• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.19-45
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• 2008

This study is to empirically examine the primary dimensions of visual merchandising (VMD) of internet shopping mall, namely store design, merchandise, and merchandising cues, to be a attractive virtual store to the shoppers. The authors reviewed the literature related to the major components of VMD from the perspective of the AIDA model, which has been mainly applied to the offline store settings. The major purposes of the study are as follows; first, tries to derive the variables related with the components of visual merchandising through reviewing the existing literatures, establish the hypotheses, and test it empirically. Second, examines the relationships between the components of VMD and the attitude toward the VMD, however, putting more emphasis on finding out the component structure of the VMD. VMD needs to be examined with the perspective that an online shopping mall is a virtual self-service or clerkless store, which could reduce the number of employees, help the shoppers search, evaluate and purchase for themselves, and to be explored in terms of the in-store persuasion processes of customers. This study reviewed the literatures related to store design, merchandise, and merchandising cues which might be relevant to the store, product, and promotion respectively. VMD is a total communication tool, and AIDA model could explain the in-store consumer behavior of online shopping. Store design has to do with triggering a consumer attention to the online mall, merchandise with a product related interest, and merchandising cues with promotions such as recommendation and links that induce the desire to pruchase. These three steps might be seen as the processes for purchase actions. The theoretical rationale for the relationship between VMD and AIDA could be found in Tyagi(2005) that the three steps of consumer-oriented merchandising are a store, a product assortment, and placement, in Omar(1999) that three types of interior display are a architectural design display, commodity display, and point-of-sales(POS) display, and in Davies and Ward(2005) that the retail store interior image is related to an atmosphere, merchandise, and in-store promotion. Lee et al(2000) suggested as the web merchandising components a merchandising cues, a shopping metaphor which is an assistant tool for search, a store design, a layout(web design), and a product assortment. The store design which includes differentiation, simplicity and navigation is supposed to be related to the attention to the virtual store. Second, the merchandise dimensions comprising product assortments, visual information and product reputation have to do with the interest in the product offerings. Finally, the merchandising cues that refer to merchandiser(MD)'s recommendation of products and providing the hyperlinks to relevant goods for the shopper is concerned with attempt to induce the desire to purchase. The questionnaire survey was carried out to collect the data about the consumers who would shop at internet shopping malls frequently. To select the subject malls, the mall ranking data announced by a mall rating agency was used to differentiate the most popular and least popular five mall each. The subjects was instructed to answer the questions after navigating the designated mall for five minutes. The 300 questionnaire was distributed to the consumers, 166 samples were used in the final analysis. The empirical testing focused on identifying and confirming the dimensionality of VMD and its subdimensions using a structural equation modeling method. The confirmatory factor analysis for the endogeneous and exogeneous variables was carried out in four parts. The second-order factor analysis was done for a store design, a merchandise, and a merchandising cues, and first-order confirmatory factor analysis for the attitude toward the VMD. The model test results shows that the chi-square value of structural equation is 144.39(d.f 49), significant at 0.01 level which means the proposed model was rejected. But, judging from the ratio of chi-square value vs. degree of freedom, the ratio was 2.94 which smaller than an acceptable level of 3.0, RMR is 0.087 which is higher than a generally acceptable level of 0.08. GFI and AGFI is turned out to be 0.90 and 0.84 respectively. Both NFI and NNFI is 0.94, and CFI 0.95. The major test results are as follows; first, the second-order factor analysis and structural equational modeling reveals that the differentiation, simplicity and ease of identifying current status of the transaction are confirmed to be subdimensions of store design and to be a significant predictors of the dependent variable. This result implies that when designing an online shopping mall, it is necessary to differentiate visually from other malls to improve the effectiveness of the communications of store design. That is, the differentiated store design raise the contrast stimulus to sensory organs to promote the memory of the store and to have a favorable attitude toward the VMD of a store. The results that navigation which means the easiness of identifying current status of shopping affects the attitude to VMD could be interpreted that the navigating processes via the hyperlinks which is characteristics of an internet shopping is a complex and cognitive process and shoppers are likely to lack the sense of overall structure of the store. Consequently, shoppers are likely to be alost amid shopping not knowing where to go. The orientation tool enhance the accessibility of information to raise the perceptive power about the store environment.(Titus & Everett 1995) Second, the primary dimension of merchandise and its subdimensions was confirmed to be unidimensional respectively, have a construct validity, and nomological validity which the VMD dimensions supposed to have a positive correlation with the dependent variable. The subdimensions of product assortment, brand fame and information provision proved to have a positive effect on the attitude toward the VMD. It could be interpreted that the more plentiful the product and brand assortment of the mall is, the more likely the shoppers to favor it. Brand fame and information provision as well affect the VMD attitude, which means that the more famous the brand, the more likely the shoppers would trust and feel familiar with the mall, and the plentifully and visually presented information could have the shopper have a favorable attitude toward the store VMD. Third, it turned out to be that merchandising cue of product recommendation and hyperlinks affect the VMD attitude. This could be interpreted that recommended products could reduce the uncertainty related with the purchase decision, and the hyperlinks to relevant products would help the shopper save the cognitive effort exerted into the information search and gathering, which could lead to a favorable attitude to the VMD. This study tried to sheds some new light on the VMD of online store by reviewing the variables mentioned to be relevant with offline VMD in the existing literatures, and tried to link the VMD components from the perspective of AIDA model. The effect size of the VMD dimensions on the attitude was in the order of the merchandise, the store design and the merchandising cues.It is said that an internet has an unlimited place for display, however, the virtual store is not unlimited since the consumer has a limited amount of cognitive ability to process the external information and internal memory. Particularly, the shoppers are likely to face some difficulties in decision making on account of too many alternative and information overloads. Therefore, the internet shopping mall manager should take into consideration the cost of information search on the part of the consumer, to establish the optimal product placements and search routes. An efficient store composition would be possible by reducing the psychological burdens and cognitive efforts exerted to information search and alternatives evaluation. The store image is in most part determined by the product category and its brand it deals in. The results of this study support this proposition that the merchandise is most important to the VMD attitude than other components, the manager is required to take a strategic approach to VMD. The internet users are getting more accustomed and more knowledgeable about the internet media and more likely to accept the internet as a shopping channel as the period of time during which they use the internet to shop become longer. The web merchandiser should be aware that the product introduction using a moving pictures and a bulletin board become more important in order to present the interactive product information visually and communicate with customers more actively, therefore leading to making the quantity and quality of product information more rich.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.397-416
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• 2024

This study assessed the hydrogeological properties of the deep geological environment to develop safety criteria for the natural barriers used in the deep geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste in Korea. The assessment focused on the distribution and trends of hydraulic conductivity and permeability properties appropriate for the domestic geological environment, using various in-situ hydraulic test data collected for groundwater development and management. To develop a depth-hydrogeological property relationship model suitable for domestic conditions, the study reviewed various international research examples and applied a representative model that explains the trends of hydraulic conductivity and permeability with depth. The development of the model suitable for Korea involved applying ensemble regression analysis to account for the uncertainty of various factors in the collected data. The results confirmed that existing international depth-hydrogeological property relationship models adequately describe the characteristics of the domestic geological environment. Considering the preferred hydrogeological criteria suggested by countries like Sweden, Germany, and Canada, there is a high likelihood that a suitable geological environment exists in Korea. Additionally, the application of hydrogeological criteria indicative of low-permeability environments showed that suitable conditions for disposal construction increase at depths greater than 300 m, where the influence of fractures on groundwater flow might be minimal at depths exceeding 500 m. This research can serve as foundational information for establishing hydrogeological safety standards for natural barriers in Korea according to international regulatory guidelines.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.63-104
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• 2011

The study examines the relationships among employee's goal orientation, IT personnel competency, personal effectiveness. The goal orientation includes learning goal orientation, performance approach goal orientation, and performance avoid goal orientation. Personal effectiveness consists of personal work satisfaction and personal work performance. In general, IT personnel competency refers to IT expert's skills, expertise, and knowledge required to perform IT activities in organizations. However, due to the advent of the internet and the generalization of IT, IT personnel competency turns out to be an important competency of technological experts as well as employees in organizations. While the competency of IT itself is important, the appropriate harmony between IT personnel's business capability and technological capability enhances the value of human resources and thus provides organizations with sustainable competitive advantages. The rapid pace of organization change places increased pressure on employees to continually update their skills and adapt their behavior to new organizational realities. This challenge raises a number of important questions concerning organizational behavior? Why do some employees display remarkable flexibility in their behavioral responses to changes in the organization, whereas others firmly resist change or experience great stress when faced with the need to alter behavior? Why do some employees continually strive to improve themselves over their life span, whereas others are content to forge through life using the same basic knowledge and skills? Why do some employees throw themselves enthusiastically into challenging tasks, whereas others avoid challenging tasks? The goal orientation proposed by organizational psychology provides at least a partial answer to these questions. Goal orientations refer to stable personally characteristics fostered by "self-theories" about the nature and development of attributes (such as intelligence, personality, abilities, and skills) people have. Self-theories are one's beliefs and goal orientations are achievement motivation revealed in seeking goals in accordance with one's beliefs. The goal orientations include learning goal orientation, performance approach goal orientation, and performance avoid goal orientation. Specifically, a learning goal orientation refers to a preference to develop the self by acquiring new skills, mastering new situations, and improving one's competence. A performance approach goal orientation refers to a preference to demonstrate and validate the adequacy of one's competence by seeking favorable judgments and avoiding negative judgments. A performance avoid goal orientation refers to a preference to avoid the disproving of one's competence and to avoid negative judgements about it, while focusing on performance. And the study also examines the moderating role of work career of employees to investigate the difference in the relationship between IT personnel competency and personal effectiveness. The study analyzes the collected data using PASW 18.0 and and PLS(Partial Least Square). The study also uses PLS bootstrapping algorithm (sample size: 500) to test research hypotheses. The result shows that the influences of both a learning goal orientation (${\beta}$ = 0.301, t = 3.822, P < 0.000) and a performance approach goal orientation (${\beta}$ = 0.224, t = 2.710, P < 0.01) on IT personnel competency are positively significant, while the influence of a performance avoid goal orientation(${\beta}$ = -0.142, t = 2.398, p < 0.05) on IT personnel competency is negatively significant. The result indicates that employees differ in their psychological and behavioral responses according to the goal orientation of employees. The result also shows that the impact of a IT personnel competency on both personal work satisfaction(${\beta}$ = 0.395, t = 4.897, P < 0.000) and personal work performance(${\beta}$ = 0.575, t = 12.800, P < 0.000) is positively significant. And the impact of personal work satisfaction(${\beta}$ = 0.148, t = 2.432, p < 0.05) on personal work performance is positively significant. Finally, the impacts of control variables (gender, age, type of industry, position, work career) on the relationships between IT personnel competency and personal effectiveness(personal work satisfaction work performance) are partly significant. In addition, the study uses PLS algorithm to find out a GoF(global criterion of goodness of fit) of the exploratory research model which includes a mediating variable, IT personnel competency. The result of analysis shows that the value of GoF is 0.45 above GoFlarge(0.36). Therefore, the research model turns out be good. In addition, the study performs a Sobel Test to find out the statistical significance of the mediating variable, IT personnel competency, which is already turned out to have the mediating effect in the research model using PLS. The result of a Sobel Test shows that the values of Z are all significant statistically (above 1.96 and below -1.96) and indicates that IT personnel competency plays a mediating role in the research model. At the present day, most employees are universally afraid of organizational changes and resistant to them in organizations in which the acceptance and learning of a new information technology or information system is particularly required. The problem is due' to increasing a feeling of uneasiness and uncertainty in improving past practices in accordance with new organizational changes. It is not always possible for employees with positive attitudes to perform their works suitable to organizational goals. Therefore, organizations need to identify what kinds of goal-oriented minds employees have, motivate them to do self-directed learning, and provide them with organizational environment to enhance positive aspects in their works. Thus, the study provides researchers and practitioners with a matter of primary interest in goal orientation and IT personnel competency, of which they have been unaware until very recently. Some academic and practical implications and limitations arisen in the course of the research, and suggestions for future research directions are also discussed.

• 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.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.413-420
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• 2005

Purpose: Neuroreceptor PET studies require 60-120 minutes to complete and head motion of the subject during the PET scan increases the uncertainty in measured activity. In this study, we investigated the effects of the data-driven head mutton correction on the evaluation of endogenous dopamine release (DAR) in the striatum during the motor task which might have caused significant head motion artifact. Materials and Methods: $[^{11}C]raclopride$ PET scans on 4 normal volunteers acquired with bolus plus constant infusion protocol were retrospectively analyzed. Following the 50 min resting period, the participants played a video game with a monetary reward for 40 min. Dynamic frames acquired during the equilibrium condition (pre-task: 30-50 min, task: 70-90 min, post-task: 110-120 min) were realigned to the first frame in pre-task condition. Intra-condition registrations between the frames were performed, and average image for each condition was created and registered to the pre-task image (inter-condition registration). Pre-task PET image was then co-registered to own MRI of each participant and transformation parameters were reapplied to the others. Volumes of interest (VOI) for dorsal putamen (PU) and caudate (CA), ventral striatum (VS), and cerebellum were defined on the MRI. Binding potential (BP) was measured and DAR was calculated as the percent change of BP during and after the task. SPM analyses on the BP parametric images were also performed to explore the regional difference in the effects of head motion on BP and DAR estimation. Results: Changes in position and orientation of the striatum during the PET scans were observed before the head motion correction. BP values at pre-task condition were not changed significantly after the intra-condition registration. However, the BP values during and after the task and DAR were significantly changed after the correction. SPM analysis also showed that the extent and significance of the BP differences were significantly changed by the head motion correction and such changes were prominent in periphery of the striatum. Conclusion: The results suggest that misalignment of MRI-based VOI and the striatum in PET images and incorrect DAR estimation due to the head motion during the PET activation study were significant, but could be remedied by the data-driven head motion correction.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.1-32
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• 2008

Brown and Dacin (1997) have investigated the relationship between corporate associations and product evaluations. Their study focused on the effects of associations with a company's corporate ability (CA) and its corporate social responsibility (CSR) on consumers' product evaluations. Their study has found that both of CA and CSR influenced product evaluation but CA association has a stronger effect than CSR associations. Brown and Dacin (1997) have, however, claimed that there are few researches on how corporate association impacts product responses. Accordingly, some of researchers have found the variables to moderate or to mediate the relationship between the corporate association and the product responses. In particular, there has been existed a few of studies that tested the influence of the reputation on the product-relevant perceived risk, but the effects of two types of the corporate association on the product-relevant perceived risk were not identified so far. The primary goal of this article is to identify and empirically examine some variables to moderate the effects of CA association and CSR association on the perceived risk of the product. In this articles, we take the concept of the corporate associations that Brown and Dacin (1997) had proposed. CA association is those association related to the company's expertise in producing and delivering its outputs and CSR association reflected the organization's status and activities with respect to its perceived societal obligations. Also, this study defines the risk, which is the uncertainty or loss of the product and corporate that consumers have taken in a particular purchase decision or after having purchased. The risk is classified into product-relevant performance risk and financial risk. Performance risk is the possibility or the consequence of a product not functioning at some expected level and financial risk is the monetary loss one perceives to be incurring if a product does not function at some expected level. In relation to consumer's knowledge, expert consumers have much of the experiences or knowledge of the product in consumer position and novice consumers does not. The model tested in this article are shown in Figure 1. The model indicates that both of CA association and CSR association influence on performance risk and financial risk. In addition, the effects of CA and CSR are moderated by product category knowledge (product knowledge) and product category involvement (product involvement). In this study, the relationships between the corporate association and product-relevant perceived risk are hypothesized as the following form. For example, Hypothesis 1a($H_{1a}$) is represented that CA association has a positive influence on the performance risk of consumer. Also, the hypotheses that identified some variables to moderate the effects of two types of corporate association on the perceived risk of the product are laid down. One of the hypotheses of the interaction effect is Hypothesis 3a($H_{3a}$), it is described that consumer's knowledges of the product moderates the negative relationship between CA association and product-relevant performance risk. A field experiment was conducted in order to examine our model. The company tested was not real but imagined to meet the internal validity. Water purifiers were used for our study. Four scenarios have been developed and described as the imaginary company: Type A with both of superior CA and CSR, Type B with superior CSR and inferior CA, Type C with superior CA and inferior CSR, and Type D with both inferior of CA and CSR. The respondents of this study were classified into four groups. One type of four scenarios (Type A, B, C, or D) in its questionnaire was given to the respondent who filled out questions. Data were collected by means of a self-administered questionnaire to the respondents, chosen in convenience. A total of 300 respondents filled out the questionnaire but 207 were used for further analysis. Table 1 indicates that the scales in this study are reliable because the range of coefficients of Cronbach's $\alpha$ are from 0.85 to 0.92. The composite reliability is in the range of 0,85 to 0,92 and average variance extracted is in 0.72-0.98 range that is higher than the base level of 0.6. As shown in Table 2, the values for CFI, NNFI, root-mean-square error approximation (RMSEA), and standardized root-mean-square residual (SRMR) are acceptably close to the standards suggested by Hu and Bentler (1999):.95 for CFI and NNFI,.06 for RMSEA, and.08 for SRMR. We also tested discriminant validity provided by Fornell and Larcker (1981). As shown in Table 2, we found strong evidence for discriminant validity between each possible pair of latent constructs in all samples. Given that these batteries of overall goodness-of-fit indices were accurate and that the model was developed on theoretical bases, and given the high level of consistency across samples, this enables us to proceed the previously defined scales. We used the moderated hierarchical regression analysis to test the influence of the corporate association(CA and CSR associations) on product-relevant perceived risk(performance and financial risks) and to identify the variables moderating the relationship between the corporate association and product-relevant performance risk. In this study, dependent variables are performance and financial risk. CA and CSR associations are described the independent variables. The moderating variables are product category knowledge and product category involvement. The results are, as expected, found that CA association has statistically a significant influence on the perceived risk of the product, but CSR association does not. Product category knowledge and involvement moderate the relationship between the CA association and the perceived risk of the product. However, the effect of CSR association on the perceived risk of the product is not moderated by the consumers' knowledge and involvement. For this result, it is necessary for a corporate to inform its customers CA association more than CSR association so that they could be felt to be the reduction of the perceived risk. The important theoretical contribution of this research is the meanings that two types of corporate association that Brown and Dacin(1997), and Brown(1998) have proposed replicated the difference of the effects on product evaluation. According to Hunter(2001), it was an important affair to accomplish the validity of a particular study and we had to take about ten studies to deduce a strict study. Next, there is the contribution of the this study to find that the effects of corporate association on the perceived risk of the product are varied by the moderator variables. In particular, the moderating effect of knowledge on the relationship between corporate association and product-relevant perceived risk has not been tested in Korea. In the managerial implications of this research, we suggest the necessity to stress the ability that corporate manufactures the product well(CA association) than the accomplishment of corporate's social obligation(CSR association). This study suffers from various limitations that imply future research directions. The moderating effects of product category knowledge and involvement on the relationship between corporate association and perceived risk need to be replicated. Next, future research could explore whether the mediated effects of the perceived risk has the relationship between corporate association and consumer's product purchase. In addition, to ensure the external validity of the study will be needed to use realistic company, not artificial.