• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.163-180
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• 1978

Much of a person's energy is spent in the effort of becoming a productive member of to-day's complex society. This activity may cause tension, and chronic unrelieved tension is an influential factor in blood pressure elevation. The problem of this study was to identify manifest needs and self-actualization of patients with essential hypertension, and to analyse and compare their manifest needs and selt-actualization with the selected general characteristics of We, sex, religion, occupation and level of education with a control group of patients with normal blood pressure readings. The purpose was to contribute to the planning of nursing interventions toward reducing the impact of complex psycho-somatic factors on the anxiety of patients with essential hypertension. The instruments used included selected items from the Edwards (1959) Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS) as adapted by Hwang (1965) and from the Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) (Shostrom 1964, 1974) adapted by Kim and Lee (1977) to measure manifest needs and self-actualization. The convenience sample was chosen from 149 persons who presented themselves for general physical examinations at Ewha University Medical Centre and 41 patients diagnosed with essential hypertension at three general hospitals in Seoul during June 1 and August 31, 1977. Forty-nine persons from the Ewha group with blood-pressure readings exceeding 150/90 were added to the experimental group. Data were analysed by the S.P.S.S. computer programme using t-test and tests for statistical significance. Statistically significant findings were as follows: A. Blood Pressure and Manifest Needs. 1. with the exception of Autonomy, patients with hypertension had significantly high scores on all variables Abasement, Achievement, Affiliation, Aggression, Dominance, Emotionality, Exhibitionism and Sex. 2. When mean scores of normal persons were compared by age groups, normal persons had higher scores in the following order on Abasement (50's, 40's, 20's, 30's), Achievement (50's, 30's, 40's, 20's), Affiliation (50's, 40's, 30's, 20's), Dominance (50's, 40's, 40's, 20's) and Exhibitionism (30's, 50's, 40's, 20's). In each case, there was a significant difference between the first and last age group scores. 3. When the mean scores of normal persons were compared by sex, normal men had higher scores than women on Achievement, Affiliation, Aggression, Dominance, Exhibitionism and Sex. Male patients had higher scores than female patients on Achievement, Dominance, Exhibitionism and Sex, but female patients scored higher in Emotionality. 4. Normal persons had higher scores related to religion in the following order on Achievement (Buddhism, no religion, Christianity). Hyper tensive patients had higher scores on. Exhibitionism (no religion, Christianity, Buddhism). 5. Normal persons had higher scores related to occupation in the following order on Achievement and Exhibitionism (unemployed, office workers, teachless, businessmen), Emotionality (office workers, unemployed, businessmen, teacher) and Sex (office workers, unemployed, teachers, businessmen). Hypertensive patients had higher scores on Achievement and Aggression (teachers, businessmen, office worker, unemployed), Dominance and Exhibitionism (businessmen, teacher, of ace workers, unemployed) and Sex (teachers, office worker, businessmen, unemployed). 6. Normal persons had higher scores related to level of edification in the following order on Abasement, Emotionality and Autonomy (secondary school graduation, university). Hypertensive patients had higher scores on Abasement (no education, primary, university, secondary), Achievement (no education, secondary, university, primary) , Dominance (university, no education, secondary, primary), Exhibitionism (university, secondary, no education, primary), and Sex (university, secondary, primary, no education). B. Blood Pressure and Self_Actualization 1, Patients with hypertension had significantly lower scores on all variables. 2. Normal persons had higher scores related to age groups in the following order on Existentiality (20's, 30's, 40's, 50's). Hypertensive patients showed no significantly different scores. 3. Normal women had higher scores than men on Time Competence. Normal men had higher scores on Feeling Reactivity. Male patients had higher scores than women on Self-Actualizing Value and Self-Regard. 4. Normal persons ha 1 higher scores related to religion on spontaneity (Buddhism, no religion, Christianity). Hypertensive patients had higher scores on Time Competence and Nature of Man (Buddhism, Christianity, no religion). 5. Normal persons had higher scores related to occupation in the following order on Existentiality (teachers, office workers, businessmen, unemployed) and Self-Regard (unemployed, office workers, teachers, businessmen). Hypertensive patients showed no significantly different scores. 6. Normal persons had higher scores related to level of education in the following order on Existentiality and Self-Acceptance (university, secondary). Hypertensive patients had higher scores on inner-Director (university, secondary, no education, primary) and Existentiality (university, secondary, primary, no education). Recommendations for nursing interventions with hypertensive patients with emotional problems or low self-actualization were made. 1. The nurse should encourage the patient through her interactions with other members of the medical team to accept counselling and health education. 2. Through her therapeutic interpersonal relationships with the patient, the nurse should help him discover the causes of his emotional tension. 3. Through her health teaching with the family, the nurse should encourage them to participate with the medical team in the patient's therapeutic plan and in providing him with the minimum possible emotional support. 4. Through frequent counselling with the obsessive-thinking and inflexible patient, the nurse should reevaluate the patient's behaviour and her interventions. 5. Seriously ill patients should be given needed reeducation by members of the professional medical team.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.4291-4297
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• 2015

EEG has been used to measure the emotion of amenity and discomfort in the interior space. EEG is limited to the experiment, because it is a equipment of contact type. However, Vibraimage can measure the emotion with a web camera. Because Vibraimage is a equipment of non-contact type, it is more suitable for the interior space than EEG. Therefor, it tries to find a correlation variable between EEG and Vibraimage to measure the human emotions. In this study, it were analyzed correlation of EEG and vibraimage due to variation of loudness 60[dB], 90[dB] and rosemary, jasmine scents. Check the health status of subjects who were selected 3 male students, and the period of this experiment was about months. The condition of the environmental test room was in temperature 25[$^{\circ}C$], relative humidity 50[RH%], air current speed 0.02[m/s] and illuminance 1000[lux]. It were analyzed correlation of twenty-three index of EEG(absolute ${\theta}$, relative ${\theta}$, absolute $S{\alpha}$, relative $S{\alpha}$, absolute ${\alpha}$, relative ${\alpha}$, absolute ${\beta}$, relative ${\beta}$, absolute $\gamma$, relative $\gamma$, absolute $F{\alpha}$, relative $F{\alpha}$, absolute SMR, relative SMR, $SMR/{\theta}$, $SMR+M{\beta}/{\theta}$, absolute $H{\beta}$, relative $H{\beta}$, $H{\beta}/{\alpha}$, absolute $M{\beta}$, relative $M{\beta}$, SEF50, ASEF50) and ten index of Vibraimage(Aggression, Stress, Tension/Anxiety, Suspect, Balance, Charm, Energy, Self regulation, Inhibition, Neuroticism). As a result, I was found that relative ${\gamma}$ index of EEG and neuroticism index of Vibraimage have a high correlation as (${\pm}$).414 and (${\pm}$).424.

• Journal of Korean Dental Hygiene Science
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.37-50
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• 2023

Background: This study investigated the structural relationships among justice, test anxiety, and school reliability s non-face-to-face tests of dental hygiene students. Methods: A survey was conducted with 267 dental hygiene students. The survey items included general characteristics, opinions on evaluation, the fairness of non-face-to-face tests (distributive, procedural, and interactional justice), school satisfaction, and school reliability. For statistical analysis, independent-sample t-tests, one-way ANOVA, and structural modeling analyses were performed. Results: Among factors that directly affected distributive justice and reliability towards non-face-to-face tests, the higher the interactional justice (β=0.401, p<0.001) and distributive justice (β=0.232, p=0.002) levels, the higher the school satisfaction. The higher the school satisfaction (β=0.606, p<0.001) and procedural justice (β=0.299, p<0.001) levels, the higher the perceived reliability of the school. Factors that indirectly affected school reliability included interactional justice (β=0.243, p=0.010) and distributive justice (β=0.141, p=0.010). Interactional justice (β=0.592, p=0.010) and distributive justice (β=0.208, p=0.010) were the factors affecting school satisfaction. Moreover, factors that influenced school reliability were distributive justice (β=0.56, p=0.010), interactional justice (β=0.332, p=0.010), procedural justice (β=0.229, p=0.010), and distributive justice (β=0.116, p=0.010). Conclusions: Students will trust and be satisfied with schools when schools and professors sufficiently provide information on face-to-face tests and ensure proper procedures to achieve reasonable grades as rewards for exerted time and effort. Furthermore, this study provides a reference base for developing a variety of content for fair, non-face-to-face tests, thereby allowing students to trust their schools.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.56 no.11
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• pp.775-784
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• 2023

With the increasing trend of extreme rainfall that exceeds the design frequency of man-made structures due to extreme weather, it is necessary to review the safety of agricultural reservoirs designed in the past. However, there are no local government-managed reservoirs (13,685) that can be discharged in an emergency, except for reservoirs over a certain size under the jurisdiction of the Korea Rural Affairs Corporation. In this case, it is important to quickly deploy a mobile siphon to the site for preliminary discharge, and this study evaluated the applicability of a mobile siphon with a diameter of 200 mm, a minimum water level difference of 6 m, 420 (m²/h), and 10,000 (m²/day), which can perform both preliminary and emergency discharge functions, to the Yugum Reservoir in Gyeongju City. The test bed, Yugum Reservoir, is a facility that was completed in 1945 and has been in use for about 78 years. According to the hydrological stability analysis, the lowest height of the current dam crest section is 27.15 (EL.m), which is 0.29m lower than the reviewed flood level of 27.44 (EL.m), indicating that there is a possibility of lunar flow through the embankment, and the headroom is insufficient by 1.72 m, so it was reviewed as not securing hydrological safety. The water level-volume curve was arbitrarily derived because it was difficult to clearly establish the water level-flow relationship curve of the reservoir since the water level-flow measurement was not carried out regularly, and based on the derived curve, the algorithm for operating small and medium-sized old reservoirs was developed to consider the pre-discharge time, the amount of spillway discharge, and to predict the reservoir lunar flow time according to the flood volume by frequency, thereby securing evacuation time in advance and reducing the risk of collapse. Based on one row of 200 mm diameter mobile siphons, the optimal pre-discharge time to secure evacuation time (about 1 hour) while maintaining 80% of the upper limit water level (about 30,000 m²) during a 30-year flood was analyzed to be 12 hours earlier. If the pre-discharge technology utilizing siphons for small and medium-sized old reservoirs and the algorithm for reservoir operation are implemented in advance in case of abnormal weather and the decision-making of managers is supported, it is possible to secure the safety of residents in the risk area of reservoir collapse, resolve the anxiety of residents through the establishment of a support system for evacuating residents, and reduce risk factors by providing risk avoidance measures in the event of a reservoir risk situation.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.685-698
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• 2023

This study aimed to identify binge-eating behavior and food addiction in Korean population and to determine their associations with obesity, eating behaviors, mental health and cognitive characteristics. We collected clinical questionnaire scores related to eating problems (e.g. binge eating, food addiction, food cravings), mental health (e.g. depression), and cognitive functions (e.g. impulsivity, emotion regulation) in 257 Korean adults in the normal and the obese weight ranges. Binge-eating and food addiction were most frequent in obese women (binge-eating: 46.6%, food addiction: 29.3%) when we divided the participants into 4 groups depending on gender and obesity status. The independence test using the data with propensity score matching confirmed that binge-eating and food addiction were more prevalent in obese individuals. Finally, we constructed the logistic regression models using forward selection method to evaluate the influence of various clinical questionnaire scores on binge-eating and food addiction respectively. Binge-eating was significantly associated with the clinical scales of eating disorders, food craving, state anxiety, and emotion regulation (cognitive reappraisal) as well as food addiction. Food addiction demonstrated the significant effect of food craving, binge-eating, the interaction of obesity and age, and years of education. In conclusion, we found that binge-eating and food addiction are much more frequent in females and obese individuals. Both binge-eating and food addiction commonly involved eating problems (e.g. food craving), but there was difference in mental health and cognitive risk factors. Therefore, it is required to distinguish food addiction from binge-eating and investigate intrinsic and environmental risk factors for each pathology.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.89-111
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• 2008

Due to the development of digital technology, studies regarding smart wear integrating daily life have rapidly increased. However, consumer research about perception and attitude toward smart clothing hardly could find. The purpose of this study was to identify innovative characteristics and perceived risk of smart clothing and to analyze the influences of theses factors on product attitudes and intention to adopt. Specifically, five hypotheses were established. H1: Perceived attributes of smart clothing except for complexity would have positive relations to product attitude or purchase intention, while complexity would be opposite. H2: Product attitude would have positive relation to purchase intention. H3: Product attitude would have a mediating effect between perceived attributes and purchase intention. H4: Perceived risks of smart clothing would have negative relations to perceived attributes except for complexity, and positive relations to complexity. H5: Product attitude would have a mediating effect between perceived risks and purchase intention. A self-administered questionnaire was developed based on previous studies. After pretest, the data were collected during September, 2006, from university students in Korea who were relatively sensitive to innovative products. A total of 300 final useful questionnaire were analyzed by SPSS 13.0 program. About 60.3% were male with the mean age of 21.3 years old. About 59.3% reported that they were aware of smart clothing, but only 9 respondents purchased it. The mean of attitudes toward smart clothing and purchase intention was 2.96 (SD=.56) and 2.63 (SD=.65) respectively. Factor analysis using principal components with varimax rotation was conducted to identify perceived attribute and perceived risk dimensions. Perceived attributes of smart wear were categorized into relative advantage (including compatibility), observability (including triability), and complexity. Perceived risks were identified into physical/performance risk, social psychological risk, time loss risk, and economic risk. Regression analysis was conducted to test five hypotheses. Relative advantage and observability were significant predictors of product attitude (adj $R^2$=.223) and purchase intention (adj $R^2$=.221). Complexity showed negative influence on product attitude. Product attitude presented significant relation to purchase intention (adj $R^2$=.692) and partial mediating effect between perceived attributes and purchase intention (adj $R^2$=.698). Therefore hypothesis one to three were accepted. In order to test hypothesis four, four dimensions of perceived risk and demographic variables (age, gender, monthly household income, awareness of smart clothing, and purchase experience) were entered as independent variables in the regression models. Social psychological risk, economic risk, and gender (female) were significant to predict relative advantage (adj $R^2$=.276). When perceived observability was a dependent variable, social psychological risk, time loss risk, physical/performance risk, and age (younger) were significant in order (adj $R^2$=.144). However, physical/performance risk was positively related to observability. The more Koreans seemed to be observable of smart clothing, the more increased the probability of physical harm or performance problems received. Complexity was predicted by product awareness, social psychological risk, economic risk, and purchase experience in order (adj $R^2$=.114). Product awareness was negatively related to complexity, meaning high level of product awareness would reduce complexity of smart clothing. However, purchase experience presented positive relation with complexity. It appears that consumers can perceive high level of complexity when they are actually consuming smart clothing in real life. Risk variables were positively related with complexity. That is, in order to decrease complexity, it is also necessary to consider minimizing anxiety factors about social psychological wound or loss of money. Thus, hypothesis 4 was partially accepted. Finally, in testing hypothesis 5, social psychological risk and economic risk were significant predictors for product attitude (adj $R^2$=.122) and purchase intention (adj $R^2$=.099) respectively. When attitude variable was included with risk variables as independent variables in the regression model to predict purchase intention, only attitude variable was significant (adj $R^2$=.691). Thus attitude variable presented full mediating effect between perceived risks and purchase intention, and hypothesis 5 was accepted. Findings would provide guidelines for fashion and electronic businesses who aim to create and strengthen positive attitude toward smart clothing. Marketers need to consider not only functional feature of smart clothing, but also practical and aesthetic attributes, since appropriateness for social norm or self image would reduce uncertainty of psychological or social risk, which increase relative advantage of smart clothing. Actually social psychological risk was significantly associated to relative advantage. Economic risk is negatively associated with product attitudes as well as purchase intention, suggesting that smart-wear developers have to reflect on price ranges of potential adopters. It will be effective to utilize the findings associated with complexity when marketers in US plan communication strategy.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.80-88
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• 2020

With the issuance of one-week fine dust emergency reduction measures in March 2019, the public's anxiety about fine dust is increasingly growing. In order to assess the application of air purifying plant-based bio-filters to public facilities, this study presented a method for measuring pollutant reduction effects by creating an indoor environment for continuous discharge of particle pollutants and conducted basic studies to verify whether indoor air quality has improved through the system. In this study conducted in a lecture room in spring, the background concentration was created by using mosquito repellent incense as a pollutant one hour before monitoring. Then, according to the schedule, the fine dust reduction capacity was monitored by irrigating for two hours and venting air for one hour. PM₁₀, PM_2.5, and temperature & humidity sensors were installed two meters front of the bio-filters, and velocity probes were installed at the center of the three air vents to conduct time-series monitoring. The average face velocity of three air vents set up in the bio-filter was 0.38±0.16 m/s. Total air-conditioning air volume was calculated at 776.89±320.16㎥/h by applying an air vent area of 0.29m×0.65m after deducing damper area. With the system in operation, average temperature and average relative humidity were maintained at 21.5-22.3℃, and 63.79-73.6%, respectively, which indicates that it satisfies temperature and humidity range of various conditions of preceding studies. When the effects of raising relatively humidity rapidly by operating system's air-conditioning function are used efficiently, it would be possible to reduce indoor fine dust and maintain appropriate relative humidity seasonally. Concentration of fine dust increased the same in all cycles before operating the bio-filter system. After operating the system, in cycle 1 blast section (C-1, β=-3.83, β=-2.45), particulate matters (PM₁₀) were lowered by up to 28.8% or 560.3㎍/㎥ and fine particulate matters (PM_2.5) were reduced by up to 28.0% or 350.0㎍/㎥. Then, the concentration of find dust (PM₁₀, PM_2.5) was reduced by up to 32.6% or 647.0㎍/㎥ and 32.4% or 401.3㎍/㎥ respectively through reduction in cycle 2 blast section (C-2, β=-5.50, β=-3.30) and up to 30.8% or 732.7㎍/㎥ and 31.0% or 459.3㎍/㎥ respectively through reduction in cycle 3 blast section (C-3, β=5.48, β=-3.51). By referring to standards and regulations related to the installation of vegetation bio-filters in public facilities, this study provided plans on how to set up objective performance evaluation environment. By doing so, it was possible to create monitoring infrastructure more objective than a regular lecture room environment and secure relatively reliable data.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.3-33
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• 1971

Nursing of today has as one of its objectives the solving of problems related to human needs arising from the demands of a rapidly changing society. This nursing objective, I believe, can he attained by the appropriate application of scientific principles in the giving of comprehensive nursing care. Comprehensive nursing care may be defined as nursing care which meets all of the patient's needs. the needs of patients are said to fall into five broad categories: physical needs, psychological needs, environmental needs, socio-economic needs, and teaching needs. Most people who become ill have adjustment problems related to their new situation. Because patient teaching is one of the most important functions of professional nursing, the success of this teaching may be used as a gauge for evaluating comprehensive nursing care. This represents a challenge foe the future. A questionnaire consisting of 67 items was distributed to 200 professional nurses working ill direct patient care at Yonsei University Medical Center in Seoul, Korea. 160 (80,0%) nurses of the total sample returned completed questionnaires 81 (50.6%) nurses were graduates of 3 fear diploma courser 79 (49.4%) nurses were graduates of 4 year collegiate nursing schools in Korea 141 (88,1%) nurses had under 5 years of clinical experience in a medical center, while 19 (11.9%) nurses had more than 5years of clinical experience. Three hypotheses were tested: 1. “Nurses had high levels of concept and knowledge toward patient teaching”-This was demonstrated by the use of a statistical method, the mean average. 2. “Nurses graduating from collegiate programs and diploma school programs of nursing show differences in concepts and knowledge toward patient teaching”-This was demonstrated by a statistical method, the mean average, although the results showed little difference between the two groups. 3. “Nurses having different amounts of clinical experience showed differences in concepts and knowledge toward patient teaching”-This was demonstrated by the use of a statistical method, the mean average. 2. “Nurses graduating from collegiate programs and diploma school programs of nursing show differences in concepts and knowledge toward patient teaching”-This was demonstrated by a statistical method, the mean average, although the results showed little difference between the two groups. 3. “Nurses having different amounts of clinical experience showed differences in concepts and knowledge toward patient teaching”-This was demonstrated by the use of the T-test. Conclusions of this study are as follow: Before attempting the explanation, of the results, the questionnaire will he explained. The questionnaire contained 67 questions divided into 9 sections. These sections were: concept, content, time, prior preparation, method, purpose, condition, evaluation, and recommendations for patient teaching. 1. The nurse's concept of patient teaching: Most of the nurses had high levels of concepts and knowledge toward patient teaching. Though nursing service was task-centered at the turn of the century, the emphasis today is put on patient-centered nursing. But we find some of the nurses (39.4%) still are task-centered. After, patient teaching, only a few of the nurses (14.4%) checked this as “normal teaching.”It seems therefore that patient teaching is often done unconsciously. Accordingly it would he desirable to have correct concepts and knowledge of teaching taught in schools of nursing. 2. Contents of patient teaching: Most nurses (97.5%) had good information about content of patient teaching. They teach their patients during admission about their diseases, tests, treatments, and before discharge give nurses instruction about simple nursing care, personal hygiene, special diets, rest and sleep, elimination etc. 3. Time of patient teaching: Teaching can be accomplished even if there is no time set aside specifically for it. -a large part of the nurse's teaching can be done while she is giving nursing care. If she believes she has to wait for time free from other activities, she may miss many teaching opportunities. But generally proper time for patient teaching is in the midmorning or midafternoon since one and a half or two hours required. Nurses meet their patients in all stages of health: often tile patient is in a condition in which learning is impossible-pain, mental confusion, debilitation, loss of sensory perception, fear and anxiety-any of these conditions may preclude the possibility of successful teaching. 4. Prior preparation for patient teaching: The teaching aids, nurses use are charts (53.1%), periodicals (23.8%), and books (7.0%) Some of the respondents (28.1%) reported that they had had good preparation for the teaching which they were doing, others (27.5%) reported adequate preparation, and others (43.8%) reported that their preparation for teaching was inadequate. If nurses have advance preparation for normal teaching and are aware of their objectives in teaching patients, they can do effective teaching. 5. Method of patient teaching: The methods of individual patient teaching, the nurses in this study used, were conversation (55.6%) and individual discussion (19.2%) . And the methods of group patient teaching they used were demonstration (42.3%) and lecture (26.2%) They should also he prepared to use pamphlet and simple audio-visual aids for their teaching. 6. Purposes of patient teaching: The purposes of patient teaching is to help the patient recover completely, but the majority of the respondents (40.6%) don't know this. So it is necessary for them to understand correctly the purpose of patient teaching and nursing care. 7. Condition of patient teaching: The majority of respondents (75.0%) reported there were some troubles in teaching uncooperative patients. It would seem that the nurse's leaching would be improved if, in her preparation, she was given a better understanding of the patient and communication skills. The majority of respondents in the total group, felt teaching is their responsibility and they should teach their patient's family as well as the patient. The place for teaching is most often at the patient's bedside (95.6%) but the conference room (3.1%) is also used. It is important that privacy be provided in learning situations with involve personal matters. 8. Evaluation of patient teaching: The majority of respondents (76.3%,) felt leaching is a highly systematic and organized function requiring special preparation in a college or university, they have the idea that teaching is a continuous and ever-present activity of all people throughout their lives. The suggestion mentioned the most frequently for improving preparation was a course in patient teaching included in the basic nursing program. 9. Recommendations: 1) It is recommended, that in clinical nursing, patient teaching be emphasized. 2) It is recommended, that insertive education the concepts and purposes of patient teaching he renewed for all nurses. In addition to this new knowledge, methods and materials which can be applied to patient teaching should be given also. 3) It is recommended, in group patient teaching, we try to embark on team teaching.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.27-55
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• 2008

Due to the increasing and intensifying competition in the Internet shopping market, it has been recognized as very important to develop an effective policy and strategy for acquiring loyal customers. For this reason, web site designers need to know if a new Internet shopping mall(ISM) will be accepted. Researchers have been working on identifying factors for explaining and predicting user acceptance of an ISM. Some studies, however, revealed inconsistent findings on the antecedents of user acceptance of a website. Lack of consideration for individual differences in user ability is believed to be one of the key reasons for the mixed findings. The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and several studies have suggested that individual differences in ability plays an moderating role on the relationship between the antecedents and user acceptance. Despite the critical role of user ability, little research has examined the role of user ability in the Internet shopping mall context. The purpose of this study is to develop a user acceptance model that consider the moderating role of user ability in the context of Internet shopping. This study was initiated to see the ability of the technology acceptance model(TAM) to explain the acceptance of a specific ISM. According to TAM. which is one of the most influential models for explaining user acceptance of IT, an intention to use IT is determined by usefulness and ease of use. Given that interaction between user and website takes place through web interface, the decisions to accept and continue using an ISM depend on these beliefs. However, TAM neglects to consider the fact that many users would not stick to an ISM until they trust it although they may think it useful and easy to use. The importance of trust for user acceptance of ISM has been raised by the relational views. The relational view emphasizes the trust-building process between the user and ISM, and user's trust on the website is a major determinant of user acceptance. The proposed model extends and integrates the TAM and relational views on user acceptance of ISM by incorporating usefulness, ease of use, and trust. User acceptance is defined as a user's intention to reuse a specific ISM. And user ability is introduced into the model as moderating variable. Here, the user ability is defined as a degree of experiences, knowledge and skills regarding Internet shopping sites. The research model proposes that the ease of use, usefulness and trust of ISM are key determinants of user acceptance. In addition, this paper hypothesizes that the effects of the antecedents(i.e., ease of use, usefulness, and trust) on user acceptance may differ among users. In particular, this paper proposes a moderating effect of a user's ability on the relationship between antecedents with user's intention to reuse. The research model with eleven hypotheses was derived and tested through a survey that involved 470 university students. For each research variable, this paper used measurement items recognized for reliability and widely used in previous research. We slightly modified some items proper to the research context. The reliability and validity of the research variables were tested using the Crobnach's alpha and internal consistency reliability (ICR) values, standard factor loadings of the confirmative factor analysis, and average variance extracted (AVE) values. A LISREL method was used to test the suitability of the research model and its relating six hypotheses. Key findings of the results are summarized in the following. First, TAM's two constructs, ease of use and usefulness directly affect user acceptance. In addition, ease of use indirectly influences user acceptance by affecting trust. This implies that users tend to trust a shopping site and visit repeatedly when they perceive a specific ISM easy to use. Accordingly, designing a shopping site that allows users to navigate with heuristic and minimal clicks for finding information and products within the site is important for improving the site's trust and acceptance. Usefulness, however, was not found to influence trust. Second, among the three belief constructs(ease of use, usefulness, and trust), trust was empirically supported as the most important determinants of user acceptance. This implies that users require trustworthiness from an Internet shopping site to be repeat visitors of an ISM. Providing a sense of safety and eliminating the anxiety of online shoppers in relation to privacy, security, delivery, and product returns are critically important conditions for acquiring repeat visitors. Hence, in addition to usefulness and ease of use as in TAM, trust should be a fundamental determinants of user acceptance in the context of internet shopping. Third, the user's ability on using an Internet shopping site played a moderating role. For users with low ability, ease of use was found to be a more important factors in deciding to reuse the shopping mall, whereas usefulness and trust had more effects on users with high ability. Applying the EML theory to these findings, we can suggest that experienced and knowledgeable ISM users tend to elaborate on such usefulness aspects as efficient and effective shopping performance and trust factors as ability, benevolence, integrity, and predictability of a shopping site before they become repeat visitors of the site. In contrast, novice users tend to rely on the low elaborating features, such as the perceived ease of use. The existence of moderating effects suggests the fact that different individuals evaluate an ISM from different perspectives. The expert users are more interested in the outcome of the visit(usefulness) and trustworthiness(trust) than those novice visitors. The latter evaluate the ISM in a more superficial manner focusing on the novelty of the site and on other instrumental beliefs(ease of use). This is consistent with the insights proposed by the Heuristic-Systematic model. According to the Heuristic-Systematic model. a users act on the principle of minimum effort. Thus, the user considers an ISM heuristically, focusing on those aspects that are easy to process and evaluate(ease of use). When the user has sufficient experience and skills, the user will change to systematic processing, where they will evaluate more complex aspects of the site(its usefulness and trustworthiness). This implies that an ISM has to provide a minimum level of ease of use to make it possible for a user to evaluate its usefulness and trustworthiness. Ease of use is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the acceptance and use of an ISM. Overall, the empirical results generally support the proposed model and identify the moderating effect of the effects of user ability. More detailed interpretations and implications of the findings are discussed. The limitations of this study are also discussed to provide directions for future research.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.65-96
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• 2012

Brand has received much attention from considerable marketing research. When consumers consume product or services, they are exposed to a lot of brand related stimuli. These contain brand personality, brand experience, brand identity, brand communications and so on. A special kind of new crisis occasionally confronting companies' brand management today is the brand related rumor. An important influence on consumers' purchase decision making is the word-of-mouth spread by other consumers and most decisions are influenced by other's recommendations. In light of this influence, firms have reasonable reason to study and understand consumer-to-consumer communication such as brand rumor. The importance of brand rumor to marketers is increasing as the number of internet user and SNS(social network service) site grows. Due to the development of internet technology, people can spread rumors without the limitation of time, space and place. However relatively few studies have been published in marketing journals and little is known about brand rumors in the marketplace. The study of rumor has a long history in all major social science. But very few studies have dealt with the antecedents and consequences of any kind of brand rumor. Rumor has been generally described as a story or statement in general circulation without proper confirmation or certainty as to fact. And it also can be defined as an unconfirmed proposition, passed along from people to people. Rosnow(1991) claimed that rumors were transmitted because people needed to explain ambiguous and uncertain events and talking about them reduced associated anxiety. Especially negative rumors are believed to have the potential to devastate a company's reputation and relations with customers. From the perspective of marketer, negative rumors are considered harmful and extremely difficult to control in general. It is becoming a threat to a company's sustainability and sometimes leads to negative brand image and loss of customers. Thus there is a growing concern that these negative rumors can damage brands' reputations and lead them to financial disaster too. In this study we aimed to distinguish antecedents of brand rumor transmission and investigate the effects of brand rumor characteristics on rumor spread intention. We also found key components in personal acceptance of brand rumor. In contextualist perspective, we tried to unify the traditional psychological and sociological views. In this unified research approach we defined brand rumor's characteristics based on five major variables that had been found to influence the process of rumor spread intention. The five factors of usefulness, source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness, encompass multi level elements of brand rumor. We also selected product involvement as a control variable. To perform the empirical research, imaginary Korean 'Kimch' brand and related contamination rumor was created and proposed. Questionnaires were collected from 178 Korean samples. Data were collected from college students who have been experienced the focal product. College students were regarded as good subjects because they have a tendency to express their opinions in detail. PLS(partial least square) method was adopted to analyze the relations between variables in the equation model. The most widely adopted causal modeling method is LISREL. However it is poorly suited to deal with relatively small data samples and can yield not proper solutions in some cases. PLS has been developed to avoid some of these limitations and provide more reliable results. To test the reliability using SPSS 16 s/w, Cronbach alpha was examined and all the values were appropriate showing alpha values between .802 and .953. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted successfully. And structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model using smartPLS(ver. 2.0) s/w. Overall, R² of adoption of rumor is .476 and R² of intention of rumor transmission is .218. The overall model showed a satisfactory fit. The empirical results can be summarized as follows. According to the results, the variables of brand rumor characteristic such as source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness affect argument strength of rumor. And argument strength of rumor also affects rumor intention. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived usefulness and argument strength of rumor is not significant. The moderating effect of product involvement on the relations between argument strength of rumor and rumor W.O.M intention is not supported neither. Consequently this study suggests some managerial and academic implications. We consider some implications for corporate crisis management planning, PR and brand management. This results show marketers that rumor is a critical factor for managing strong brand assets. Also for researchers, brand rumor should become an important thesis of their interests to understand the relationship between consumer and brand. Recently many brand managers and marketers have focused on the short-term view. They just focused on strengthen the positive brand image. According to this study we suggested that effective brand management requires managing negative brand rumors with a long-term view of marketing decisions.