• 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.

• 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.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.1-32
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• 2011

I. Introduction: In Chinese electronics industry, the local wholesalers are still dominant but power is rapidly swifting from wholesalers to retailers because in recent foreign big retailers and local mass merchandisers are growing fast. During such transient period, conflicts among channel members emerge important issues. For example, when wholesalers who have more power exercise influence strategies to maintain status, conflicts among manufacturer, wholesaler, and retailer will be intensified. Korean electronics companies in China need differentiated channel strategies by dealing with wholesalers and retailers simultaneously to sell more Korean products in competition with foreign firms. For example, Korean electronics firms should utilize 'guanxi' or relational quality to form long-term relationships with whloesalers instead of power and conflict issues. The major purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of conflict, dependency, and influence strategies between local Korean-products-selling retailers and wholesalers on performance in Chinese electronics distribution channels. In particular, this paper proposes effective distribution strategies for Korean electronics companies in China by analyzing moderating effects of 'Guanxi'. II. Literature Review and Hypotheses: The specific purposes of this study are as follows. First, causes of conflicts between local Korean-products-selling retailers and wholesalers are examined from the perspectives of goal incongruence and role ambiguity and then effects of these causes are found out on perceived conflicts of local retailers. Second, the effects of dependency of local retailers upon wholesalers are investigated on local retailers' perceived conflicts. Third, the effects of non-coercive influence strategies such as information exchange and recommendation and coercive strategies such as threats and legalistic pleas exercised by wholesalers are explored on perceived conflicts by local retailers. Fourth, the effects of level of conflicts perceived by local retailers are verified on local retailers' financial performance and satisfaction. Fifth, moderating effects of relational qualities, say, 'quanxi' between wholesalers and retailers are analyzed on the impact of wholesalers' influence strategies on retailers' performances. Finally, moderating effects of relational qualities are examined on the relationship between conflicts and performance. To accomplish above-mentioned research objectives, Figure 1 and the following research hypotheses are proposed and verified. III. Measurement and Data Analysis: To verify the proposed research model and hypotheses, data were collected from 97 retailers who are selling Korean electronic products located around Central and Southern regions in China. Covariance analysis and moderated regression analysis were employed to validate hypotheses. IV. Conclusion: The following results were drawn using structural equation modeling and hierarchical moderated regression. First, goal incongruence perceived by local retailers significantly affected conflict but role ambiguity did not. Second, consistent with conflict spiral theory, the level of conflict decreased when retailers' dependency increased toward wholesalers. Third, noncoercive influence strategies such as information exchange and recommendation implemented by wholesalers had significant effects on retailers' performance such as sales and satisfaction without conflict. On the other hand, coercive influence strategies such as threat and legalistic plea had insignificant effects on performance in spite of increasing the level of conflict. Fourth, 'guanxi', namely, relational quality between local retailers and wholesalers showed unique effects on performance. In case of noncoercive influence strategies, 'guanxi' did not play a role of moderator. Rather, relational quality and noncoercive influence strategies can serve as independent variables to enhance performance. On the other hand, when 'guanxi' was well built due to mutual trust and commitment, relational quality as a moderator can positively function to improve performance even though hostile, coercive influence strategies were implemented. Fifth, 'guanxi' significantly moderated the effects of conflict on performance. Even if conflict arises, local retailers who form solid relational quality can increase performance by dealing with dysfunctional conflict synergistically compared with low 'quanxi' retailers. In conclusion, this study verified the importance of relational quality via 'quanxi' between local retailers and wholesalers in Chinese electronic industry because relational quality could cross out the adverse effects of coercive influence strategies and conflict on performance.

• 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.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.141-156
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• 2013

Social media is a representative form of the Web 2.0 that shapes the change of a user's information behavior by allowing users to produce their own contents without any expert skills. In particular, as a new communication medium, it has a profound impact on the social change by enabling users to communicate with the masses and acquaintances their opinions and thoughts. Social media data plays a significant role in an emerging Big Data arena. A variety of research areas such as social network analysis, opinion mining, and so on, therefore, have paid attention to discover meaningful information from vast amounts of data buried in social media. Social media has recently become main foci to the field of Information Retrieval and Text Mining because not only it produces massive unstructured textual data in real-time but also it serves as an influential channel for opinion leading. But most of the previous studies have adopted broad-brush and limited approaches. These approaches have made it difficult to find and analyze new information. To overcome these limitations, we developed a real-time Twitter trend mining system to capture the trend in real-time processing big stream datasets of Twitter. The system offers the functions of term co-occurrence retrieval, visualization of Twitter users by query, similarity calculation between two users, topic modeling to keep track of changes of topical trend, and mention-based user network analysis. In addition, we conducted a case study on the 2012 Korean presidential election. We collected 1,737,969 tweets which contain candidates' name and election on Twitter in Korea (http://www.twitter.com/) for one month in 2012 (October 1 to October 31). The case study shows that the system provides useful information and detects the trend of society effectively. The system also retrieves the list of terms co-occurred by given query terms. We compare the results of term co-occurrence retrieval by giving influential candidates' name, 'Geun Hae Park', 'Jae In Moon', and 'Chul Su Ahn' as query terms. General terms which are related to presidential election such as 'Presidential Election', 'Proclamation in Support', Public opinion poll' appear frequently. Also the results show specific terms that differentiate each candidate's feature such as 'Park Jung Hee' and 'Yuk Young Su' from the query 'Guen Hae Park', 'a single candidacy agreement' and 'Time of voting extension' from the query 'Jae In Moon' and 'a single candidacy agreement' and 'down contract' from the query 'Chul Su Ahn'. Our system not only extracts 10 topics along with related terms but also shows topics' dynamic changes over time by employing the multinomial Latent Dirichlet Allocation technique. Each topic can show one of two types of patterns-Rising tendency and Falling tendencydepending on the change of the probability distribution. To determine the relationship between topic trends in Twitter and social issues in the real world, we compare topic trends with related news articles. We are able to identify that Twitter can track the issue faster than the other media, newspapers. The user network in Twitter is different from those of other social media because of distinctive characteristics of making relationships in Twitter. Twitter users can make their relationships by exchanging mentions. We visualize and analyze mention based networks of 136,754 users. We put three candidates' name as query terms-Geun Hae Park', 'Jae In Moon', and 'Chul Su Ahn'. The results show that Twitter users mention all candidates' name regardless of their political tendencies. This case study discloses that Twitter could be an effective tool to detect and predict dynamic changes of social issues, and mention-based user networks could show different aspects of user behavior as a unique network that is uniquely found in Twitter.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.155-175
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• 2010

Most of the service industries including finance and telecommunications have become matured and saturated. The competitions have become severe while the differences among brands become smaller. Therefore maintaining good relationships with customers has been critical for the service providers. In case of credit card and debit card, the similar patterns are shown. It is important for them to maintain good relationships with customers, and therefore, they have used marketing program which provides customized services to customers and utilizes the membership programs. Not only do they build and maintain good relationships, but also highlight their brands from the emotional aspects. For example, KB Card or Hyundai Card uses well-known designers' works for their credit card design. As well, they differentiate the designs of credit cards to stress on their brand personalities. BC Card introduced the credit card with perfume that a customer would like. Even though the credit card is small and not shown to public easily, it becomes more important for those companies to touch the customers' feelings with the brand personalities and their images. This is partly because of changes in consumers' lifestyles. Y-generations becomes highly likely to express themselves in many different ways and more emotional than X-generations. For the Y-generations, therefore, even credit cards in the wallet should be personalized and well-designed. In line with it, credit cards with good design can be seen as an example of brand identity, where different design for each customer can be used to recognize the membership groups that customers want to belong. On the other hand, these credit card companies offer the special treatment benefits for those customers who are heavy users for the cards. For example, those customers who love sports will receive some special discounts when they use their credit cards for sports related products. Therefore this study attempted to explore the relationships between relational benefits, brand identification and loyalty. It has been well known that relational benefits and brand identification lead to loyalty independently from many other studies, but there has been few study to review all the three variables all together in a research model. Furthermore, as reviewed above, in the card industry, many companies attempt to associate the brand image with their products to fit their customers' lifestyles while relational benefits are still playing an important role for their business. Therefore in our research model, relational benefits, brand identification, and loyalty are all included. We focus on the mediating effect of brand identification. From the relational benefits perspective, only special treatment benefit and confidence benefit are included. Social benefit is not applicable for this credit card industry because not many cases of face-to-face interaction can be found. From the brand identification perspective, personal brand identity and social brand identity are reviewed and included in the model. Overall, the research model emphasizes that the relationships between relational benefits and loyalty will be mediated by the effect of brand identification. The effects of relational benefits which are confidence benefit and special treatment benefits on loyalty will be realized when they fit to the personal brand identity and social brand identity. In the research model, therefore, the relationships between confidence benefit and social brand identity, and between confidence benefit and personal identity are hypothesized while the effects of special treatment benefit on social brand identity and personal brand identity are hypothesized. Loyalty, then, is hypothesized to have positive relationships with personal brand identity and social brand identity. In addition, confidence benefit among the relational benefits is expected to have a direct, positive relationship with loyalty because confidence benefit has been recognized as a critical factor for good relationships and satisfaction. Data were collected from college students who have been using either credit cards or debit cards. College students were regarded good subjects because they are in Y-generation cohorts and have tendency to express themselves more. Total sample size was two hundred three at the beginning, but after deleting those data with many missing values, one hundred ninety-seven data points were remained and used for the model testing. Measurement items were brought from the previous literatures and modified for this research. To test the reliability, using SPSS 14, chronbach's α was examined and all the values were from .874 to .928 exceeding over .7. Using AMOS 7.0, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to investigate the measurement model. The measurement model was found good fit with χ²(67)=188.388 (p= .000), GFI=.886, AGFI=.821, CFI=.941, RMSEA=.096. Using AMOS 7.0, structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model. Overall, the research model fit were χ²(68)=188.670 (p= .000), GFI=.886, AGFI=,824 CFI=.942, RMSEA=.095 indicating good fit. In details, all the paths hypothesized in the research model were found significant except for the path from social brand identity to loyalty. Personal brand identity leads to loyalty while both confidence benefit and special treatment benefit have a positive relationships with personal and social identities. As well, confidence benefit has a direct positive effect on loyalty. The results indicates the followings. First, personal brand identity plays an important role for credit/debit card usage. Therefore even for the products which are not shown to public easy, design and emotional aspect can be important to fit the customers' lifestyles. Second, confidence benefit and special treatment benefit have a positive effects on personal brand identity. Therefore it will be needed for marketers to associate the special treatment and trust and confidence benefits with personal image, personality and personal identity. Third, this study found again the importance of confidence and trust. However interestingly enough, social brand identity was not found to be significantly related to loyalty. It can be explained that the main sample of this study consists of college students. Those strategies to facilitate social brand identity are focused on high social status groups while college students have not been established their status yet.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.71-96
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• 2011

Within the traditional medical delivery system, patients residing in medically vulnerable areas, those with body movement difficulties, and nursing facility residents have had limited access to good healthcare services. However, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) provides us with a convenient and useful means of overcoming distance and time constraints. ICT is integrated with biomedical science and technology in a way that offers a new high-quality medical service. As a result, rapid technological advancement is expected to play a pivotal role bringing about innovation in a wide range of medical service areas, such as medical management, testing, diagnosis, and treatment; offering new and improved healthcare services; and effecting dramatic changes in current medical services. The increase in aging population and chronic diseases has caused an increase in medical expenses. In response to the increasing demand for efficient healthcare services, a telehealth service based on ICT is being emphasized on a global level. Telehealth services have been implemented especially in pilot projects and system development and technological research. With the service about to be implemented in earnest, it is necessary to study its overall acceptance by consumers, which is expected to contribute to the development and activation of a variety of services. In this sense, the study aims at positively examining the structural relationship among the acceptance factors for telehealth services based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Data were collected by showing audiovisual material on telehealth services to online panels and requesting them to respond to a structured questionnaire sheet, which is known as the information acceleration method. Among the 1,165 adult respondents, 608 valid samples were finally chosen, while the remaining were excluded because of incomplete answers or allotted time overrun. In order to test the reliability and validity of the assessment scale items, we carried out reliability and factor analyses, and in order to explore the causal relation among potential variables, we conducted a structural equation modeling analysis using AMOS 7.0 and SPSS 17.0. The research outcomes are as follows. First, service quality, innovativeness of medical technology, and social influence were shown to affect perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of the telehealth service, which was statistically significant, and the two factors had a positive impact on willingness to accept the telehealth service. In addition, social influence had a direct, significant effect on intention to use, which is paralleled by the TAM used in previous research on technology acceptance. This shows that the research model proposed in the study effectively explains the acceptance of the telehealth service. Second, the research model reveals that information privacy concerns had a insignificant impact on perceived ease of use of the telehealth service. From this, it can be gathered that the concerns over information protection and security are reduced further due to advancements in information technology compared to the initial period in the information technology industry, and thus the improvement in quality of medical services appeared to ensure that information privacy concerns did not act as a prohibiting factor in the acceptance of the telehealth service. Thus, if other factors have an enormous impact on ease of use and usefulness, concerns over these results in the initial period of technology acceptance may become irrelevant. However, it is clear that users' information privacy concerns, as other studies have revealed, is a major factor affecting technology acceptance. Thus, caution must be exercised while interpreting the result, and further study is required on the issue. Numerous information technologies with outstanding performance and innovativeness often attract few consumers. A revised bill for those urgently in need of telehealth services is about to be approved in the national assembly. As telemedicine is implemented between doctors and patients, a wide range of systems that will improve the quality of healthcare services will be designed. In this sense, the study on the consumer acceptance of telehealth services is meaningful and offers strong academic evidence. Based on the implications, it can be expected to contribute to the activation of telehealth services. Further study is needed to assess the acceptance factors for telehealth services, such as motivation to remain healthy, health care involvement, knowledge on health, and control of health-related behavior, in order to develop unique services according to the categorization of customers based on health factors. In addition, further study may focus on various theoretical cognitive behavior models other than the TAM, such as the health belief model.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.7-29
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• 2012

Smartphone and its applications (i.e. apps) are increasingly penetrating consumer markets. According to a recent report from Korea Communications Commission, nearly 50% of mobile subscribers in South Korea are smartphone users that accounts for over 25 million people. In particular, the importance of smartphone has risen as a geospatially-aware device that provides various location-based services (LBS) equipped with GPS capability. The popular LBS include map and navigation, traffic and transportation updates, shopping and coupon services, and location-sensitive social network services. Overall, the emerging location-based smartphone apps (LBA) offer significant value by providing greater connectivity, personalization, and information and entertainment in a location-specific context. Conversely, the rapid growth of LBA and their benefits have been accompanied by concerns over the collection and dissemination of individual users' personal information through ongoing tracking of their location, identity, preferences, and social behaviors. The majority of LBA users tend to agree and consent to the LBA provider's terms and privacy policy on use of location data to get the immediate services. This tendency further increases the potential risks of unprotected exposure of personal information and serious invasion and breaches of individual privacy. To address the complex issues surrounding LBA particularly from the user's behavioral perspective, this study applied the privacy calculus model (PCM) to explore the factors that influence the adoption of LBA. According to PCM, consumers are engaged in a dynamic adjustment process in which privacy risks are weighted against benefits of information disclosure. Consistent with the principal notion of PCM, we investigated how individual users make a risk-benefit assessment under which personalized service and locatability act as benefit-side factors and information privacy risks act as a risk-side factor accompanying LBA adoption. In addition, we consider the moderating role of trust on the service providers in the prohibiting effects of privacy risks on user intention to adopt LBA. Further we include perceived ease of use and usefulness as additional constructs to examine whether the technology acceptance model (TAM) can be applied in the context of LBA adoption. The research model with ten (10) hypotheses was tested using data gathered from 98 respondents through a quasi-experimental survey method. During the survey, each participant was asked to navigate the website where the experimental simulation of a LBA allows the participant to purchase time-and-location sensitive discounted tickets for nearby stores. Structural equations modeling using partial least square validated the instrument and the proposed model. The results showed that six (6) out of ten (10) hypotheses were supported. On the subject of the core PCM, H2 (locatability ${\rightarrow}$ intention to use LBA) and H3 (privacy risks ${\rightarrow}$ intention to use LBA) were supported, while H1 (personalization ${\rightarrow}$ intention to use LBA) was not supported. Further, we could not any interaction effects (personalization X privacy risks, H4 & locatability X privacy risks, H5) on the intention to use LBA. In terms of privacy risks and trust, as mentioned above we found the significant negative influence from privacy risks on intention to use (H3), but positive influence from trust, which supported H6 (trust ${\rightarrow}$ intention to use LBA). The moderating effect of trust on the negative relationship between privacy risks and intention to use LBA was tested and confirmed by supporting H7 (privacy risks X trust ${\rightarrow}$ intention to use LBA). The two hypotheses regarding to the TAM, including H8 (perceived ease of use ${\rightarrow}$ perceived usefulness) and H9 (perceived ease of use ${\rightarrow}$ intention to use LBA) were supported; however, H10 (perceived effectiveness ${\rightarrow}$ intention to use LBA) was not supported. Results of this study offer the following key findings and implications. First the application of PCM was found to be a good analysis framework in the context of LBA adoption. Many of the hypotheses in the model were confirmed and the high value of $R^2$ (i.,e., 51%) indicated a good fit of the model. In particular, locatability and privacy risks are found to be the appropriate PCM-based antecedent variables. Second, the existence of moderating effect of trust on service provider suggests that the same marginal change in the level of privacy risks may differentially influence the intention to use LBA. That is, while the privacy risks increasingly become important social issues and will negatively influence the intention to use LBA, it is critical for LBA providers to build consumer trust and confidence to successfully mitigate this negative impact. Lastly, we could not find sufficient evidence that the intention to use LBA is influenced by perceived usefulness, which has been very well supported in most previous TAM research. This may suggest that more future research should examine the validity of applying TAM and further extend or modify it in the context of LBA or other similar smartphone apps.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.1-25
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• 2011

Internet-based commerce has undergone an explosive growth over the past decade as consumers today find it more economical as well as more convenient to shop online. Nevertheless, the shift in the common mode of shopping from offline to online commerce has caused consumers to have worries over such issues as private information leakage, online fraud, discrepancy in product quality and grade, unsuccessful delivery, and so forth, Numerous studies have been undertaken to examine the role of perceived risk as a chief barrier to online purchases and to understand the theoretical relationships among perceived risk, trust and purchase intentions, However, most studies focus on empirically investigating the effects of trust on perceived risk, with little attention devoted to the effects of perceived risk on trust, While the influence trust has on perceived risk is worth studying, the influence in the opposite direction is equally important, enabling insights into the potential of perceived risk as a prohibitor of trust, According to Pavlou (2003), the primary source of the perceived risk is either the technological uncertainty of the Internet environment or the behavioral uncertainty of the transaction partner. Due to such types of uncertainty, an increase in the worries over the perceived risk may negatively affect trust, For example, if a consumer who sends sensitive transaction data over Internet is concerned that his or her private information may leak out because of the lack of security, trust may decrease (Olivero and Lunt, 2004), By the same token, if the consumer feels that the online merchant has the potential to profit by behaving in an opportunistic manner taking advantage of the remote, impersonal nature of online commerce, then it is unlikely that the merchant will be trusted, That is, the more the probable danger is likely to occur, the less trust and the greater need to control the transaction (Olivero and Lunt, 2004), In summary, a review of the related studies indicates that while some researchers looked at the influence of overall perceived risk on trust level, not much attention has been given to the effects of different types of perceived risk, In this context the present research aims at addressing the need to study how trust is affected by different types of perceived risk, We classified perceived risk into six different types based on the literature, and empirically analyzed the impact of each type of perceived risk upon consumer trust in an online merchant and further its impact upon purchase intentions. To meet our research objectives, we developed a conceptual model depicting the nomological structure of the relationships among our research variables, and also formulated a total of seven hypotheses. The model and hypotheses were tested using an empirical analysis based on a questionnaire survey of 206 college students. The reliability was evaluated via Cronbach's alphas, the minimum of which was found to be 0.73, and therefore the questionnaire items are all deemed reliable. In addition, the results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) designed to check the validity of the measurement model indicate that the convergent, discriminate, and nomological validities of the model are all acceptable. The structural equation modeling analysis to test the hypotheses yielded the following results. Of the first six hypotheses (H1-1 through H1-6) designed to examine the relationships between each risk type and trust, three hypotheses including H1-1 (performance risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust), H1-2 (psychological risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust) and H1-5 (online payment risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust) were supported with path coefficients of -0.30, -0.27 and -0.16 respectively. Finally, H2 (trust ${\rightarrow}$ purchase intentions) was supported with relatively high path coefficients of 0.73. Results of the empirical study offer the following findings and implications. First. it was found that it was performance risk, psychological risk and online payment risk that have a statistically significant influence upon consumer trust in an online merchant. It implies that a consumer may find an online merchant untrustworthy if either the product quality or the product grade does not match his or her expectations. For that reason, online merchants including digital storefronts and e-marketplaces are suggested to pursue a strategy focusing on identifying the target customers and offering products that they feel best meet performance and psychological needs of those customers. Thus, they should do their best to make it widely known that their products are of as good quality and grade as those purchased from offline department stores. In addition, it may be inferred that today's online consumers remain concerned about the security of the online commerce environment due to the repeated occurrences of hacking or private information leakage. Online merchants should take steps to remove potential vulnerabilities and provide online notices to emphasize that their website is secure. Second, consumer's overall trust was found to have a statistically significant influence on purchase intentions. This finding, which is consistent with the results of numerous prior studies, suggests that increased sales will become a reality only with enhanced consumer trust.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.51-61
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• 2016

This study was carried out to assess the carbon budget of two urban parks and one natural park and to prepare the plan for improving the ecological functions of the park including carbon sink. Net Ecosystem Production (NEP) of those study sites was calculated from the relationship between Net Primary Production (NPP) and soil respiration of each study site. To understand carbon budget of the whole area designated as the park, carbon budget of the urban park was analyzed by classifying the vegetated and the non-vegetated zones. NEP of the Nohae and the Sanggye parks calculated by reflecting areal size that the non-vegetated zones occupy were shown in -1.0 and $0.6\;ton\;C\;ha^{-1}yr^{-1}$, respectively. On the other hand, NEP of Mt. Bulam natural park as a reference site was in $2.3\;ton\;C\;ha^{-1}yr^{-1}$. Based on the result, the Nohae park was assessed as carbon source rather than carbon sink. On the other hand, the Sanggye park was classified as carbon sink but the role was poor compared with natural park. The result is, first of all, due to lower NPP of the vegetation introduced for the parks compared with natural vegetation. The other reason is due to wide arrangement of non-vegetated zone. To solve those problems and thereby to create the urban park with high ecological quality, selection of plant species suitable for the ecological characteristic of the park, their arrangement imitated natural vegetation, and ecological zoning were recommended.