• International Journal of Contents
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.29-37
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• 2019

This study investigates how adolescents' smartphone attachment, social anxiety, and offline and smartphone network sizes are related to their friendship in regards to maintaining either a strong or weak bond. Based on an online survey involving 402 adolescent smartphone users in South Korea, this study found that smartphone attachment was positively related to a strong ties friendship maintenance and negatively related to weak ties friendships. Similarly, social anxiety was found to be negatively associated with friendship maintenance for both strong and weak - tie relationships. More importantly, this study revealed that the types and size of social networks moderated the relationships among adolescents with smartphone attachment, social anxiety, and friendship maintenance through smartphones.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.141-154
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• 2022

This study aims to investigate how tie strength in business networks affects successful knowledge sharing, as well as the impact of environmental uncertainty on the relationship between knowledge sharing and tie strength. We gathered data through a questionnaire-based survey of 310 employees affiliated with a high-technology industry in Korea. The results highlighted the positive influence of strong ties on tacit knowledge sharing and weak ties on explicit knowledge sharing. Additionally, in this study, we determine that strong ties are strengthened to share tacit knowledge with exchange parties when environmental uncertainty is high, whereas weak ties may remain unaffected by environmental uncertainty. This study contributes to the literature on tie strength and knowledge sharing by applying social capital theory to a high-technology industry. The findings suggest that firms must take advantage of strong and weak ties to facilitate knowledge sharing to enhance competency, create novel knowledge, and obtain a competitive advantage.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.1-12
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• 2015

This study attempted to verify the influence of strong and weak ties on the performance of project based organizations by examining various tie relationships in the Korean TV drama making industry. The extant literature has suggested that the impact of network ties depends not only on their strength but also the network contexts (i.e., project characteristics). Due to artistic and creative nature of TV drama making, it is hypothesized that weak tie networks among critical human resources would outperform strong tie networks. Empirical results support the hypothesis that weak tie networks indeed outperform strong tie networks in terms of viewing rate of drama.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.53-66
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• 2023

Role models are also known to influence an individual's job or career choice. The positive effect of role models on entrepreneurship has already been revealed through many precious researches. It is said that people choose not only family members who are related by blood, such as parents, siblings, and relatives, but also acquaintances whom they have met through social relationships as role models. In this study, we divided into entrepreneurs with no role models other than themselves and entrepreneurs with role models. In addition, we classified parental siblings and relative role models as role models with strong ties, and acquaintance role models as role models with weak ties. We analyzed the differences in personal attributes, entrepreneurial orientation factors, and learning orientation between the entrepreneurs with role models and those without role models. Also, the differences in personal attributes, innovativeness, proactiveness, risk-taking propensity, and learning orientation between the entrepreneurs with strong ties role models and those with weak ties role models were examined. The empirical analysis results are as follows. First, it was found that the proportion of women entrepreneurs without role models is higher. Second, the entrepreneurs with role models with weak ties tend to run larger scale start-ups. Third, it was found that the entrepreneurs with role models of weak ties tend to have higher learning orientation. Fourth, gender shows the greatest influence on th absence or presence of role models. Fifth, it was found that learning orientation and startup size have the greatest influence on the decision of the role model with weak ties or that with strong ties.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.97-109
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• 2014

Social media is a general term for online services by which users share opinions, perspectives, and experiences. It supports interactions between users in sharing contents on it and weak ties among them play an important role in the process. This exploratory study attempts to identify crucial factors of establishing weak ties between social media users in the perspective of social network theory and uncertainty reduction theory. We collected data through diary study and in-depth interview and analyzed it following grounded theory approach. As a result, social media users more actively interacted each other or shared contents based on weak ties, compared to strong ties. In addition, similarity, self-disclosure, and relevance appeared to facilitate establishment of weak ties, by reducing psychological distance between social media users and perceived uncertainty of them.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.159-189
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• 2012

What attracts consumers to bloggers' reviews? Consumers would be attracted both by the Bloggers' expertise (i.e., knowledge and experience) and by his/her unbiased manner of delivering information. Expertise and trustworthiness are both virtues of information sources, particularly when there is uncertainty in decision-making. Noting this point, we postulate that consumers' motives determine the relative weights they place on expertise and trustworthiness. In addition, our hypotheses assume that tie strength moderates consumers' expectation on bloggers' expertise and trustworthiness: with expectation on expertise enhanced for power-blog user-group (weak-ties), and an expectation on trustworthiness elevated for personal-blog user-group (strong-ties). Finally, we theorize that the effect of credibility on willingness to accept a review is moderated by tie strength; the predictive power of credibility is more prominent for the personal-blog user-groups than for the power-blog user groups. To support these assumptions, we conducted a field survey with blog users, collecting retrospective self-report data. The "gourmet shop" was chosen as a target product category, and obtained data analyzed by structural equations modeling. Findings from these data provide empirical support for our theoretical predictions. First, we found that the purposive motive aimed at satisfying instrumental information needs increases reliance on bloggers' expertise, but interpersonal connectivity value for alleviating loneliness elevates reliance on bloggers' trustworthiness. Second, expertise-based credibility is more prominent for power-blog user-groups than for personal-blog user-groups. While strong ties attract consumers with trustworthiness based on close emotional bonds, weak ties gain consumers' attention with new, non-redundant information (Levin & Cross, 2004). Thus, when the existing knowledge system, used in strong ties, does not work as smoothly for addressing an impending problem, the weak-tie source can be utilized as a handy reference. Thus, we can anticipate that power bloggers secure credibility by virtue of their expertise while personal bloggers trade off on their trustworthiness. Our analysis demonstrates that power bloggers appeal more strongly to consumers than do personal bloggers in the area of expertise-based credibility. Finally, the effect of review credibility on willingness to accept a review is higher for the personal-blog user-group than for the power-blog user-group. Actually, the inference that review credibility is a potent predictor of assessing willingness to accept a review is grounded on the analogy that attitude is an effective indicator of purchase intention. However, if memory about established attitudes is blocked, the predictive power of attitude on purchase intention is considerably diminished. Likewise, the effect of credibility on willingness to accept a review can be affected by certain moderators. Inspired by this analogy, we introduced tie strength as a possible moderator and demonstrated that tie strength moderated the effect of credibility on willingness to accept a review. Previously, Levin and Cross (2004) showed that credibility mediates strong-ties through receipt of knowledge, but this credibility mediation is not observed for weak-ties, where a direct path to it is activated. Thus, the predictive power of credibility on behavioral intention - that is, willingness to accept a review - is expected to be higher for strong-ties.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.75-97
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• 2012

Knowledge residing in the heads of employees has always been regarded as one of the most critical resources within a firm. However, many tries to facilitate knowledge transfer among employees has been unsuccessful because of the motivational and cognitive problems between the knowledge source and the recipient. Social capital, which is defined as "the sum of the actual and potential resources embedded within, available through, derived from the network of relationships possessed by an individual or social unit [Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998]," is suggested to resolve these motivational and cognitive problems of knowledge transfer. In Social capital theory, there are two research streams. One insists that social capital strengthens group solidarity and brings up cooperative behaviors among group members, such as voluntary help to colleagues. Therefore, social capital can motivate an expert to transfer his/her knowledge to a colleague in need without any direct reward. The other stream insists that social capital provides an access to various resources that the owner of social capital doesn't possess directly. In knowledge transfer context, an employee with social capital can access and learn much knowledge from his/her colleagues. Therefore, social capital provides benefits to both the knowledge source and the recipient in different ways. However, prior research on knowledge transfer and social capital is mostly limited to either of the research stream of social capital and covered only the knowledge source's or the knowledge recipient's perspective. Social network theory which focuses on the structural dimension of social capital provides clear explanation about the in-depth mechanisms of social capital's two different benefits. 'Strong tie' builds up identification, trust, and emotional attachment between the knowledge source and the recipient; therefore, it motivates the knowledge source to transfer his/her knowledge to the recipient. On the other hand, 'weak tie' easily expands to 'diverse' knowledge sources because it does not take much effort to manage. Therefore, the real value of 'weak tie' comes from the 'diverse network structure,' not the 'weak tie' itself. It implies that the two different perspectives on strength of ties can co-exist. For example, an extroverted employee can manage many 'strong' ties with 'various' colleagues. In this regards, the individual-level structure of one's relationships as well as the dyadic-level relationship should be considered together to provide a holistic view of social capital. In addition, interaction effect between individual-level characteristics and dyadic-level characteristics can be examined, too. Based on these arguments, this study has following research questions. (1) How does the social capital of the knowledge source and the recipient influence knowledge transfer respectively? (2) How does the strength of ties between the knowledge source and the recipient influence knowledge transfer? (3) How does the social capital of the knowledge source and the recipient influence the effect of the strength of ties between the knowledge source and the recipient on knowledge transfer? Based on Social capital theory and Social network theory, a multi-level research model is developed to consider both the individual-level social capital of the knowledge source and the recipient and the dyadic-level strength of relationship between the knowledge source and the recipient. 'Cross-classified random effect model,' one of the multi-level analysis methods, is adopted to analyze the survey responses from 337 R&D employees. The results of analysis provide several findings. First, among three dimensions of the knowledge source's social capital, network centrality (i.e., structural dimension) shows the significant direct effect on knowledge transfer. On the other hand, the knowledge recipient's network centrality is not influential. Instead, it strengthens the influence of the strength of ties between the knowledge source and the recipient on knowledge transfer. It means that the knowledge source's network centrality does not directly increase knowledge transfer. Instead, by providing access to various knowledge sources, the network centrality provides only the context where the strong tie between the knowledge source and the recipient leads to effective knowledge transfer. In short, network centrality has indirect effect on knowledge transfer from the knowledge recipient's perspective, while it has direct effect from the knowledge source's perspective. This is the most important contribution of this research. In addition, contrary to the research hypothesis, company tenure of the knowledge recipient negatively influences knowledge transfer. It means that experienced employees do not look for new knowledge and stick to their own knowledge. This is also an interesting result. One of the possible reasons is the hierarchical culture of Korea, such as a fear of losing face in front of subordinates. In a research methodology perspective, multi-level analysis adopted in this study seems to be very promising in management research area which has a multi-level data structure, such as employee-team-department-company. In addition, social network analysis is also a promising research approach with an exploding availability of online social network data.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.219-232
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to give implications for cooperative network building for general corporate IT staffs as well as operational improvement of the IT organization which is a specialized unit in general company though analysis of characteristics of communication networks of the IT organization. 39 IT employees of company "A" were surveyed and interviewed, and the data collected were analyzed in a network analysis method. The analysis shows that a variety of networks were built across employees - e.g. strong/weak ties or centralized/decentralized structure - by each communication area. IT competency network was found weak ties. Career-rela ted network showed centralized and hierarchical characteristics. At the center of each network was positioned manager of each team. To address improvement of the findings, I presented the followings: more active networking over IT competency, enhancement of work centralization and collection of research data as to communication network of IT organization.

• Journal of the HCI Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.5-15
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• 2018

The biggest characteristic of Social Network Game(SNG) is that games are played through competition and cooperation with the actual acquaintances based on SNS. Even though such competition and challenge spirit have been dealt importantly as preceding factors having influence on the flow in games in the existing game area, it is rare to find researches deeply considering the characteristics of ranking competition between acquaintances in SNG. Moreover, it was not considered that such acquaintances could be the targets of competition and also challenge at the same time in SNG. Therefore, this study examined the achievements(big differences in ranking, small differences in ranking) of the targets for comparison and closeness(strong ties, weak ties) with the targets for comparison as factors having influence on competition and challenge spirit, and also empirically analyzed the influence of such factors and interactions between factors on players' competition and challenge spirit in the ranking competitive society, by analyzing the characteristics of ranking competition between acquaintances in the mobile puzzle, SNG based on SNS through the analysis on the preceding research on the self-evaluation maintenance model of the social comparison theory. In the results, when preferentially exposing competitors with small difference in ranking and also exposing competitors with stronger ties, players' competition is stimulated, so that it can improve their challenge spirit. Such results of this study can be expected to a lot contribute to the actual design work of SNG ranking table contents.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.1-10
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to explore ways to nurture creative and fusion-type talents centered on ANT. In order to nurture creative and convergence-type talents centered on ANT, first, it is necessary to utilize Kao's Law in the network formation stage. Second, it is necessary to utilize the strong power of weak ties in the network formation stage. Third, in order to cause a stir in the stage of raising questions among the four stages of translation, the ability to ask questions must be developed. Fourth, education in various creative problem-solving techniques is needed to throw a stir. Fifth, in order to successfully intervene in the second stage of the four stages of translation, the stage of attracting attention, communication and critical thinking skills must be trained. Suggestions for follow-up research are: First, it is necessary to compare and analyze the four stages of translation and the stage of the creative problem-solving model presented by ANT. Second, it is expected that there will be follow-up studies that apply specific cases centering on ANT.