• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.71-85
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• 2008

The rapid growth of blog has caused information overload where bloggers in the virtual community space are no longer able to effectively choose the blogs they are exposed to. Recommender systems have been widely advocated as a way of coping with the problem of information overload in e-business environment. Collaborative Filtering (CF) is the most successful recommendation method to date and used in many of the recommender systems. In this research, we propose a CF-based recommender system for bloggers to find their similar bloggers or preferable virtual community without burdensome search effort. For such a purpose, we apply the "Interest Value" to CF recommender systems. The Interest Value is the quantity value about users' transaction data in virtual community, and can measure the opinion of users accurately. Based on the Interest Value, the neighborhood group is generated, and virtual community list is recommended using the Community Likeness Score (ClS). Our experimental results upon real data of Korean Blog site show that the methodology is capable of dealing with the information overload issue in virtual community space. And Interest Value is proved to have the potential to meet the challenge of recommendation methodologies in virtual community space.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.49-69
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• 2006

The virtual community has been recognized as an effective marketing tool and has been an important motive of using internet to Internet users, but very few attempts have been done for the development of virtual community success. Although many studies have been made on influencing factors of virtual community success, the comprehensive studies have never been done so far. Therefore, this study focused on developing the comprehensive model and verifying empirically. This study proposed five influencing factors(Virtual Community Operational factor, Characteristics of Users, Usefulness, Trust, Commitment) that affect virtual community success and three success factors(Sense of Virtual Community, Loyalty, Purchasing Intention) by carrying out literature review extensively and suggesting the relationship among factors. The relationship among factors were empirically validated by structural equation modeling. The data used in this study were collected from 292 users of the existing virtual communities. As the result of statistical analysis. It was found that Virtual Community Operational Factor and Characteristics of Users statistically significantly influenced Virtual Community Success. Also, it was shown that the intervening effects of Usefulness, Trust and Commitment were statistically significant, but that the relationship between commitment and Loyalty was not statistically significant. Finally, it turned out that the causality among success variables of Virtual Community was supported, but that sense of Virtual Community was required to be measured by new measurements.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.47-63
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• 2004

As Internet usages proliferate, the interests on cyber space and virtual community increase. The purpose of this study is to find the role of cognitive absorption as an intermediate variable. It is a variable that links factors that affect on members' usage of virtual community and cognitive absorption. The result of this study shows that challenges, skills, perceived reality, and needs affect the usage of virtual community through cognitive absorption, while only interactivity affects the usage of virtual community directly. This shows that cognitive absorption plays an important role in the usage of virtual community. The major contribution in this study is that cognitive absorption influences on the usage of virtual community greatly. If there is a way to increase the intensity of cognitive absorption, it will strongly help increase the performance of virtual community.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.63-82
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• 2009

Virtual community is a social aggregation to attain some goals in an IT-supported virtual space (Lee et al., 2002). As lots of virtual communities generate robust and reliable outputs with low control and low incentive, previous researchers was interested in the questions, "why do they participate?" or "how are they controlled?". But. as Katz (1964) said, the most important part of the high-performing organization is the behaviors of members in the organization. Therefore, this research is to examine the relationship between the performance and the behaviors of participants in the virtual community. First, we propose 6 types of behaviors related to high performance in the virtual community: 'Continuous Attendance', 'Complying with the organizational value, policies, and regulations', 'Protection', 'Suggestion for the improving', 'Self-training', and 'Favorable behavior'. The six types of behaviors are extracted from the framework of Katz (1964) and Brief and Motowidlo (1986). The reason why each behavior is positively related with high-performance is that those who continuously attend have more responsibility than temporary participants do; complying with the rules of a virtual community means that they may make more reliable outcome; 'Protection' is one of the prosocial-behaviors and those who protect the community may concern the benefit of the virtual community when they participate: those who suggest some ideas for improvement may contribute to the virtual community; 'Self-training' behavior means that participants really want to have high quality in their contribution: those who have 'Favorable attitude' consider other members in the virtual community when they participate. Then, we perform an empirical analysis with the survey from participants in the Knowledge service of Naver.com, to show those behaviors are associated with the high-performance. To make the measurement for the six behaviors, we use CVR (content validity ratio) method (Lawshe, 1975), interviewing 12 experts. The dependent variable, performance of participation, is measured by 'ratio of selected answer' given by the Naver.com. We use email survey. We sent 1200 emails to randomly selected participants in the knowledge service and received 282 responses. The results of our empirical analysis show that 4('Continuous Attendance', 'Suggestion for the improving', 'Self-training', 'Favorable attitude') are positively related to the performance, but 2('Complying with the organizational value, policies, and regulations' and 'Protection') are not significant. In line with Fitzgerald (2006), we expect that participants in the virtual community may behave similarly to employees in the off-line firms for the high performance. But 2 behaviors have different results. The reason that the 'Complying with the organizational value' behavior is not sufficiently related to performance is that the motivation of participants is more related to intrinsic pleasure or altruism than external reward. Also, the 'Protection' behavior has no significant relationship with performance, which means that the high-performing participants have little concern about the problems in the community.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.95-118
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• 2009

Virtual community, which is formed on the internet, is expected to serve the needs of members for communication, information, and knowledge sharing. The executives of organizations should consider operating strategy of virtual community as a new innovation or knowledge pool since members share knowledge. However, many virtual community have failed due to members' low willingness to engage and furthermore to share knowledge with other members. Thus, there is a need to understand and foster the determinants of members' loyalty in virtual community. The objective of this study is to develop an integrated model designed to investigate and explain the relationships between contextual factors, personal perceptions of virtual community, usefulness, ease of use, familiarity, members' trust, reputation, community trust, attitude, satisfaction and loyalty. Empirical data was collected from 286 internet users and tested using structural equation modeling to verify the fit of the hypothetical model. The results show that the usefulness, familiarity significantly influences attitude and members' trust is significantly influence the community trust. And I confirmed that ease of use and attitude play the role of determinants in making the satisfaction, community trust and reputation influence the satisfaction that have the direct effect to making the loyalty. The results of the study can be used to identify the loyalty in virtual community. By investigating the impacts of contextual factors and personal perceptions on virtual community, the integrated model better explains behavior than other proposed models. This study might help executives of virtual communities and organizations to manage and promote community trust, attitude, satisfaction to stimulate members' willingness to revisit the community and futhermore enhance their virtual community loyalty.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.35-46
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• 2003

This study focuses on the effect of Social Scaffolding of virtual community on its growth and thrift. The research model proposed in this study is that communities, which have goof social scaffolding, tend to grow and thrive. Social Scaffolding refers to those aspects of a site Purpose, Places, Profiles, leaders, Roles, Rules, Cyclic Events, integrating with the real world, and Subgroups. The data were collected from 100 virtual communities in Daum Communications and analyzed in this study. Multiple regression is used to analyze the relationship of variables. The result is following ; purpose, loaders, rules, integrating with the real world support the effects of social scaffolding of virtual community on its growth and thrift, but profiles, roles, cyclic events do not. The result of this study implies the importance of social scaffolding of virtual community for re-searches, and developers.

• Journal of the Korean housing association
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.57-66
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• 2008

In the past, strong social bands, which had spontaneous communities, existed in Korean traditional society. However, while it's developing through industrialization; monolithic apartment houses were introduced which causes less interaction between neighbors. With the growing attention to the higher living quality, various schemes to revitalize the community spirits have been groped, including to improve in hardhearted neighborhood relationships and to cope with the dreariness in the city. With the development of the internet and the spread of 'digital home', the communities in cyber space have been especially revitalized since the information-oriented society. In a move to strengthen the communities in apartment complexes, this study tries to find the revitalization scheme for virtual communities in apartment complexes by analyzing the contents of its web sites and understanding the world of virtual community. These are compared and analyzed. The related virtual communities ("cafe" or "blogs") are also analyzed. The results are as follows. 1) There are some differences among the contents provided by apartment virtual community developing companies, still, it could be categorized into four types; "apartment complex introduction and management information" "community revitalization" "living guide" "individual services" 2) The contents provided by self-organized communities of residents neither require additional charge nor special membership for information while the formation is not systematized. 3) In the comparison of apartment virtual community developing companies with residents self-organized communities, "apartment complex introduction and management information" on freeboard, notice, request and Q&A, and "community revitalization" on communication board are both provided throughout the web sites. 4) The contents provided by apartment virtual community developing companies makes the information available in a wide range with managers, on the other hand, self-organized communities emphasize on showing attachment and concern of residents and requiring communications between neighborhoods.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.183-205
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• 2024

Purpose This study aims to identify the factors that form the social identity of metaverse community users and to investigate the processes that influence engagement behavior. Specifically, this study is to verify the structural relationship between socio-technical factors and social identity of metaverse community. Furthermore, we would figure out the role of psychological ownership and virtual assets in engagement of metaverse community members. Design/methodology/approach Hypotheses were derived through literature research and a survey was conducted for users of the metaverse community. 357 collected responses were analyzed for the structural equitation modeling(SEM) with AMOS 24.0. Findings As a result of the study, all of the proposed hypotheses were supported. As a result, it was found that technical and social perceptions of the metaverse community platform had a positive effect on social identity. Social identity affects the intention to engage in the metaverse community through psychological ownership, and its influence is reinforced by the perceived value of virtual assets.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.71-86
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• 2014

This study investigated knowledge browsing behavior as the factor affecting the increase of knowledge sharing intention. To conduct this study in the specific context of knowledge seeking and sharing behavior of virtual community members, literature on knowledge seeking behavior, meta-knowledge, and knowledge sharing intention was reviewed. Structural Equation Modeling was conducted to analyze survey data to test the research model of this study. The result showed that knowledge browsing have positive effects on creating of virtual community members' subject knowledge and meta-knowledge, which, in turn, affected positively their knowledge sharing intention. One of the main contributions of this study is that knowledge seeking behavior influence one's knowledge sharing intention in a virtual community. Organization managers should consider knowledge seeking behavior as not only a self-interested, consuming activity, but also a productive one through its function of constructing subject knowledge and meta-knowledge.

• The Journal of Economics, Marketing and Management
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2023

Purpose: This study identified the effects of the three types of consumer interactions on the utilitarian and hedonic values experienced by community members, their degree of participation, and brand loyalty. In addition, the mediating effect of virtual interactivity between the interactions that occur within the online brand community and the value experienced by community members was also identified. Research design, data and methodology: An online survey was distributed, and the data gathered was analyzed using structural equations modeling. Results: Test results showed that product-information interaction has a positive effect on utilitarian value and interpersonal interaction has a positive effect on hedonic value. Human-computer interaction was found to have a negative effect on hedonic value and no significant effect on utilitarian value. Furthermore, it was revealed that among the three types of interactions, virtual interactivity had a mediating effect only in the relationship between human-computer interaction and hedonic value. Moreover, utilitarian values experienced by community members affected their level of participation which ultimately enhances brand loyalty. Hedonic value did not affect their level of participation within the online brand community. Conclusions: When marketers establish online brand community strategies, they must place elements that can directly help the use of brands and products.