• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.262-268
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• 2010

Virtual communities (VCs) have developed rapidly, with more and more people participating in them to exchange information and opinions. A virtual community is a group of people who may or may not meet one another face to face, and who exchange words and ideas through the mediation of computer bulletin boards and networks. A business-to-consumer virtual community (B2CVC) is a commercial group that creates a trustworthy environment intended to motivate consumers to be more willing to buy from an online store. B2CVCs create a social atmosphere through information contribution such as recommendations, reviews, and ratings of buyers and sellers. Although the importance of B2CVCs has been recognized, few studies have been conducted to examine members' word-of-mouth behavior within these communities. This study proposes a model of involvement, statistics, trust, "stickiness," and word-of-mouth in a B2CVC and explores the relationships among these elements based on empirical data. The objectives are threefold: (i) to empirically test a B2CVC model that integrates measures of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors; (ii) to better understand the nature of these relationships, specifically through word-of-mouth as a measure of revenue generation; and (iii) to better understand the role of stickiness of B2CVC in CRM marketing. The model incorporates three key elements concerning community members: (i) their beliefs, measured in terms of their involvement assessment; (ii) their attitudes, measured in terms of their satisfaction and trust; and, (iii) their behavior, measured in terms of site stickiness and their word-of-mouth. Involvement is considered the motivation for consumers to participate in a virtual community. For B2CVC members, information searching and posting have been proposed as the main purpose for their involvement. Satisfaction has been reviewed as an important indicator of a member's overall community evaluation, and conceptualized by different levels of member interactions with their VC. The formation and expansion of a VC depends on the willingness of members to share information and services. Researchers have found that trust is a core component facilitating the anonymous interaction in VCs and e-commerce, and therefore trust-building in VCs has been a common research topic. It is clear that the success of a B2CVC depends on the stickiness of its members to enhance purchasing potential. Opinions communicated and information exchanged between members may represent a type of written word-of-mouth. Therefore, word-of-mouth is one of the primary factors driving the diffusion of B2CVCs across the Internet. Figure 1 presents the research model and hypotheses. The model was tested through the implementation of an online survey of CTrip Travel VC members. A total of 243 collected questionnaires was reduced to 204 usable questionnaires through an empirical process of data cleaning. The study's hypotheses examined the extent to which involvement, satisfaction, and trust influence B2CVC stickiness and members' word-of-mouth. Structural Equation Modeling tested the hypotheses in the analysis, and the structural model fit indices were within accepted thresholds: ${\chi}^2^$/df was 2.76, NFI was .904, IFI was .931, CFI was .930, and RMSEA was .017. Results indicated that involvement has a significant influence on satisfaction (p<0.001, ${\beta}$=0.809). The proportion of variance in satisfaction explained by members' involvement was over half (adjusted $R^2$=0.654), reflecting a strong association. The effect of involvement on trust was also statistically significant (p<0.001, ${\beta}$=0.751), with 57 percent of the variance in trust explained by involvement (adjusted $R^2$=0.563). When the construct "stickiness" was treated as a dependent variable, the proportion of variance explained by the variables of trust and satisfaction was relatively low (adjusted $R^2$=0.331). Satisfaction did have a significant influence on stickiness, with ${\beta}$=0.514. However, unexpectedly, the influence of trust was not even significant (p=0.231, t=1.197), rejecting that proposed hypothesis. The importance of stickiness in the model was more significant because of its effect on e-WOM with ${\beta}$=0.920 (p<0.001). Here, the measures of Stickiness explain over eighty of the variance in e-WOM (Adjusted $R^2$=0.846). Overall, the results of the study supported the hypothesized relationships between members' involvement in a B2CVC and their satisfaction with and trust of it. However, trust, as a traditional measure in behavioral models, has no significant influence on stickiness in the B2CVC environment. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on B2CVCs, specifically addressing gaps in the academic research by integrating measures of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in one model. The results provide additional insights to behavioral factors in a B2CVC environment, helping to sort out relationships between traditional measures and relatively new measures. For practitioners, the identification of factors, such as member involvement, that strongly influence B2CVC member satisfaction can help focus technological resources in key areas. Global e-marketers can develop marketing strategies directly targeting B2CVC members. In the global tourism business, they can target Chinese members of a B2CVC by providing special discounts for active community members or developing early adopter programs to encourage stickiness in the community. Future studies are called for, and more sophisticated modeling, to expand the measurement of B2CVC member behavior and to conduct experiments across industries, communities, and cultures.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.41-67
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• 2009

Organizational interpersonal supervisory trust, organizational justice(distributive and procedural justice) and job satisfaction have been lately more spotlighted as generally concluded by many previous studies. The purpose of this study is to find out possible effects of these three factors upon organizational commitment. The results of this study can be outlined as follows: First, it was found that organizational trust, a preceding variable, had significant positive effects on distributive and procedural justice, as well as on organizational commitment as a dependent variable. Second, it was found that two independent variables, i.e. distributive and procedural justice had significant positive effects upon job satisfaction, and procedural justice had significant positive effects on organizational commitment as a dependent variable, but distributive fairness had no significant effects on organizational commitment. Third, it was found that job satisfaction, an independent variable, had significant positive effects on organizational commitment. Fourth, it was found that organizational trust had significant positive secondhand associations with organizational commitment by way of distributive and procedural justice and job satisfaction, and also had overall significant positive effects on organizational commitment. Thus, it is concluded that the higher organizational trust is an index of higher organizational commitment. Fifth, it was found that distributive justice had just significant secondhand effects on organizational commitment by way of job satisfaction, but it had no significant effects overall upon organizational commitment, since such secondhand effects were considerably set off due to negative firsthand effects of distributive justice upon organizational commitment. But procedural justice and job satisfaction had significant firsthand and overall effects on organizational commitment, so it is concluded that the higher procedural justice and the higher job satisfaction are good indices of the higher organizational commitment. Hence, it is concluded that organizational supervisory trust has positive effects on distributive and procedural justice and organizational commitment; distributive justice has positive effects on job satisfaction; procedural justice has positive effects on job satisfaction and organizational commitment; and job satisfaction has positive effects on organizational commitment, so these empirical findings hereof are consistent with general results of previous studies.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.16-28
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• 2016

The study was conducted to compare and analyze the importance and performance of leisure destination selection attributes of persons who use recreational forests and rural tourism villages. This researcher investigated the use patterns of users to identify the ground for connection between recreational forest and rural tourism village, analyzed their recognition differences in physical selection attribute, program selection attribute, and service selection attribute in order for leisure destination selection, and conducted importance-performance analysis(IPA analysis) to draw a plan for connection. The main results and suggestions are presented as follows. First, recreational forests were visited by family users in order for rest and emotional cultivation and provided experience programs using simple public interest function of forest, whereas rural tourism villages were visited by family users, friends and co-workers, groups and club members to experience a variety of annual programs and understand regional cultures. It was found that it was necessary to connect natural forest with rural tourism village in order to meet the leisure needs of the people changed in diversified ways. Secondly, it was found that the connection between rural tourism village and recreational forest visited mainly for simple rest led to positive visit intention of users. It was expected that there will be various kinds of uses, including experience program participation, child education, and safe accommodations security. In other words, the connection between recreational forest and rural tourism village is an alternative to trigger actual demands and recreational forest activities with high quality. Thirdly, in the case of users of recreational forests, their performance of all selection attributes was lower than their importance of them. Therefore, overall improvements were needed. In particular, needed were the diversity, benefit, and promotion of programs, improvements in locality(themes), supply of lodges and convenient facilities, booking system, the purchase system of local special products, and professional skills of operators and managers. On contrary, the performance of program selection attribute of rural tourism village was high. Therefore, it was found that program attribute of rural tourism village was the main connection factor to activate recreational forest use. Fourthly, according to IPA analysis, the proper connections between loges, convenient facilities, and nearby touristattractions, which give high expectations and satisfaction to users, needed to remain. And it was required to make common efforts to accomplish the goal (income creation) of rural tourism village and improve booking system for visitors and performance of local special products sales opportunity. In addition, the essential factors to induce users' leisure destination selection were found to be maintenance of the use fee system of recreational forest, diversity of rural tourism village program, and retention of locality.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.440-457
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to examine the importance and satisfaction of exhibition and convention destinations from the MICE(meeting, incentive tour, convention, and exhibition) planners. Overall, four results were revealed from this study. First, considering the importance of selection attributes, soundproofing, lighting, temperature, A V facilities, the space of main convention hall and exhibition were the most important attributes. Second, hypothesis 1 suggested that there were statistically significant differences in the attributes of convention destination selection based on the socio-demographic variables. More specifically, a statistically significant was found in the 17 attributes out of 5 factors and 4 demographic variables. Third, hypothesis 2 suggested that there were statistically significant in the attributes of convention destination selection based on the planning characteristics of MICE. For instance, statistically significants were found 9 attributes out of 5 factors and the 4 planning characteristics. Fourth, the regional space of exhibition and convention was the most influential to the intention to revisit, followed by exhibition and convention facilities and use cost. And also, considering the recommendation to the other MICE planners who recently have used exhibition and convention centers, the facilities was the most influential, followed by use cost and tourism space surrounding exhibition and convention centers.

• Journal of Service Research and Studies
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.188-205
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• 2024

The food truck business, which involves selling various types of food from mobile vehicles, has gained significant popularity in urban centers and at events. These food trucks have rapidly expanded due to their relatively low initial investment and high flexibility, attracting customers with unique menus and personalized services. However, as competition increases, the need to manage service quality to boost customer satisfaction and encourage repeat visits has become more critical. Despite this growing importance, there has been limited empirical research on the topic. This study aims to analyze customer experiences with food truck services to gain strategic insights for improving service quality. By applying structural topic modeling to customer review data, the study identified 50 key topics. The process included a comprehensive evaluation of model diagnostics and interpretability to determine the optimal number of topics, ultimately selecting the most relevant ones related to service experiences. The impact of these identified topics on overall customer satisfaction was empirically tested using regression analysis. The results showed that aspects such as "Food Taste," "Friendly Staff," and "Positive Emotion" had a positive influence on customer satisfaction, whereas "Delayed Service," "Negative Emotion," and "Beverage Service" had a negative impact. Based on this analysis, the study proposes concrete methods for food truck operators to systematically analyze customer feedback and use it to drive service improvements and innovation. This research highlights the importance of data-driven decision-making in small business environments like food trucks and contributes to expanding the application of topic modeling in the service industry.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.22-33
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• 2020

Sign system is one of the most widely used guide media in scenic spots. It plays vital role in introducing cultural values of destinations to tourists with better visit experience. The purpose of this study is to derive the influence factors of the sign system of Mount Tai scenic area for tourists, analyze the satisfaction of tourists, and provide suggestions for the sign system of Mount Tai Mountaineering Road to improve tourists' satisfaction in the future. The evaluation items of Mount Tai Mountaineering Road sign system were derived from the previous studies and then subdivided comprehensively. Survey by questionnaires was carried out to obtain the influence factors. In order to understand the satisfaction degree of tourists, fuzzy comprehensive evaluation was implemented. The research results of this study are summarized as follows. First, four influence factors of the sign system on Mountaineering Road of Mount Tai were concluded as the interpretation content, appearance modeling, interpretation methods and layout management. Second, the order of weight values of influence factors was the interpretation content, appearance modeling, interpretation methods and layout management respectively from high to low, which means that tourists paid more attention to practicality and aesthetics. Third, the satisfaction degree of the tourists on the sign system was different. The satisfaction level for the three factors (interpretation content, appearance modeling, layout management) was good, while the satisfaction for interpretation method was medium. The reason was that it failed to deepen the understanding of tourists on the natural and cultural values of Mount Tai Mountaineering Road. These results indicate great significance to provide theoretical basis for the later readjustment and design of the sign system and to improve the overall satisfaction of tourists on tourism experience.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.1-22
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• 2007

Customer satisfaction is important in an increasingly competitive and global marketplace. This implies that customer service is a critical factor for many organizations. In service encounter context, customer satisfaction is affected by employees' attitudes and behaviors. Accordingly, service firms have been focusing on selecting high quality of service employees, which resulted the ability to identify and select quality service- or customer- oriented employees to become critical for an organization's success. It was suggested that customer service orientation links to performance and subsequent organizational revenue. Moreover, it was found that service encounter failures were among the major reasons for customers' service switch. Therefore, the selection of customer service oriented employees is a key factor in establishing customer service - a potential source of sustained competitive advantage. However, the measurement of employee service orientation is more confusing than that of definitive answers. The difficulty of measuring service orientation is attributed to the use of broad versus narrow measures of personality. Advocates for the broad perspective prefer using basic personality constructs, such as the Big Five personality traits. On the contrary, the latter prefer a construct-oriented approach of personality research that provides a better measure of job performance because it requires the specification of the relationship of the personality traits with multiple dimensions of job performance. The customer service orientation was defined as "a set of basic individual predispositions and an inclination to provide service, to be courteous and to be helpful in dealing with customers and associates." Similarly, it is a fact that the Big five personality traits are predictors of customer orientation, and employee's self- and supervisor performance. They propose that basic personality traits may be too far removed from focal service behaviors to be able to predict specific service behaviors (customer orientation) and service worker performance. Also, customer orientation is defined as "an employee's tendency or predisposition to meet customer needs in an on-the-job context." This means that people who have job-relevant personality traits such as concern, empathy, and conscientiousness will be more adept at customer service than people who do not possess these traits. However, little attention has been given to the exploration of the service orientation of customer-contact employees who play a key role in creating satisfactory service encounters in the hospitality industry except for Kim, McCahon, & Miller (2003)'s study, especially in family restaurants context. Thus, the purposes of this study are to examine and validate the customer service orientation of customer-contact employees using the instrument developed by Donavan (1999) in Korean family restaurants, because the scale was developed to measure the personality traits related job behaviors. And this study explores the relationships between customer service orientation, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and self service performance using structural equation modeling (SEM). And this study explores the relationships between customer service orientation, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and self service performance using structural equation modeling (SEM). For these purposes the author developed several hypotheses as follows: H1: Employee's service orientation is associated with service performance. H2: Employee's service orientation is positively associated with job satisfaction. H3: Employee's service orientation is positively associated with organizational commitment. H4: Service performance is positively associated with job satisfaction. H5: Service performance is positively associated with organizational commitment. H6: Job satisfaction is negatively associated with organizational commitment. The data were collected from 278 employees in 5 deluxe hotels located in Pusan, Korea. The researcher contacted the manager of the restaurants, and managers consented to administer surveys to their employees. The survey was executed during one month period in the October of 2007. The data were analyzed with structural equation modeling with LISREL 8.7 W. The result of the overall model analysis appeared as follows: $X^2$=122.638 (p = 0.00), df=59, GFI=.936, AGFI=.901, NFI=.948, CFI=.971, RMSEA=.0625. Since the result of the overall model analysis demonstrated a good fit, we could further analyze our data. The findings can be summarized as follows: First, the greater the employee service orientation, the greater the service performance. Second, the greater the employee service orientation, the greater the job satisfaction. Third, the greater the employee service orientation, the greater the organizational commitment. Fourth, the greater the service performance, the greater the job satisfaction. Fifth, the greater the service performance, the greater the organizational commitment. Finally, the greater the job satisfaction, the greater the organizational commitment. Seventh, the greater the customer satisfaction, the greater the customer loyalty.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Rural Architecture
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.9-18
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• 2021

This paper conducted a survey of residents and public officials for the projects to make smart-city plans of Geumsan-gun. In introduction, several domestic and foreign cases related to smart-city projects were Investigated. To initiate the smart-city project of Geumsan-gun, the local status of Geumsan-gun was investigated regarding various aspects of natural, social, urban environment and smart-city facilities. The results of this survey are as follows: Overall, more than half of survey respondents said they had satisfaction of their housing quality. Several problems in their residence areas, such as insufficient welfare systems, shortage of parking spaces, industrial infrastructure, were reported. Meanwhile, the survey result indicated that tourism and leisure facilities, health care support systems, industries promote the economy and job market of the area. An interview with public official is also important to select the relevant meaningful projects and regional issues. Three models for each spatial unit were proposed in Geumsan-gun based on the natural, agricultural, and geographical environment. In result, the three smart-city models are categorized as urban type(large area), complex city type(medium area), and smart village type(small area)

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.96-106
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• 2013

The aim of this study was to reveal the advantages and disadvantages of Terelj Mongolian National Park based on the impressions of foreign and domestic travelers, and subsequently suggest supporting ideas to make this tourist attraction more enjoyable for travelers. A statistical program(SPSS 20.0) and an IPA matrix method were used to reveal the impressions of travelers and the results showed the following ideas. First, we made the technical analyses to demonstrate the characteristics of the current natural scenery which travelers want to see and the results indicated that both Korean and Mongolian travelers overall were not satisfied and the Park was not as they had imagined. The second part of the research highlighted the differences between the impressions held by Mongolian and Korean travelers, which showed dissimilarities in cultural resources, food, variety of events, cultural functions and parking, all of which were shown as important criteria in sightseeing. The variations were found in scenes of nature, variety of programs, and food, areas which revealed and were very important in the overall satisfaction of travelers. Third, the IPA method was used for analyze the advantages and disadvantages of Terelj National Park. The Mongolian travelers nominated the width of the road, cleanliness, variety of events and parking are the most essential things to feel satisfied, but Koreans selected safety of travel, accommodation, the width of the road and cleanliness. Finally, we analyzed the feelings of the travelers at the end of their trip. The Mongolian travelers preferred the area resource and environment convenience to feel satisfaction. For Korean travelers, the area resource is the most important when choosing travelling sights. Based on these results, if we take responsibility to protect the beauty of nature, and create a sightseeing place using natural sources, while also making more comfortable accommodations and improving the services, it can be a more unique place than others and lead to greater overall satisfaction for travelers.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.4576-4585
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• 2015

This study focuses upon 'organizational members' well-being' in order to explain organizational innovativeness and performance. Based on a survey of organizational members in Korean firms, we find that supervisory trust, communication, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment as employee well-being variables had a significant influence upon explain organizational innovativeness. Additionally, our results also suggest the organizational innovativeness also had a positive influence on organizational performance. Overall, the study contributes to the literature by accounting for the importance of organizational members' well-being' when examining the organizational innovativeness/firm performance relationship.