cognitive dimension of importance rather than the dimension. The indicators were very good measures and had convergent validity as evidenced by the reliability of 0.9. These results for all constructs indicate the measurement fits the sample data well and is adequate for use. The scale for each factor was set by fixing the factor loading to one of its indicator variables and then applying the maximum likelihood estimation method. The results of the analysis showed that directions of the effects in the model are ultimately supported by the theory underpinning the causal linkages of the model. This research proposed 6 hypotheses on 6 latent variables and tested through structural equation modeling. 6 alternative measurements were compared through statistical significance test of the paths of research model and the overall fitting level of structural equation model and the result was successful. Also, Locomotion orientation more positively influences disappointment when internal attribution is high than low and Assessment orientation more positively influences regret when external attribution is high than low. In sum, The results of our studies suggest that assessment and locomotion concerns, both as chronic individual predispositions and as situationally induced states, influence the amount of people's experienced regret and disappointment. These findings contribute to our understanding of regulatory mode, regret, and disappointment. In previous studies of regulatory mode, relatively little attention has been paid to the post actional evaluative phase of self regulation. The present findings indicate that assessment concerns and locomotion concerns are clearly distinct in this phase, with individuals higher in assessment delving more into possible alternatives to past actions and individuals higher in locomotion engaging less in such reflective thought. What this suggests is that, separate from decreasing the amount of counterfactual thinking per se, individuals with locomotion concerns want to move on, to get on with it. Regret is about the past and not the future. Thus, individuals with locomotion concerns are less likely to experience regret. The results supported our predictions. We discuss the implications of these findings for the nature of regret and disappointment from the perspective of their relation to regulatory mode. Also, self regulatory mode and the specific emotions(disappointment and regret) were assessed and their influence on customers' behavioral responses(inaction, word of mouth) was examined, using a sample of 275 customers. It was found that emotions have a direct impact on behavior over and above the effects of negative emotions and customer behavior. Hence, We argue against incorporating emotions such as regret and disappointment into a specific response measure and in favor of a specific emotions approach on self regulation. Implications for services marketing practice and theory are discussed.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.61-101
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• 2014

This study investigates when and how disagreements in online customer ratings prompt more favorable product evaluations. Among the three metrics of volume, valence, and variance that feature in the research on online customer ratings, volume and valence have exhibited consistently positive patterns in their effects on product sales or evaluations (e.g., Dellarocas, Zhang, and Awad 2007; Liu 2006). Ratings variance, or the degree of disagreement among reviewers, however, has shown rather mixed results, with some studies reporting positive effects on product sales (e.g., Clement, Proppe, and Rott 2007) while others finding negative effects on product evaluations (e.g., Zhu and Zhang 2010). This study aims to resolve these contradictory findings by introducing preference heterogeneity as a possible moderator and causal attribution as a mediator to account for the moderating effect. The main proposition of this study is that when preference heterogeneity is perceived as high, a disagreement in ratings is attributed more to reviewers' different preferences than to unreliable product quality, which in turn prompts better quality evaluations of a product. Because disagreements mostly result from differences in reviewers' tastes or the low reliability of a product's quality (Mizerski 1982; Sen and Lerman 2007), a greater level of attribution to reviewer tastes can mitigate the negative effect of disagreement on product evaluations. Specifically, if consumers infer that reviewers' heterogeneous preferences result in subjectively different experiences and thereby highly diverse ratings, they would not disregard the overall quality of a product. However, if consumers infer that reviewers' preferences are quite homogeneous and thus the low reliability of the product quality contributes to such disagreements, they would discount the overall product quality. Therefore, consumers would respond more favorably to disagreements in ratings when preference heterogeneity is perceived as high rather than low. This study furthermore extends this prediction to the various levels of average ratings. The heuristicsystematic processing model so far indicates that the engagement in effortful systematic processing occurs only when sufficient motivation is present (Hann et al. 2007; Maheswaran and Chaiken 1991; Martin and Davies 1998). One of the key factors affecting this motivation is the aspiration level of the decision maker. Only under conditions that meet or exceed his aspiration level does he tend to engage in systematic processing (Patzelt and Shepherd 2008; Stephanous and Sage 1987). Therefore, systematic causal attribution processing regarding ratings variance is likely more activated when the average rating is high enough to meet the aspiration level than when it is too low to meet it. Considering that the interaction between ratings variance and preference heterogeneity occurs through the mediation of causal attribution, this greater activation of causal attribution in high versus low average ratings would lead to more pronounced interaction between ratings variance and preference heterogeneity in high versus low average ratings. Overall, this study proposes that the interaction between ratings variance and preference heterogeneity is more pronounced when the average rating is high as compared to when it is low. Two laboratory studies lend support to these predictions. Study 1 reveals that participants exposed to a high-preference heterogeneity book title (i.e., a novel) attributed disagreement in ratings more to reviewers' tastes, and thereby more favorably evaluated books with such ratings, compared to those exposed to a low-preference heterogeneity title (i.e., an English listening practice book). Study 2 then extended these findings to the various levels of average ratings and found that this greater preference for disagreement options under high preference heterogeneity is more pronounced when the average rating is high compared to when it is low. This study makes an important theoretical contribution to the online customer ratings literature by showing that preference heterogeneity serves as a key moderator of the effect of ratings variance on product evaluations and that causal attribution acts as a mediator of this moderation effect. A more comprehensive picture of the interplay among ratings variance, preference heterogeneity, and average ratings is also provided by revealing that the interaction between ratings variance and preference heterogeneity varies as a function of the average rating. In addition, this work provides some significant managerial implications for marketers in terms of how they manage word of mouth. Because a lack of consensus creates some uncertainty and anxiety over the given information, consumers experience a psychological burden regarding their choice of a product when ratings show disagreement. The results of this study offer a way to address this problem. By explicitly clarifying that there are many more differences in tastes among reviewers than expected, marketers can allow consumers to speculate that differing tastes of reviewers rather than an uncertain or poor product quality contribute to such conflicts in ratings. Thus, when fierce disagreements are observed in the WOM arena, marketers are advised to communicate to consumers that diverse, rather than uniform, tastes govern reviews and evaluations of products.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.24 no.7
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• pp.1-28
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• 2020

Purpose - This paper empirically investigates the predictors and main determinants of consumers' ratings of mobile applications in the Google Play Store. Using a linear and nonlinear model comparison to identify the function of users' review, in determining application rating across countries, this study estimates the direct effects of users' reviews on the application rating. In addition, extending our modelling into a sentimental analysis, this paper also aims to explore the effects of review polarity and subjectivity on the application rating, followed by an examination of the moderating effect of user reviews on the polarity-rating and subjectivity-rating relationships. Design/methodology - Our empirical model considers nonlinear association as well as linear causality between features and targets. This study employs competing theoretical frameworks - multiple regression, decision-tree and neural network models - to identify the predictors and main determinants of app ratings, using data from the Google Play Store. Using a cross-validation method, our analysis investigates the direct and moderating effects of predictors and main determinants of application ratings in a global app market. Findings - The main findings of this study can be summarized as follows: the number of user's review is positively associated with the ratings of a given app and it positively moderates the polarity-rating relationship. Applying the review polarity measured by a sentimental analysis to the modelling, it was found that the polarity is not significantly associated with the rating. This result best applies to the function of both positive and negative reviews in playing a word-of-mouth role, as well as serving as a channel for communication, leading to product innovation. Originality/value - Applying a proxy measured by binomial figures, previous studies have predominantly focused on positive and negative sentiment in examining the determinants of app ratings, assuming that they are significantly associated. Given the constraints to measurement of sentiment in current research, this paper employs sentimental analysis to measure the real integer for users' polarity and subjectivity. This paper also seeks to compare the suitability of three distinct models - linear regression, decision-tree and neural network models. Although a comparison between methodologies has long been considered important to the empirical approach, it has hitherto been underexplored in studies on the app market.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.25-50
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• 2021

Though there have been a lot of studies about online product review, the effects of highlighted reviewhave not been examined enough. Highlighted review is a type of review that the platform designer changes its size or position in order to highlight without any sponsorship or incentive. The main subject of this study is about how highlighted review type affects consumer's perception and behavior in online information acquisition. We collected data from 171 subjects to test hypotheses. Using three different types of screen captures, we compared three groups - general review group, positive highlighted review only group, and both positive and negative highlighted review group. As a result, disclosing both of positiveand negative highlighted review was perceived more useful than disclosing only positive highlighted review. However, correlation between highlighted review type and review skepticism was not statistically significant. The impacts of review usefulness and skepticism on platform credibility were statistically significant, and the correlation between platform credibility and usage intention was also significant. All of results is almost similar across two product types, search goods and experiential goods. This research provides practical implications to online shopping platform designers when they design review systems to make people use their platforms.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.11-23
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• 2023

This study aims to investigate the relationship between service recovery justice, residual emotions, and customer behavior. It empirically verifies that low justice in service recovery affects residual emotions and, in turn, has an impact on customers' negative behaviors. Furthermore, this research distinguishes customer-brand relationship quality into emotional relationship quality and cognitive relationship quality and seeks to validate that the type of relationship quality may influence the extent to which the justice of recovery processes affects residual emotions. Data was collected through surveys, and hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. The research findings indicate that among the dimensions of service recovery justice, procedural justice and interactional justice significantly influence residual emotions. Moreover, residual emotions have a significant impact on both the intention to revisit and the intention to engage in negative word-of-mouth. In addition, the impact of distributive justice and procedural justice on residual emotions was found to be higher for cognitive relationship quality than emotional relationship quality, and the impact of interactional justice on residual emotions was found to be higher for emotional relationship quality than cognitive relationship quality.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-26
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• 2023

Consumers tend to trust information provided by other consumers more than information provided by sellers. Therefore, while inducing consumers to write high-quality reviews is a very important task for companies, it is not easy to produce such high-quality reviews. Based on previous research on review writing and memory recall, we decided to develop a way to use digital nudge to help consumers naturally write high-quality reviews. Specifically, we designed an experiment to verify the effect of uploading a photo during the online review process on the quality of review of the review writer. We then recruited subjects and then divided them into groups that upload photos first and groups that do not. A task was assigned to each subject to write positive and negative reviews. As a result, it was confirmed that the behavior of uploading a photo first increases the review length. In addition, it was confirmed that when online users who upload photos first have extremely negative satisfaction with the product, the extent of two-sidedness of the review content increases.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.9 no.8
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• pp.255-271
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• 2009

Since consumers have difficulty in acquiring information related to products in online, they are apt to use WOM(word-of-mouth). It seems to be more popular and acceptable methods to acquire information about products sold in online. In other words, consumers who visit the Internet shopping-mall can not make a purchase-decision immediately because they have no sufficient knowledge about products. To solve this problem, consumers make use of the service called "online review". The objective of this study is to verify how these reviews can influence attitude toward the message, product and several buying behaviors in the online. In particular, this study focus on the message's sidedness(positive or negative) and objectivity(objective or subjective), because it is expected that consumers are likely to behave differently according to the characteristics of online reviews. Thus, to measure consumer's attitude and buying behavior, this study was examined by 4 types of messages. The results of this study are as follows: First, in the positive-objective message, the message attitude has a stronger effect on purchase intention than other outcomes. Second, in the positive-subjective message, the message attitude has a stronger effect on revisiting intention than others. Third, in the negative-objective message, the message attitude has a stronger effect on purchase intention than others. Hence, it is said that online shopping-mall managers need to understand the effects of multidimensional online review.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.325-344
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• 2014

Technical support of Window XP ended in March, 8, 2014, and it makes OS(Operating System) users fall in a state of confusion. Sudden decision making of OS upgrade and replacement is not a simple problem. Firms need to change the long term capacity plan in enterprise IS management, but they are pressed for time and cost to complete it. Individuals can not help selecting the second best plan, because the following OSs of Window XP are below expectations in performances, new PC sales as the opportunities of OS upgrade decrease, and the potential risk of OS technical support ending had not announced to OS users at the point of purchase. Microsoft as the OS vendors had not presented precaution or remedy for this confusion. Rather, Microsoft announced that the technical support of the other following OSs of Wndow XP such as Window 7 would ended in two years. This conflict between OS vendor and OS users could not happen in one time, but could recur in recent future. Although studies on the ways of OS user protection policy would be needed to escape from this conflict, few prior studies had conducted this issue. This study had challenge to cautiously investigate in such OS user's reactions as the confirmation with OS user's expectation in the point of purchase, three types of justice perception on the treatment of OS vendor, psychological contract violation, satisfaction and the other betrayal behavioral intention in the case of Window XP technical support ending. By adopting the justice perception on this research, and by empirically validating the impact on OS user's reactions, I could suggest the direction of establishing OS user protection policy of OS vendor. Based on the expectation-confirmation theory, the theory of justice, literatures about psychological contract violation, and studies about consumer betrayal behaviors in the perspective of Herzberg(1968)'s dual factor theory, I developed the research model and hypothesis. Expectation-confirmation theory explain that consumers had expectation on the performance of product in the point of sale, and they could satisfied with their purchase behaviors, when the expectation could have confirmed in the point of consumption. The theory of justice in social exchange argues that treatee could be willing to accept the treatment by treater when the three types of justice as distributive, procedural, and interactional justice could be established in treatment. Literatures about psychological contract violation in human behaviors explains that contracter in a side could have the implied contract (also called 'psychological contract') which the contracter in the other side would sincerely execute the contract, and that they are willing to do vengeance behaviors when their contract had unfairly been broken. When the psychological contract of consumers had been broken, consumers feel distrust with the vendors and are willing to decrease such beneficial attitude and behavior as satisfaction, loyalty and repurchase intention. At the same time, consumers feel betrayal and are willing to increase such retributive attitude and behavior as negative word-of-mouth, complain to the vendors, complain to the third parties for consumer protection. We conducted a scenario survey in order to validate our research model at March, 2013, when is the point of news released firstly and when is the point of one year before the acture Window XP technical support ending. We collected the valid data from 238 voluntary participants who are the OS users but had not yet exposed the news of Window OSs technical support ending schedule. The subject had been allocated into two groups and one of two groups had been exposed this news. The data had been analyzed by the MANOVA and PLS. MANOVA results indicate that the OSs technical support ending could significantly decrease all three types of justice perception. PLS results indicated that it could significantly increase psychological contract violation and that this increased psychological contract violation could significantly reduce the trust and increase the perceived betrayal. Then, it could significantly reduce satisfaction, loyalty, and repurchase intention, and it also could significantly increase negative word-of-month intention, complain to the vendor intention, and complain to the third party intention. All hypothesis had been significantly approved. Consequently, OS users feel that the OSs technical support ending is not natural value added service ending, but the violation of the core OS purchase contract, that it could be the posteriori prohibition of OS user's OS usage right, and that it could induce the psychological contract violation of OS users. This study would contributions to introduce the psychological contract violation of the OS users from the OSs technical support ending in IS field, to introduce three types of justice as the antecedents of psychological contract violation, and to empirically validate the impact of psychological contract violation both on the beneficial and retributive behavioral intentions of OS users. For practice, the results of this study could contribute to make more comprehensive OS user protection policy and consumer relationship management practices of OS vendor.