• 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.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.91-118
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• 2017

Purpose The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of social capitals on organizational knowledge sharing characteristics and individual innovation activities in community of practice (CoP) of manufacturing company. Design/methodology/approach For this purpose, we divide social capitals as three dimensions, i.e. structural, relational, and cognitive dimension. Structural dimension also consists of closure and Brokerage. Relational social capital is defined as trust about colleagues, superior authorities, and organization. Then, cognitive social capital is defined as a shared understanding among individuals, such as a shared language and codes within CoP. Knowledge Sharing is defined as quantity and quality of shared knowledge. We also defines the cause and effect relationships among social capitals, organizational knowledge sharing characteristics, and individual innovation activities in CoP of manufacturing company as follows. The social capitals will have positive effects on quality of shared knowledge. Then the quality of shared knowledge will have positive effects on the individual innovation activities. This paper tested the validity of these hypothesized casual effects and the sub-hypothesized causal relationships. For the purpose, we used the Partial Least Squares (PLS) for analyzing the causal relationships. Findings Our empirical results show that social capitals of CoP mostly have effects on organizational knowledge sharing characteristics (quantity and quality of shared knowledge) and knowledge sharing activities also have effects on individual innovative activities in the workplace. In this study, these result have a significant implication that a private company will be able to gain organizational innovative performance much better by strengthening CoP supporting activities.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.295-312
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• 2015

Companies are recently emphasizing social capital that is formed by the network and trust among organization members to secure continuous competitive edge. Social capital induces the members' adaptation and immersion through the interactions with multidimensional factors within an organization, and contributes to increasing an organization's performance by causing cooperative behaviors as a passage of communications and participation. This study analyzed the influence of social capital and organizational support recognition formed in an organization on the turnover intention, and examined the moderating effect of organizational support recognition in the relationship between social capital and turnover intention. To achieve the purpose, this research conducted a survey on small and medium sized manufacturing companies in Busan and Gyeongnam and performed an empirical analysis using hierarchical regression analysis. According to the empirical analysis, the structural and relational dimensions of social capital had a negative (-) influence on the turnover intention. Especially, the relational dimension had a huge influence on the turnover intention, showing that it is important to form trust among an organization's members through their interactions. Second, organizational support recognition also had a negative (-) influence on the turnover intention, demonstrating that attention and complete support at an organizational dimension were needed for individual members. Third, organizational support recognition appeared to mediate the relationship between social capital and the turnover intention. The higher the organizational support recognition was, the lower the negative (-) influence of the relational dimension of social capital on the turnover intention was. Based on these results, this paper discussed the theoretical and practical implications of this research as well as future assignments.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.253-271
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• 2013

Innovation becomes norm rather than exception in today's business, and accordingly firms are working on how to make their employees to work smarter using information systems and technologies. Smart work demands virtual collaboration and cooperation among team members in different places and different time. Sharing of knowledge among team members in these innovative activities are critical in every sense for the successful performance. This study explores the antecedents of knowledge sharing among team members in team-based innovation activities. Five factors (pleasure of knowledge sharing, self-efficacy, management support, rewards, and system usage) are identified through extant review of literature and an instrument is adopted and validated from previous studies. The instrument is adminitered against 138 individuals in and across 54 teams in a telecommunication firm. Except self efficacy, all the paths in the proposed research model is confirmed with different levels of relational coefficients towards the levels of knowledge sharing and innovation activities in teams. Surprisingly, findings indicate that intrinsic pleasure of sharing is most critical than management support, organizational rewards or system usage. This study fills the research gap in team management. Findings provide important implications for managing teams in coming virtual and smart environment.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.423-436
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• 2019

Purpose: The aim of the study was to explore nurses' experience of person-centered relational care in the context of critical care. Methods: Key interview questions were developed based on the human-to-human relationship model suggested by Travelbee. Data were collected through indepth interviews with a purposive sample of 11 nurses having more than 2 years of working experience in intensive care units. An interpretative phenomenological analysis was conducted to analyze the data. Results: Four super-ordinate and nine sub-ordinate themes were identified. Emerged super-ordinate themes were as follows: (1) encountering a live person via patient monitoring systems; (2) deep empathic connection; (3) humanistic and compassionate care, and (4) accompanying the journey to the end. Study findings revealed that nurses in intensive care units experienced 'balancing emotions' and 'authenticity' in caring when entering human-to-human relationships with dying patients. The phenomenon of person-centered relational care in intensive care units was found to subsume intrinsic attributes of empathy, compassion, and trust, similar to the central concepts of Travelbee's theory. Conclusion: The interpretative findings in this study provide deeper understanding of Travelbee's human-to-human relationship model. The technological environment in intensive care units did not hinder experienced nurses from forming human-to-human relationships. These themes need to be emphasized in critical care nursing education as well as in nursing management. The results of this study will contribute to understanding nurse-patient caring relationships in depth, and help improve the quality of nursing care in intensive care units.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.25-51
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• 2010

This study compares and contrasts the intellectual development of the MIS field in Korea from 2005 to 2009 to that of international trends by using a keyword co-occurrence network analysis of the two flagship journals: APJIS and MIS Quarterly. From 316 research articles in these two journals, 132 unique and most frequently co-occurred keywords were put into analysis. The results of structural equivalence show a mild correlation between APJIS and MIS Quarterly. The e-commerce, trust, and technology adoption are the high frequency keywords in both journals. In Korea e-learning, purchasing, and recommendation systems turn out to be important keywords while outsourcing, research method, quantitative method, design research, information theory, and empirical research are in average international journals. This connotes that the Korean scholarship tends to focus more on practically oriented topics, but the clustering and relational mapping of research topics in each journal show a mild level of overlap with distinctive orientations due to intrinsic disparities depending on the concerned journals' geographical scopes, namely domestic or global.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.1-27
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• 2008

In a power-asymmetry relationship like franchise system, a high dependent franchisee must often rely on its powerful partner. Therefore, in order to build up 'win-win' systems, therefore channel members should increase trust and commitment each other to enhance the relationship quality to sustain long-term cooperative relationships. First of all, to increase the relationship quality in franchise system, franchisor should increase franchisee's perception of the powerful franchisor's justice. The point of this research, I established basic hypotheses and comparative hypotheses to examine franchisor's behavior what franchisee expected which influences on franchisee's attitude and behavior in power - asymmetry relationship in franchise system. For the purpose of the empirical testing, managers of franchisee in the food service industry of Korea had been selected and analyzed, and major findings in this study as follow: First, the relational norm between franchisor and franchisee increased both distributive justice and procedural justice, especially relational norm had more effect on procedural justice than distributive justice. Second, distributive justice increased both economic commitment and social commitment while procedural justice just increased social commitment only but economic commitment. So, on the relational commitment, distributive justice was more important element than procedural justice. On the other hand, procedural justice had indirect effect on economic commitment through distributive and social commitment.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.65-88
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• 2008

Since the implementation of economic reforms in 1978, the Chinese economy grows rapidly at an average annul growth rate of 9% over the post two decades. Franchising has been widely recognized as an important source of entrepreneurial activity. Trust is important in that it facilitates relational exchanges by permits partners to transcend short-run inequities or risks to concentrate on long-term profits or gains. In the relationship between the franchisors and franchisees, trust has been described as an important source of competitive advantage. However, little research has been done on the factors affecting trust in Chinese franchisor-franchisee relationships. The purpose of this study is to investigate what factors affect the trust in the franchise system in China, and to provide guidelines and insights to franchisors which enter Chinese market. In this study, according to Morgan and Hunt (1994), trust is defined as the extending when one party has confidence in an exchange partner's reliability and integrity. We offered a conceptual model of the empirical study. The model shows that the factors affecting the trust include franchisor's supports, communication, satisfaction with previous outcome and conflict. We also suggested the franchisor's supports and communication like to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and the franchisor's supports, communication and he franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome tend to decrease conflict. Before the formal study, a pretest involving exploratory interviews with owners from three franchisees was conducted to make sure the questionnaire was relevant and clear to the respondents. The data were collected using trained interviewers to carry out personal interviews with the aid of an unidentified, muti-page, structured questionnaire. The respondents comprised of owners, managers, and owner managers of franchisee-owned food service franchises located in Beijing, China. Even though a total of 256 potential franchises were initially contacted, the finally usable sample consisted of 125 respondents. As expected, the sampling method was successful in soliciting respondents with waried personal and firm characteristics. Self-administrated questionnaires were used for all measures. And established scales were used to measure the latent constructs in this study. The measures tapped the franchisees' perceptions of the relationship with the referent franchisor. Five-point Likert-type scales ranging from "strongly disagree" (=1) to "strongly agree" (=7) were used throughout the constructs (trust, eight items; support, five items; communication, four items; satisfaction, six items; conflict, three items). The reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than.80. The proposed measurement model was estimated using SPSS 12.0 and AMOS 5.0 analysis package. We conducted A series of exploratory factor analyses and confirmatory factor analyses to assess the convergent validity, discriminant validity, and reliability. The results indicate reasonable overall fits between the model and the observed data. The overall fit of measurement model were $X^2$= 159.699, p=0.004, d.f. = 116, GFI =.879, NFI =.898, CFI =.969, IFI =.970, TLI =.959, RMR =.058. The results demonstrated that the data reasonably fitted the model. We also examined construct reliability and reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). The construct reliability of each construct was greater than.80 and the AVE of each construct was greater than.50. According to the analysis of Structure Equation Modeling (SEM), the results of path model indicated an adequate fit of the model: $X^2$= 142.126, p = 0.044, d.f. = 115, GFI =.892, NFI =.909, CFI =.981, IFI =.981, TLI =.974, RMR =.057. As hypothesized, the results showed that it is strategically important to establish trust in a franchise system, and the franchisor's supports, communication and satisfaction with previous outcome tend to reinforce franchisee's trust. The results also showed trust seems to decrease as the experience of conflict episodes increases. And we also noticed that franchisor's supports and communication tend to enhance the franchisee's satisfaction with previous outcome, and communication tend to decrease conflict. If the trust between the franchisor and franchisee can be established in a franchise system, franchising offers many benefits and reduces many costs. To manage a mutual trust of relationship with their franchisees, franchisor's should provide support effectively to their franchisees. Effective assistant services have direct effect on franchisees' satisfaction with previous outcome and trust in franchisor. Especially, franchise sales process, orientation, and training in the start-up period are key elements for success of the franchise system. Franchisor's support is an accumulated separate satisfaction evaluation with different kind of service provided by the franchisor. And providing support definitely can improve the trustworthy image of the franchisor. In the franchise system, conflicts of interests and exertions of different power sources are very common. The experience of conflict episodes seems to negatively relate to trust. Therefore, it is important to reduce the negative side of the relationship conflicts. Communication actually plays a broader role in reducing conflict and establish mutual trust in franchisor-franchisee relationship. And effective communication between franchisors and franchisees can improve franchisees' satisfaction toward the franchise system. As the diversification of Chinese markets, both franchisors and franchisees must keep the relevant, timely, and reliable communication. And it is very important to improve the quality of communication. Satisfaction with precious outcomes seems to positively relate to trust. Franchisors and franchisees that are highly satisfied with the previous outcomes that flow from their relationship will perceive their partner as advancing their goal achievement. Therefore, it is necessary for both franchisor and their franchisees to make the welfare of partner with effort. Little literature has focused on what factors affect the trust between franchisors and their franchisees in China. This study developed the hypotheses regarding the factors affecting trust in the transaction relationship. The results of data analysis supported the hypotheses strongly. There are certain limitations in this study. First, we may point out that some other factors missed in this study could be significantly important. Second, the context of this study, food service industry, limits its potential generalizability for all franchise systems. More studies in different categories of franchise system are needed to broaden its generalizability. Third, the model was tested empirically in a sample in Beijing, more empirical tests of the proposed model in other Chinese areas are needed. Finally, the analysis in this study was solely based on the perception of franchisees and the opinions of franchisors were not included.

• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.35-44
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• 2018

Social, economic and environmental problems caused by rapid urbanization have been recently overcome by various civic participation projects. Local governance and resident - led partnership through field - based cooperative operating systems from urban regeneration to village projects are considered success factors. Among these, the village greening project which directly affects the residents and requires spontaneity requires the role and cooperation of the various participating actors due to the sharing of public space and private space. Social capital plays a key role in the sustainability and participation of the above - mentioned business as a relational capital centered on trust and participation, network and norms. Therefore, empirical research is needed. In this study, basic research was carried out to build a formation model of social capital in participation - type greening project expanding urban green space system to living area. We analyzed the elements of participation, the components of business progress, and the factors of social capital formation through literature review and in - depth interviews with participating experts. The purpose of this study is to provide basic data of social capital formation model for analyzing sustainability and activation strategies in the future.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.1-24
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• 2012

Franchises have recently emerged as the most rapidly expanding industry positioned to create a large impact in the domestic economic. The Chinese franchise industry developed rapidly in the period prior and subsequent to WTO accession with more than 50% of new franchises brands emerging since 2000. M&A transactions in the Chinese franchise industry have progressed actively. In the period from 2005-2007, due to the wholesale and retail market opening in accordance with the guidelines laid forth within the MOU by the WTO the Chinese franchise market is now the largest market in the world all despite a short history of only 20 years. The amount of franchise market research on China is disproportional to its current size and development potential. Beginning in the 1990s, market research conducted by the International Franchise Association focused on emerging markets in Eastern Europe and China. While the research dealt with the Chinese investment environment, it insufficiently explained the market region and cultural environment. The purpose of this research is (i) to investigate the determinants of the performance of franchise systems in China and (ii) new contract renewals based on performance factors. This study will complement existing research in terms of the franchisee perspective. This study may also prove of the benefit to the franchise companies entering the Chinese franchise market enabling them to develop an effective strategy. This study shows that support, incentives, and system standardization by franchisor yielded a positive effect on management performance. This is consistent with previous studies by Shin (2000) and Kim (2008) targeting Korean franchises. Therefore, in the Chinese market, the franchisor must focus on support, incentives, and system standardization rather than concentrate only on the recruitment of franchisees in order to improve revenue. Hypotheses regarding franchisor control have been dismissed in existing research, in the opinion of this study, due to their complexity and inability to control the merchant as a one-kind-assessment-standard. Our findings show that the franchisees' financial condition, management ability and entrepreneurial spirit, among franchisee's characteristics, have a positive effect on franchisor's business performance and satisfaction for the franchisee. This is consistent with previous studies on headquarters' management performance of Lussier (1996), Heo and Jang (2008), and franchisees' financial condition, management ability and entrepreneurial spirit effect on franchisor's satisfaction of Weaven and Franzer (2007), Kim (2009), Han (2009), and Yoon etc. (2008). Therefore, when permitting a franchisee, financial condition, management ability, entrepreneurship of the franchisee should be carefully considered. Among relational factors between franchisor and franchisee, trust has the positive influence on the management performance of the franchisor while conflict has a negative effect. However, trust, commitment and conflict factors have been shown not to have any impact on the satisfaction of the franchise headquarters. This result is consistent with the previous studies of Pavlou and Ba (2000), Morrison (1999), Weaven and Frazer (2007), Kim and Park (1994), Sohn (2007) which show that trust between franchisor and the franchisees have a positive effect and that conflict has a negative impact on franchisor's management performance. Other factors causing a negative effective on the franchisor's management performance are a rapid environmental changes and uncertainty in the business. This is consistent with Campbell et al (2007), Kim and Kim (2009), Han and Baek (2008). Finally, the high management performance and satisfaction of the franchise headquarters has a positive effect on the intention of franchise renewal. In the case of large markets such as China, the franchisor's strategy and the role is very important. In this study, we also investigated the characteristics of franchisor and franchisee, relationship, and environmental uncertainty affecting on the management performance and satisfaction of franchisor. Recently, Korean franchises are attempting to enter foreign markets through the rise in popularity of Korean culture and entertainment commonly referred to as the Korean wave. This study provides recommendations for Korean franchises intending on entering the Chinese market. First, in order to achieve stable profits, the franchise corporation needs to support the operation of the individual franchisee through incentives and standardization of services. Second, because trust between the franchisor and franchisee has a positive effect on management performance, on-going discussion and cooperation is necessary to reduce the level of conflict.