• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.53-74
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• 2012

A challenge in fostering virtual communities is the continuous supply of knowledge, namely members' willingness to contribute knowledge to their communities. Previous research argues that giving away knowledge eventually causes the possessors of that knowledge to lose their unique value to others, benefiting all except the contributor. Furthermore, communication within virtual communities involves a large number of participants with different social backgrounds and perspectives. The establishment of mutual understanding to comprehend conversations and foster knowledge contribution in virtual communities is inevitably more difficult than face-to-face communication in a small group. In spite of these arguments, evidence suggests that individuals in virtual communities do engage in social behaviors such as knowledge contribution. It is important to understand why individuals provide their valuable knowledge to other community members without a guarantee of returns. In virtual communities, knowledge is inherently rooted in individual members' experiences and expertise. This personal nature of knowledge requires social interactions between virtual community members for knowledge transfer. This study employs the social capital theory in order to account for interpersonal relationship factors and identity theory for individual and group factors that may affect knowledge contribution. First, social capital is the relationship capital which is embedded within the relationships among the participants in a network and available for use when it is needed. Social capital is a productive resource, facilitating individuals' actions for attainment. Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1997) identify three dimensions of social capital and explain theoretically how these dimensions affect the exchange of knowledge. Thus, social capital would be relevant to knowledge contribution in virtual communities. Second, existing research has addressed the importance of identity in facilitating knowledge contribution in a virtual context. Identity in virtual communities has been described as playing a vital role in the establishment of personal reputations and in the recognition of others. For instance, reputation systems that rate participants in terms of the quality of their contributions provide a readily available inventory of experts to knowledge seekers. Despite the growing interest in identities, however, there is little empirical research about how identities in the communities influence knowledge contribution. Therefore, the goal of this study is to better understand knowledge contribution by examining the roles of social capital and identity in virtual communities. Based on a theoretical framework of social capital and identity theory, we develop and test a theoretical model and evaluate our hypotheses. Specifically, we propose three variables such as cohesiveness, reciprocity, and commitment, referring to the social capital theory, as antecedents of knowledge contribution in virtual communities. We further posit that members with a strong identity (self-presentation and group identification) contribute more knowledge to virtual communities. We conducted a field study in order to validate our research model. We collected data from 192 members of virtual communities and used the PLS method to analyse the data. The tests of the measurement model confirm that our data set has appropriate discriminant and convergent validity. The results of testing the structural model show that cohesion, reciprocity, and self-presentation significantly influence knowledge contribution, while commitment and group identification do not significantly influence knowledge contribution. Our findings on cohesion and reciprocity are consistent with the previous literature. Contrary to our expectations, commitment did not significantly affect knowledge contribution in virtual communities. This result may be due to the fact that knowledge contribution was voluntary in the virtual communities in our sample. Another plausible explanation for this result may be the self-selection bias for the survey respondents, who are more likely to contribute their knowledge to virtual communities. The relationship between self-presentation and knowledge contribution was found to be significant in virtual communities, supporting the results of prior literature. Group identification did not significantly affect knowledge contribution in this study, inconsistent with the wealth of research that identifies group identification as an important factor for knowledge sharing. This conflicting result calls for future research that examines the role of group identification in knowledge contribution in virtual communities. This study makes a contribution to theory development in the area of knowledge management in general and virtual communities in particular. For practice, the results of this study identify the circumstances under which individual factors would be effective for motivating knowledge contribution to virtual communities.

• 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.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.73-91
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• 2013

Advertising market has been facing new challenges due to dramatic change in advertising channels and the advent of innovative media such as mobile devices. Recent research related to mobile devices is mainly focused on the fact that mobile devices could identify users'physical location in real-time, and this sheds light on how location-based technology is utilized to achieve competitive advantage in advertising market. With the introduction of smartphone, the functionality of smartphone has become much more diverse and context awareness is one of the areas that require further study. This work analyses the influence of context awareness value resulted from the transformation of advertising channel in mobile communication market, and our research result reflects recent trend in advertising market environment which is not considered in previous studies. Many constructs has intensively been studied in the context of advertising channel in traditional marketing environment, and entertainment, irritation and information are considered to be the most widely accepted variables that has positive relationship with advertising value. Also, in smartphone advertisement, four main dimensions of context awareness value are recognized: identification, activity, timing and location. In this study, we assume that these four constructs has positive relationship with context awareness value. Finally, we propose that advertising value and context awareness value positively influence smartphone advertising attitude. Partial Least Squares (PLS) structural model is used in our theoretical research model to test proposed hypotheses. A well designed survey is conducted for college students in Korea, and reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity of constructs and measurement indicators are carefully evaluated and the results show that reliability and validity are confirmed according to predefined statistical criteria. Goodness-of-fit of our research model is also supported. In summary, the results collectively suggest good measurement properties for the proposed research model. The research outcomes are as follows. First, information has positive impact on advertising value while entertainment and irritation have no significant impact. Information, entertainment and irritation together account for 38.8% of advertising value. Second, along with the change in advertising market due to the advent of smartphone, activity, timing and location have positive impact on context awareness value while identification has no significant impact. In addition, identification, activity, location and time together account for 46.3% of context awareness value. Third, advertising value and context awareness value both positively influence smartphone advertising attitude, and these two constructs explain 31.7% of the variability of smartphone advertising attitude. The theoretical implication of our research is as follows. First, the influence of entertainment and irritation is reduced which are known to be crucial factors according to previous studies related to advertising value, while the influence of information is increased. It indicates that smartphone users are not likely interested in entertaining effect of smartphone advertisement, and are insensitive to the inconvenience due to smartphone advertisement. Second, in today' ubiquitous computing environment, it is effective to provide differentiated advertising service by utilizing smartphone users'context awareness values such as identification, activity, timing and location in order to achieve competitive business advantage in advertising market. For practical implications, enterprises should provide valuable and useful information that might attract smartphone users by adopting differentiation strategy as smartphone users are sensitive to the information provided via smartphone. Also enterprises not only provide useful information but also recognize and utilize smarphone users' unique characteristics and behaviors by increasing context awareness values. In summary, our result implies that smartphone advertisement should be optimized by considering the needed information of smartphone users in order to maximize advertisement effect.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.87-106
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• 2013

In the service-oriented economy, knowledge and skills are considered core resources to secure competitive advantages and service innovation. Knowledge management capability, which facilitates to produce, share, accumulate and reuse knowledge, becomes as important as knowledge itself to create service value. Along with knowledge management capability, dynamic capability and operational capability are the key capabilities related to managing service delivery processes. Previous studies indicated that these three capabilities are related to service innovation. Although separately investigate the relationship between the three capabilities. The purpose of this study is 1) to define variables that have effects on service innovation including knowledge management capability, dynamic capability and operational capability, and 2) to empirically test to identify relationship among variables. In this study, knowledge management capability is defined as the capability to manage knowledge process. Dynamic capability is regarded as the firm's ability to integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competences to address rapidly changing environments. Operational capability refers to a high-level routine that, together with its implementing input flows, confers upon an organization's management a set of decision options for producing significant outputs of a particular type. The proposed research model was tested against the data collected through the survey method. The survey questionnaire was distributed to the managers who participated in an educational program for management consulting. Each individual who answered the questionnaire represented a knowledge based service firm. About 212 surveys questionnaires were sent via e-mail or directly delivered to respondents. The number of useable responses was 93. Measurement items were adapted from previous studies to reflect the characteristics of the industry each informant worked in. All measurement items were in, 5 point Likert scale with anchors ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Out of 93 respondents, about 81% were male, 82% of respondents were in their 30s. In terms of jobs, managers were 39.78%, professions/technicians were 24.73%, researchers were 12.90%, and sales people were 10.75%. Most of respondents worked for medium size enterprises (47,31%) in their, less than 30 employees (46.24%) in their number of employees, and less than 10 million USD (65.59%) in terms of sales volume. To test the proposed research model, structural equation modeling (SEM) technique (SPSS 16.0 and AMOS version 5) was used. We found that the three organizational capabilities have influence on service innovation directly or indirectly. Knowledge management capability directly affects dynamic capability and service innovation but indirectly affect operational capability through dynamic capability. Dynamic capability has no direct impact on service innovation, but influence service innovation indirectly through operational capability. Operational capability was found to positively affect service innovation. In sum, three organizational capabilities (knowledge management capability, dynamic capability and operational capability) need to be strategically managed at firm level, because organizational capabilities are significantly related to service innovation. An interesting result is that dynamic capability has a positive effect on service innovation only indirectly through operational capability. This result indicates that service innovation might have a characteristics similar to process innovation rather than product orientation. The results also show that organizational capabilities are inter-correlated to influence each other. Dynamic capability enables effective resource management, arrangement, and integration. Through these dynamic capability affected activities, strategic agility and responsibility get strength. Knowledge management capability intensify dynamic capability and service innovation. Knowledge management capability is the basis of dynamic capability as well. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed further in the conclusion section.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.9 no.11
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• pp.432-442
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• 2009

This research had a look at what effect of the pursing benefit has on satisfaction, behavioral intention, and attitude of the visitors to the Gwangju Biennale. The survey was conducted for 320 visitors who finished their exhibition viewing schedule starting September 5 until September 19 [15 days]. 300 questionnaires excepting 20 unfaithfully responded copies among those collected from the surveyed were used for the analysis. As for the statistical disposal of the collected data, after going through the process of Data Coding, this research conducted an frequency analysis using SPSS 12.0 for window & statistics package program AMOS 5.0, an exploratory factor analysis to test the reliability and feasibility of the data, and reliability test of each factor; then, this research tested a hypothesis using structural equation model. The research results are as follows: First, as a result of factor analysis of the 15 pursuing benefits, 4 factors were elicited, such as pursuit of an intellectual experience, pursuit of a novel, exotic experience, pursuit of interpersonal, cultural exchange, and pursuit of internal fullness, etc.; as a result of factor analysis of the 10 attitudes, three factors were elicited, such as affective, cognitive, behavioral factors; as a result of factor analysis of 12 types of satisfaction, two factors, such as satisfaction with facilities and convenience matters, etc. were elicited. Second, as a result of the suitability of research model, suitability, its fidelity came out as $x^2=107.508$, d.f.=48, p=.000, Q=2.240, GFI=.942, AGFI=.906, RMR=.024, NFI=.952, TLI=.963, CFI=.973, RMSEA=.064. Third, pursuing benefit was found out to have a positive effect on satisfaction, attitude, and behavioral intention. Fourth, attitude was found out to have a positive significant effect on satisfaction. Fifth, attitude was found out to have a positive effect on behavioral intention. Sixth, satisfaction was found out to have a positive effect on behavioral intention.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.149-161
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• 2014

The export of domestic public services to overseas markets contains many potential obstacles, stemming from different export procedures, the target services, and socio-economic environments. In order to alleviate these problems, the business incubation platform as an open business ecosystem can be a powerful instrument to support the decisions taken by participants and stakeholders. In this paper, we propose an ontology model and its implementation processes for the business incubation platform with an open and pervasive architecture to support public service exports. For the conceptual model of platform ontology, export case studies are used for requirements analysis. The conceptual model shows the basic structure, with vocabulary and its meaning, the relationship between ontologies, and key attributes. For the implementation and test of the ontology model, the logical structure is edited using Prot$\acute{e}$g$\acute{e}$ editor. The core engine of the business incubation platform is the simulator module, where the various contexts of export businesses should be captured, defined, and shared with other modules through ontologies. It is well-known that an ontology, with which concepts and their relationships are represented using a shared vocabulary, is an efficient and effective tool for organizing meta-information to develop structural frameworks in a particular domain. The proposed model consists of five ontologies derived from a requirements survey of major stakeholders and their operational scenarios: service, requirements, environment, enterprise, and county. The service ontology contains several components that can find and categorize public services through a case analysis of the public service export. Key attributes of the service ontology are composed of categories including objective, requirements, activity, and service. The objective category, which has sub-attributes including operational body (organization) and user, acts as a reference to search and classify public services. The requirements category relates to the functional needs at a particular phase of system (service) design or operation. Sub-attributes of requirements are user, application, platform, architecture, and social overhead. The activity category represents business processes during the operation and maintenance phase. The activity category also has sub-attributes including facility, software, and project unit. The service category, with sub-attributes such as target, time, and place, acts as a reference to sort and classify the public services. The requirements ontology is derived from the basic and common components of public services and target countries. The key attributes of the requirements ontology are business, technology, and constraints. Business requirements represent the needs of processes and activities for public service export; technology represents the technological requirements for the operation of public services; and constraints represent the business law, regulations, or cultural characteristics of the target country. The environment ontology is derived from case studies of target countries for public service operation. Key attributes of the environment ontology are user, requirements, and activity. A user includes stakeholders in public services, from citizens to operators and managers; the requirements attribute represents the managerial and physical needs during operation; the activity attribute represents business processes in detail. The enterprise ontology is introduced from a previous study, and its attributes are activity, organization, strategy, marketing, and time. The country ontology is derived from the demographic and geopolitical analysis of the target country, and its key attributes are economy, social infrastructure, law, regulation, customs, population, location, and development strategies. The priority list for target services for a certain country and/or the priority list for target countries for a certain public services are generated by a matching algorithm. These lists are used as input seeds to simulate the consortium partners, and government's policies and programs. In the simulation, the environmental differences between Korea and the target country can be customized through a gap analysis and work-flow optimization process. When the process gap between Korea and the target country is too large for a single corporation to cover, a consortium is considered an alternative choice, and various alternatives are derived from the capability index of enterprises. For financial packages, a mix of various foreign aid funds can be simulated during this stage. It is expected that the proposed ontology model and the business incubation platform can be used by various participants in the public service export market. It could be especially beneficial to small and medium businesses that have relatively fewer resources and experience with public service export. We also expect that the open and pervasive service architecture in a digital business ecosystem will help stakeholders find new opportunities through information sharing and collaboration on business processes.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.67-90
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• 2008

Prior to making choices among online products and services, consumers often search online product reviews written by other consumers. Online product reviews have great influences on consumer behavior because they are believed to be more reliable than information provided by sellers. However, ever-increasing lists of product reviews make it difficult for consumers to find the right information efficiently. A customized search mechanism is a method to provide personalized information which fits the user's requirements. This study examines effects of a customized search mechanism and perceived similarity between consumers and product reviewers on consumer behaviors. More specifically, we address the following research questions: (1) Can a customized search mechanism increase perceived similarity between product review authors and readers? (2) Are product reviews perceived as more credible when product reviews were written by the authors perceived similar to them? (3) Does credibility of product reviews have a positive impact on acceptance of product reviews? (4) Does acceptance of product reviews have an influence on purchase intention of the readers? To examine these research questions, a lab experiment with a between-subject factor (whether a customized search mechanism is provided or not) design was employed. In order to enhance mundane realism and increase generalizability of the findings, the experiment sites were built based on a real online store, cherrya.com (http://www.cherrya.com/). Sixty participants were drawn from a pool that consisted of undergraduate and graduate students in a large university. Participation was voluntary; all the participants received 5,000 won to encourage their motivation and involvement in the experiment tasks. In addition, 15 participants, who selected by a random draw, received 30,000 won to actually purchase the product that he or she decided to buy during the experiment. Of the 60 participants, 25 were male and 35 were female. In examining the homogeneity between the two groups, the results of t-tests revealed no significant difference in gender, age, academic years, online shopping experience, and Internet usage. To test our research model, we completed tests of the measurement models and the structural models using PLS Graph version 3.00. The analysis confirmed individual item reliability, internal consistency, and discriminant validity of measurements. The results show that participants feel more credible when product reviews were written by the authors perceived similar to them, credibility of product reviews have a positive impact on acceptance of product reviews, and acceptance of product reviews have an influence on purchase intention of the readers. However, a customized search mechanism did not increase perceived similarity between product review authors and readers. The results imply that there is an urgent need to develop a better customized search tool in order to increase perceived similarity between product review authors and readers.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.6C
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• pp.249-257
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• 2012

The reinforced earth method is financially viable. Furthermore, it overcomes environmental limitations and is therefore employed in retaining walls, slopes, foundations, roads, embankments, and other structures. However, in some cases, reinforced retaining walls are not strong enough in the curved sections and can collapse. Such mishaps are believed to occur because of an unsatisfactory analysis of the curved sections of a reinforced retaining wall. Accordingly, with the aim of investigating the workability and structural safety of curved sections of various types, this study investigates the differences in the estimated horizontal displacements of curved sections of various types and subsequently uses this information to study and analyze preliminary data so that appropriate measures can be taken to resolve alignment issues. The results of an experiment reveal that when a load is applied to curved sections of both concave and convex types, the largest horizontal displacement occurs at the center of the section. In the concave form, the earth pressure force is directed inward, whereas in the convex form, this force is directed outward. As a result, the horizontal displacement in convex forms is larger than that in concave forms. Convex reinforced earth structures are subjected to earth pressures as well as lateral earth pressure, therefore horizontal displacements in convex curved sections is larger than that of concave curved sections.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.37 no.8
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• pp.781-788
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• 2013

Predicting the engine component temperature is a basic step to conduct structural safety evaluation in medium-speed diesel engine design. Recent trends such as increasing power density and performance necessitate more effective thermal management of the engine for achieving the desired durability and reliability. In addition, the local temperatures of several engine components must be maintained in the proper range to avoid problems such as low- or high-temperature corrosion. Therefore, it is very important to predict the temperature distribution of each engine part accurately in the design stage. In this study, the temperature of an engine component is calculated by using steady-state conjugate heat transfer analysis. A proper approach to determine the thermal load distribution on the thermal boundary area is suggested by using 1D engine system analysis, 3D transient CFD results, and previous experimental data from another developed engine model. A Hyundai HiMSEN engine having 250-mm bore size was chosen to validate the analysis procedure. The predicted results showed a reasonable agreement with experimental results.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.17 no.1 s.74
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• pp.1-11
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• 2005

A bi-level damage detection algorithm that utilizes the dynamic responses of the structure as input and neural network (NN) as pattern classifier is presented. Signal anomaly index (SAI) is proposed to express the amount of changes in the shape of frequency response functions (FRF) or strain frequency response function (SFRF). SAI is calculated using the acceleration and dynamic strain responses acquired from intact and damaged states of the structure. In a bi-level damage identification algorithm, the presence of damage is first identified from the magnitude of the SAI value, then the location of the damage is identified using the pattern recognition capability of NN. The proposed algorithm is applied to an experimental model bridge to demonstrate the feasibility of the algorithm. Numerically simulated signals are used for training the NN, and experimentally-acquired signals are used to test the NN. The results of this example application suggest that the SAI-based pattern recognition approach may be applied to the structural health monitoring system for a real bridge.