• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.141-165
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• 2023

With the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, technologies such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and cloud computing are developing rapidly, and smart homes enabled by these technologies are rapidly gaining popularity. To gain a competitive advantage in the global market, companies must understand the differences in consumer needs in different countries and cultures and develop corresponding business strategies. Therefore, this study conducts a comparative analysis of consumer reviews of smart homes in South Korea and China. This study collected online reviews of SmartThings, ThinQ, Msmarthom, and MiHome, the four most commonly used smart home apps in Korea and China. The collected review data is divided into satisfied reviews and dissatisfied reviews according to the ratings, and topics are extracted for each review dataset using LDA topic modeling. Next, the extracted topics are classified according to five evaluation factors of Perceived Usefulness, Reachability, Interoperability,Trustness, and Product Brand proposed by previous studies. Then, by comparing the importance of each evaluation factor in the two datasets of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, we find out the factors that affect consumer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, and compare the differences between users in Korea and China. We found Trustness and Reachability are very important factors. Finally, through language network analysis, the relationship between dissatisfied factors is analyzed from a more microscopic level, and improvement plans are proposed to the companies according to the analysis results.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.8
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• pp.637-645
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• 2021

Mobile devices have become attractive learning devices for education. The digitalization of the higher education system in Sri Lanka by 2020 is part of the government's effort to modernize and enhance the country's overall education system particularly in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. Theoretically, this study contributes to the M-Learning model in higher education institutions via the integration of literature on technology adoption (TAM and UTAUT) with the variables of Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, Attitude, Effort Expectancy, Social Influence, and Facilitating Condition. The attitude towards M-Learning amongst higher education students was gauged via an online questionnaire survey. The convenience sample comprised 344 students from the Advanced Technological Institutes (ATI) in Batticaloa District, Sri Lanka. Descriptive statistics, a measurement, and structural model, and hypotheses testing were used to analyze the derived data. The findings indicate that mobile learning is significantly affected by perceived ease of use, social influence, effort expectancy, and facilitating condition, but negatively affected by attitude and perceived usefulness. The exhaustive literature review revealed that there are very few M-Learning studies related to digital learning in the context of higher education in the Batticaloa district.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.95-114
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• 2007

The main attractant of portable multimedia player(PMP), is often their versatility : being able to load and play different formats of video, audio, digital images, and interactive media. In this paper, we investigate the factors influencing the usage the PMP, based on the extended version of the Technology Acceptance Model. Using the data collected from online survey, we show that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and perceived enjoyment are the major determinants for using PMP. Factors, including ubiquitousness, community, and image are shown to directly or indirectly determine the level of perceived usefulness and ease of uses. In addition, we classify PMP users into two groups, users seeking hedonic value and utilitarian value, and examine the differences in path coefficients. Properties of the causal paths, including standardized path coefficients, the significance of difference, in the hypothesized model, are also presented, so that we can investigate the relative influences of different dominants, demonstrating how two groups differ in their decision-making processes regarding the PMP usage.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.75-97
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• 2013

While good return policies are suggested as one of the critical services for e-commerce, ambivalence between the burden of the cost and shoppers' satisfaction may prevent e-tailers from increasing their level of leniency. Based on the S-O-R model, this study has attempted to develop a grounded theory to explain how lenient return policies shape online shoppers' perceptions and responses, with a focus on cultural influences in the relationship. In order to check the cultural effects of the lenient return policy, thirty two female and eleven male undergraduate students in South Korean shoppers, who are accustomed to strict return policies, participated in the semi-structured interview. A series of open-ended questions were designed to explore consumers' reactions toward four different levels of the lenient return policy: from the strict type in South Korea to the lenient type in the U.S. Using qualitative research methods, this research has defined three types of dimensions of lenient return policy: return possible period, complexity of progress, and other restrictions. While previous researchers did not pay much attention, the last dimension, other restrictions, is shown to be the most significant in influencing online shoppers' perceptions, especially in South Korea. Also, the impacts on online shoppers' perceptions from the three types of sub-dimensions of return policy were somewhat different. Whereas a longer return possible period was considered more favorable, a medium level of complexity and restrictions were considered more desirable. In summary, this result showed that shoppers in Eastern cultures, i.e. South Korean online shoppers, seem favorable to a medium level of lenient return policies, while allowing for taking precautions against possible fraudulent behaviors and setting other restrictions. Therefore, most of retailers in South Korea recommended that e-tailers who adopt the most lenient return policies raise the bar to guard ethical shoppers from fraudulent users. Next, lenient return policies can enhance ease of use, usefulness, affect, and trust while relieving perceived risk, which is connected to intention to purchase, satisfaction, and loyalty. Interestingly, lenient return policies are more likely to change the behavioral responses of online shoppers, such as return and purchase, rather than change their attitudes or beliefs such as image, satisfaction, and loyalty. This tendency can be seen more clearly in the direct influences of return policy on responses. The reaction to lenient return policy is mostly the intention to return or to purchase. This suggests that return policy serves the e-tailers as a powerful tool in increasing online shoppers' purchase intention at the moment of purchase. Therefore, e-tailers who plan to expand their market to eastern countries, including South Korea, have to build a shield of restrictions around their lenient return policy, rather than immediately applying their original liberalized return policy. Also, e-tailers in South Korea need to review their strict and undifferentiated return policies to deal with the unsatisfied reactions of online shoppers toward their normal return policies. Although the present study was confined to the return policies currently being practiced by popular e-tailers, it would be worthwhile to develop effective return policies separately for each country, especially South Korea, keeping the culture of the relevant country in mind.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.29-44
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• 2017

In Internet commerce, consumers are heavily influenced by product reviews written by other users who have already purchased the product. However, as the product reviews accumulate, it takes a lot of time and effort for consumers to individually check the massive number of product reviews. Moreover, product reviews that are written carelessly actually inconvenience consumers. Thus many online vendors provide mechanisms to identify reviews that customers perceive as most helpful (Cao et al. 2011; Mudambi and Schuff 2010). For example, some online retailers, such as Amazon.com and TripAdvisor, allow users to rate the helpfulness of each review, and use this feedback information to rank and re-order them. However, many reviews have only a few feedbacks or no feedback at all, thus making it hard to identify their helpfulness. Also, it takes time to accumulate feedbacks, thus the newly authored reviews do not have enough ones. For example, only 20% of the reviews in Amazon Review Dataset (Mcauley and Leskovec, 2013) have more than 5 reviews (Yan et al, 2014). The purpose of this study is to analyze the factors affecting the usefulness of online product reviews and to derive a forecasting model that selectively provides product reviews that can be helpful to consumers. In order to do this, we extracted the various linguistic, psychological, and perceptual elements included in product reviews by using text-mining techniques and identifying the determinants among these elements that affect the usability of product reviews. In particular, considering that the characteristics of the product reviews and determinants of usability for apparel products (which are experiential products) and electronic products (which are search goods) can differ, the characteristics of the product reviews were compared within each product group and the determinants were established for each. This study used 7,498 apparel product reviews and 106,962 electronic product reviews from Amazon.com. In order to understand a review text, we first extract linguistic and psychological characteristics from review texts such as a word count, the level of emotional tone and analytical thinking embedded in review text using widely adopted text analysis software LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count). After then, we explore the descriptive statistics of review text for each category and statistically compare their differences using t-test. Lastly, we regression analysis using the data mining software RapidMiner to find out determinant factors. As a result of comparing and analyzing product review characteristics of electronic products and apparel products, it was found that reviewers used more words as well as longer sentences when writing product reviews for electronic products. As for the content characteristics of the product reviews, it was found that these reviews included many analytic words, carried more clout, and related to the cognitive processes (CogProc) more so than the apparel product reviews, in addition to including many words expressing negative emotions (NegEmo). On the other hand, the apparel product reviews included more personal, authentic, positive emotions (PosEmo) and perceptual processes (Percept) compared to the electronic product reviews. Next, we analyzed the determinants toward the usefulness of the product reviews between the two product groups. As a result, it was found that product reviews with high product ratings from reviewers in both product groups that were perceived as being useful contained a larger number of total words, many expressions involving perceptual processes, and fewer negative emotions. In addition, apparel product reviews with a large number of comparative expressions, a low expertise index, and concise content with fewer words in each sentence were perceived to be useful. In the case of electronic product reviews, those that were analytical with a high expertise index, along with containing many authentic expressions, cognitive processes, and positive emotions (PosEmo) were perceived to be useful. These findings are expected to help consumers effectively identify useful product reviews in the future.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.11
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• pp.30-40
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• 2021

Ratings and reviews, despite their growing influence on restaurants' sales and reputation, entail a few limitations due to the burgeoning of reviews and inaccuracies in rating systems. This study explores the texts in reviews and ratings of a delivery application and discovers ways to elevate review credibility and usefulness. Through a text mining method, we concluded that the delivery application 'Yogiyo' has (1) a five-star oriented rating dispersion, (2) a strong positive correlation between rating factors (taste, quantity, and delivery) and (3) distinct part of speech and morpheme proportions depending on review polarity. We created a chicken-specialized negative word dictionary under four main topics and 20 sub-topic classifications after extracting a total of 367 negative words. We provide insights on how the research on delivery app reviews should progress, centered on fried chicken reviews.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.63-82
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• 2016

Individuals gather information online to resolve problems in their daily lives and make various decisions about the purchase of products or services. With the revolutionary development of information technology, Web 2.0 has allowed more people to easily generate and use online reviews such that the volume of information is rapidly increasing, and the usefulness and significance of analyzing the unstructured data have also increased. This paper presents an analysis on the lexical features of expert product reviews to determine their influence on consumers' purchasing decisions. The focus was on how unstructured data can be organized and used in diverse contexts through text mining. In addition, diverse lexical features of expert reviews of contents provided by a third-party review site were extracted and defined. Expert reviews are defined as evaluations by people who have expert knowledge about specific products or services in newspapers or magazines; this type of review is also called a critic review. Consumers who purchased products before the widespread use of the Internet were able to access expert reviews through newspapers or magazines; thus, they were not able to access many of them. Recently, however, major media also now provide online services so that people can more easily and affordably access expert reviews compared to the past. The reason why diverse reviews from experts in several fields are important is that there is an information asymmetry where some information is not shared among consumers and sellers. The information asymmetry can be resolved with information provided by third parties with expertise to consumers. Then, consumers can read expert reviews and make purchasing decisions by considering the abundant information on products or services. Therefore, expert reviews play an important role in consumers' purchasing decisions and the performance of companies across diverse industries. If the influence of qualitative data such as reviews or assessment after the purchase of products can be separately identified from the quantitative data resources, such as the actual quality of products or price, it is possible to identify which aspects of product reviews hamper or promote product sales. Previous studies have focused on the characteristics of the experts themselves, such as the expertise and credibility of sources regarding expert reviews; however, these studies did not suggest the influence of the linguistic features of experts' product reviews on consumers' overall evaluation. However, this study focused on experts' recommendations and evaluations to reveal the lexical features of expert reviews and whether such features influence consumers' overall evaluations and purchasing decisions. Real expert product reviews were analyzed based on the suggested methodology, and five lexical features of expert reviews were ultimately determined. Specifically, the "review depth" (i.e., degree of detail of the expert's product analysis), and "lack of assurance" (i.e., degree of confidence that the expert has in the evaluation) have statistically significant effects on consumers' product evaluations. In contrast, the "positive polarity" (i.e., the degree of positivity of an expert's evaluations) has an insignificant effect, while the "negative polarity" (i.e., the degree of negativity of an expert's evaluations) has a significant negative effect on consumers' product evaluations. Finally, the "social orientation" (i.e., the degree of how many social expressions experts include in their reviews) does not have a significant effect on consumers' product evaluations. In summary, the lexical properties of the product reviews were defined according to each relevant factor. Then, the influence of each linguistic factor of expert reviews on the consumers' final evaluations was tested. In addition, a test was performed on whether each linguistic factor influencing consumers' product evaluations differs depending on the lexical features. The results of these analyses should provide guidelines on how individuals process massive volumes of unstructured data depending on lexical features in various contexts and how companies can use this mechanism from their perspective. This paper provides several theoretical and practical contributions, such as the proposal of a new methodology and its application to real data.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.87-110
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• 2019

The Fintech services provide innovation to financial services users using various mobile devices and computers in wired and wireless communication environments. In this study, we develope a theoretical research framework to explain the psychology of Fintech services users based on a cognitive, affective, and conative framework. Using this framework, this study analyzes the relationships between the cognitive characteristics (i.e., innovation, relative advantage, ease of use, and usefulness), emotional characteristic (i.e., attitude), and behavioral characteristic (i.e., actual use) toward Fintech services users. This study conducted an online survey of people who have experienced using Fintech services. And the data of the collected Fintech services users was analyzed using structural equation model software (i.e., SMART PLS 2.0 M3). The results of the empirical analysis show the relationships between innovation, relative advantage, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude, and actual use of Fintech service users. The results of this study provide useful information to improve the practical use of Fintech services users in the Internet of Things (IoT) environment.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.181-201
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• 2006

As the Internet spreads, many people have interests in e-CRM and product recommender systems, one of e-CRM applications. Among various approaches for recommendation, collaborative filtering and content-based approaches have been investigated and applied widely. Despite their popularity, traditional recommendation approaches have some limitations. They require at least one purchase transaction per user. In addition, they don't utilize much information such as demographic and specific personal profile information. This study suggests new hybrid recommendation model using two data mining techniques, association rule and classification, as well as intelligent agent to overcome these limitations. To validate the usefulness of the model, it was applied to the real case and the prototype web site was developed. We assessed the usefulness of the suggested recommendation model through online survey. The result of the survey showed that the information of the recommendation was generally useful to the survey participants.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.311-328
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• 2022

Because of the spread of smartphones due to the development of information and communication technology, online shopping mall services can be used on computers and mobile devices. As a result, the number of users using the online shopping mall service increases rapidly, and the types of products traded are also growing. Therefore, to maximize profits, companies need to provide information that may interest users. To this end, the recommendation system presents necessary information or products to the user based on the user's past behavioral data or behavioral purchase records. Representative overseas companies that currently provide recommendation services include Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube. These companies support users' purchase decisions by recommending products to users using ratings, purchase records, and clickstream data that users give to the items. In addition, users refer to the ratings left by other users about the product before buying a product. Most users tend to provide ratings only to products they are satisfied with, and the higher the rating, the higher the purchase intention. And recently, e-commerce sites have provided users with the ability to vote on whether product reviews are helpful. Through this, the user makes a purchase decision by referring to reviews and ratings of products judged to be beneficial. Therefore, in this study, the correlation between the product rating and the helpful information of the review is identified. The valuable data of the evaluation is reflected in the recommendation system to check the recommendation performance. In addition, we want to compare the results of skipping all the ratings in the traditional collaborative filtering technique with the recommended performance results that reflect only the 4 and 5 ratings. For this purpose, electronic product data collected from Amazon was used in this study, and the experimental results confirmed a correlation between ratings and review usefulness information. In addition, as a result of comparing the recommendation performance by reflecting all the ratings and only the 4 and 5 points in the recommendation system, the recommendation performance of remembering only the 4 and 5 points in the recommendation system was higher. In addition, as a result of reflecting review usefulness information in the recommendation system, it was confirmed that the more valuable the review, the higher the recommendation performance. Therefore, these experimental results are expected to improve the performance of personalized recommendation services in the future and provide implications for e-commerce sites.