• Title/Summary/Keyword: Virtual Community Trust

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A Study on the Impact of the SNS-Based Virtual Brand Community Identity on Brand Loyalty (SNS에 기반한 가상 브랜드 커뮤니티의 아이덴티티가 브랜드 충성도에 미치는 영향)

  • Chen, Xinyan;Kim, Minsung;Kang, Daeseok;Suh, Woojong
    • Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
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    • v.22 no.4
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    • pp.181-203
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    • 2015
  • Customers who show high level of brand loyalty are one of the most important corporate assets. Accordingly, customers' brand loyalty has been addressed as a critical issue for the business success. In today's business environment where business channels to customers have expanded and diversified continuously, especially the use of social network services (SNSs) have drawn a lot of attention as an effective channel to promote customers' brand loyalty. This study, thus, analyzes the impact of the virtual brand community identity on customers' brand loyalty, focusing on the role of the sense of communities as mediators. The analysis was conducted by using the data collected from 239 users of Chinese virtual brand communities. The results show that both virtual brand community identity and the sense of communities significantly influence on customers' brand loyalty. Furthermore, the results reveal that both of the community belongingness and community trust composing the sense of community partially mediate virtual brand community and brand loyalty as hypothesized. Based on the results, the strategic implications are suggested and discussed, focusing on improving the customers' brand loyalty in the context of SNSs. Our findings and discussions can help companies develop their customer strategies for utilizing the virtual communities to strengthen customers' brand loyalty.

Electronic Word-of-Mouth in B2C Virtual Communities: An Empirical Study from CTrip.com (B2C허의사구중적전자구비(B2C虚拟社区中的电子口碑): 관우휴정려유망적실증연구(关于携程旅游网的实证研究))

  • Li, Guoxin;Elliot, Statia;Choi, Chris
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.20 no.3
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    • pp.262-268
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    • 2010
  • Virtual communities (VCs) have developed rapidly, with more and more people participating in them to exchange information and opinions. A virtual community is a group of people who may or may not meet one another face to face, and who exchange words and ideas through the mediation of computer bulletin boards and networks. A business-to-consumer virtual community (B2CVC) is a commercial group that creates a trustworthy environment intended to motivate consumers to be more willing to buy from an online store. B2CVCs create a social atmosphere through information contribution such as recommendations, reviews, and ratings of buyers and sellers. Although the importance of B2CVCs has been recognized, few studies have been conducted to examine members' word-of-mouth behavior within these communities. This study proposes a model of involvement, statistics, trust, "stickiness," and word-of-mouth in a B2CVC and explores the relationships among these elements based on empirical data. The objectives are threefold: (i) to empirically test a B2CVC model that integrates measures of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors; (ii) to better understand the nature of these relationships, specifically through word-of-mouth as a measure of revenue generation; and (iii) to better understand the role of stickiness of B2CVC in CRM marketing. The model incorporates three key elements concerning community members: (i) their beliefs, measured in terms of their involvement assessment; (ii) their attitudes, measured in terms of their satisfaction and trust; and, (iii) their behavior, measured in terms of site stickiness and their word-of-mouth. Involvement is considered the motivation for consumers to participate in a virtual community. For B2CVC members, information searching and posting have been proposed as the main purpose for their involvement. Satisfaction has been reviewed as an important indicator of a member's overall community evaluation, and conceptualized by different levels of member interactions with their VC. The formation and expansion of a VC depends on the willingness of members to share information and services. Researchers have found that trust is a core component facilitating the anonymous interaction in VCs and e-commerce, and therefore trust-building in VCs has been a common research topic. It is clear that the success of a B2CVC depends on the stickiness of its members to enhance purchasing potential. Opinions communicated and information exchanged between members may represent a type of written word-of-mouth. Therefore, word-of-mouth is one of the primary factors driving the diffusion of B2CVCs across the Internet. Figure 1 presents the research model and hypotheses. The model was tested through the implementation of an online survey of CTrip Travel VC members. A total of 243 collected questionnaires was reduced to 204 usable questionnaires through an empirical process of data cleaning. The study's hypotheses examined the extent to which involvement, satisfaction, and trust influence B2CVC stickiness and members' word-of-mouth. Structural Equation Modeling tested the hypotheses in the analysis, and the structural model fit indices were within accepted thresholds: ${\chi}^2^$/df was 2.76, NFI was .904, IFI was .931, CFI was .930, and RMSEA was .017. Results indicated that involvement has a significant influence on satisfaction (p<0.001, ${\beta}$=0.809). The proportion of variance in satisfaction explained by members' involvement was over half (adjusted $R^2$=0.654), reflecting a strong association. The effect of involvement on trust was also statistically significant (p<0.001, ${\beta}$=0.751), with 57 percent of the variance in trust explained by involvement (adjusted $R^2$=0.563). When the construct "stickiness" was treated as a dependent variable, the proportion of variance explained by the variables of trust and satisfaction was relatively low (adjusted $R^2$=0.331). Satisfaction did have a significant influence on stickiness, with ${\beta}$=0.514. However, unexpectedly, the influence of trust was not even significant (p=0.231, t=1.197), rejecting that proposed hypothesis. The importance of stickiness in the model was more significant because of its effect on e-WOM with ${\beta}$=0.920 (p<0.001). Here, the measures of Stickiness explain over eighty of the variance in e-WOM (Adjusted $R^2$=0.846). Overall, the results of the study supported the hypothesized relationships between members' involvement in a B2CVC and their satisfaction with and trust of it. However, trust, as a traditional measure in behavioral models, has no significant influence on stickiness in the B2CVC environment. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on B2CVCs, specifically addressing gaps in the academic research by integrating measures of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in one model. The results provide additional insights to behavioral factors in a B2CVC environment, helping to sort out relationships between traditional measures and relatively new measures. For practitioners, the identification of factors, such as member involvement, that strongly influence B2CVC member satisfaction can help focus technological resources in key areas. Global e-marketers can develop marketing strategies directly targeting B2CVC members. In the global tourism business, they can target Chinese members of a B2CVC by providing special discounts for active community members or developing early adopter programs to encourage stickiness in the community. Future studies are called for, and more sophisticated modeling, to expand the measurement of B2CVC member behavior and to conduct experiments across industries, communities, and cultures.

Study of previous Factors of Switching barrier at Online shop (온라인 쇼핑몰 전환장벽의 선행요인 연구)

  • Park, Soo-Min;Yoo, Chul-Woo;Choe, Young-Chan
    • Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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    • v.15 no.3
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    • pp.433-460
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    • 2008
  • The objectives of this study were to figure out the relationships of factors, e-quality, interactivity, trust and switching barrier, to affect the online customers loyalty. Moreover, e-quality was considered because of the problem of ssability originated from the environment that a lot of information and products are given at online business. This study employs a survey method to empirically test the proposed research model. A survey questionnaire was developed and 100 responses were collected. The data were analyzed using PLS method, a structural equation modeling method. The results of the study indicate that e-quality, interactivity, and trust influence switching barrier and that the switching barrier affects virtual relationship, which has an positive effect on loyalty. This study provides valuable theoretical and practical perspectives that e-quality is the most influential factor on virtual relationship and that, of the three factors of switching barrier, the virtual relationship is the most effective one to prevent customers online from changing their main online shop for products.

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The influence of social capital on knowledge sharing behavior of mobile learners (사회적 자본이 이동학습자의 지식공유행위에 미치는 영향)

  • Qin, Ying;Lee, Kyeong-Rak;Lee, Sang-Joon
    • Asia-pacific Journal of Multimedia Services Convergent with Art, Humanities, and Sociology
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    • v.8 no.9
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    • pp.647-658
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    • 2018
  • Modern society is complex and rapidly changing, and knowledge sharing is needed to acquire and create knowledge. Knowledge sharing is the act of providing information knowledge and know-how of their own in order to cooperate with or help their colleagues. This study presents a research model using social capital theory to explain the mobile knowledge sharing behavior of virtual community members. Based on previous studies, social capital theory is divided into structural, relational, and cognitive aspects. It was composed of social interaction ties as a measure of structural aspect, trust as a measure of cognitive aspect, shared language, shared vision and relational aspect. After collecting survey data, factor analysis and regression analysis were performed using SPSS 22. In this way, we examined how the detailed factors of social capital affect information sharing behavior and how the level of knowledge sharing affects community promotion. The results showed that social interaction ties, shared language, shared vision, and trust affect knowledge sharing. Knowledge sharing has had a positive impact on community promotion.

Understanding Knowledge Sourcing Behavior in Virtual Communities (가상 커뮤니티에서의 지식소싱행동에 대한 이해)

  • Park, Sang Cheol;Kim, Junghwan;Song, Jaeki
    • Knowledge Management Research
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    • v.12 no.2
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    • pp.35-55
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    • 2011
  • By providing a number of unprecedented knowledge sources, virtual communities have stimulated interests in knowledge sourcing Specifically, virtual communities have triggered fundamental changes in the ways that people interact with one another. Thus, there is a critical need to examine how people try to behave for sourcing knowledge in virtual communities, particularly in terms of the demand-side perspective of knowledge. To address the knowledge gap regarding knowledge sourcing behavior from the knowledge recipients' side, this study draws upon GPA(goal-plan-action) theory with both the social cognitive theory and the goal-setting theory as overarching theories. Furthermore, we apply past experience in virtual communities and trust in knowledge providers as moderating variables to deeply understand the knowledge recipients' behavior. We expect to present theoretical and practical implications through our findings, which are relevant to cognitive goal-setting and knowledge sourcing behavior. In the theoretical perspective, this study illustrates how knowledge recipients determine knowledge sourcing behavior. Based on our findings, this study has practical implications for virtual communities to effectively balance knowledge repositories and knowledge management systems with knowledge providers and recipients.

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The Effect of Anonymity on Virtual Team Performance in Online Communities (온라인 커뮤니티 내 익명성이 가상 팀 성과에 미치는 영향)

  • Lee, Un-Kon;Lee, Aeri;Kim, Kyong Kyu
    • The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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    • v.20 no.1
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    • pp.217-241
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    • 2015
  • One of the challenges in online community management is what level of perceived anonymity can be granted to encourage active participation from members while discouraging unhealthy activities. Few studies developed a scheme of anonymity and investigated how different levels of anonymity influence community activities. This study develops a classification scheme of anonymity encompassing the following three different levels : (1) real name(no anonymity), (2) nickname (partial anonymity), and (3) random assignment of a temporal ID (complete anonymity). Then, it examines how different levels of anonymity influence trust and perceived risk, which in turn affect virtual team performance. A series of laboratory experiments were performed, manipulating the levels of anonymity, in the context of well-structured communities that allow prior interactions among community members. The data was collected from 364 laboratory participants and analyzed using ANOVA and PLS. The results indicate that the difference of anonymity between (2) and (3) had not be significant and the only (1) could not guarantee the anonymity. The impact of anonymity on trust and perceived risk could not be significant in this situation. These findings could contribute to make more beneficial member identification strategies in online community practice.

The Effects of Metaverse Related Self-determination on Intention to Continuous Use Through Intrinsic Motivation: Moderating Effect of Member Trust (메타버스 관련 자기결정성이 내적 동기를 통해 지속적 이용 의도에 미치는 영향: 구성원 신뢰의 조절 효과)

  • Hwang, Inho
    • The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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    • v.27 no.2
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    • pp.79-103
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    • 2022
  • COVID-19 is forcing people to minimize face-to-face networking activities between members of society, and they are increasing their use of online platforms. In particular, interest in the metaverse, a virtual community with enhanced realism, is growing. Specifically, this study suggests a mechanism to improve the intention to continuous use of metaverse users by using the self-determination theory, and confirms that trust between metaverse members moderates the relationship between self-determination and intrinsic motivation. We obtained 353 samples through a questionnaire targeting those who have used metaverse and verified the hypothesis through structural equation modeling. As a result of the analysis, individual self-determination of the metaverse formed intrinsic motivation such as identification and enjoyment, which affected the intention to continue use, and the trust of metaverse members partially moderated the relationship between self-determination and motivation. The result contributes to the sustainability of the metaverse platform by suggesting an approach to users and the environment to improve the intention of continuous use of metaverse.

The Relationship with Electronic Trust, Web Site Commitment and Service Transaction Intention in Public Shipping B2B e-marketplace (해운 B2B e-marketplace의 전자적 신뢰, 사이트몰입 및 서비스 거래의도와의 관계성)

  • Kim, Yong-Man;Kim, Seog-Yong;Lee, Jong-Hwan;Shim, Gyu-Yeol
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.17 no.4
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    • pp.113-139
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    • 2007
  • This study aims to, looking from a standpoint of network, has investigated the shipping industry's B2B e-marketplace, the characteristics that can earn electronic trust from the users, and characteristics of the web-site. It has examined the mechanism whereby electronic trust be earned and how it affects web-site involvement and service transaction intention. Ultimately, The study attempts to make proposals whereby such trust can lead for a cooperative trading community in the shipping industry's B2B e-marketplace The Covalence structural equation modeling was designed and empirically tested for the shipping industry's B2B e-marketplace. The shipping industry employees were given questionnaires and data were analyzed. Except for perceived security of the three characteristic factors on the web-site, the perceived site quality and characteristics factors in operation only affected co-variables. Transaction Fairness was determined to be the most important factor among exogenous factors increasing electronic trust. With regards to transaction rules, if a transaction is beneficial only to one side, then no long term transaction will not take place. If the concerned parties properly recognize that transaction fairness is crucial to electronic transaction, then it will enormously contribute to successful operations of shipping e-marketplace. Also, Perceived efficiency in transaction also affects electronic trust. This reduces transaction costs and speeds up and simplifies the transaction process. It has reduced greater time and costs than existing off-line transaction, and would positively affect electronic trust. By making an open forum for participants to obtain information for transaction, they can gather useful information, and at the same time, the web-site operator can provide information, which, in turn, will increase electronic trust in electronic transaction. Furthermore, such formation of trust in electronic transaction influences shipping companies in such a way that they will want to continuously participate in the transaction, raising web-site involvement. The result of increased trust is that shipping companies in the future will do business with each other and form a foundation for continuous transactions amongst themselves. Consequently, the formation of trust in electronic transaction greatly influences web-site involvement and service transaction intention. The results of the study have again proved that in order to maintain continuous business relationship with the current clients, electronic trust in virtual space, which operates the shipping industry's B2B e-marketplace, is important for the interested parties.

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The Factors to Promote Internet Knowledge Sharing: Based on Social Capital Theory and Self-Expression Concept (인터넷 지식공유에 영향을 미치는 요인 연구: 사회적 자본 이론과 자기표현욕구를 중심으로)

  • Han, Jin-Woo;Yoo, Chul-Woo;Choe, Young-Chan
    • Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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    • v.16 no.1
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    • pp.153-180
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    • 2009
  • The previous researches about knowledge sharing were proceeded in terms of KMS (Knowledge Management System) in center. However, knowledge sharing is recently applied to Internet space, which is open to every users, as well as KMS, which is qualified for restricted people. For example, some portal sites, such as Naver, the most popular portal in Korea, have virtual spaces to share users' knowledges and it is common that many users use the spaces. Knowledge sharing online, compared with KMS, will be more advanced to promote intention for knowledge sharing because of the character of Internet space that is open to all users. Nevertheless, there are few researches about knowledge sharing in the Internet. Considering this situation, this study is attempted to figure out the factors to promote Internet knowledge sharing, based on social capital theory and self-expression concept. A survey of experienced Internet user and PLS (Partial Least Square) were utilized for analysis. The test of this study reveals that social capital and self-expression are significant factors to influence knowledge sharing intention, and that also personal innovation and self-efficacy are significantly related to the self-expression. However, personal innovation does not have significant impact on social capital. According to the result, self-expression, as well as trust and system itself, has significantly effect on knowledge sharing intention in order to promote knowledge sharing in the Internet.

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A Spatial Study on the Network Formation Process of Personal Actors: The Case of Institutional Building Networks in Industries for the Elderly (개인 행위주체의 네트워크 형성 과정에 대한 공간적 고찰: 고령친화산업의 제도구축 네트워크를 사례로)

  • Koo, Yang-Mi
    • Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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    • v.11 no.3
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    • pp.334-349
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    • 2008
  • In this study, the network formation process of personal actors in industries for the elderly was analyzed. This process is applied to the knowledge creation model of the SECI (Nonaka-Takeuchi learning cycle), that is socialization, externalization, combination, internalization. There are some kinds of opportunities to interact in these industries in the forms of field survey teams to overseas, some seminars and symposiums, many kinds of meetings, education and training programs, trade fairs and on-line forums. These palces(ba) - originating ba, interacting ba, cyber ba, exercising ba - played great roles in the formation of personal actor networks. Personal actors had opportunities to interconnect with distant actors through those places(ba). In the spatial perspective, personal actors could make face-to-face contact and build trust through temporary geographical proximity or temporary clusters with the help of personal mobility. Relations in the virtual spaces such as the Internet community did much toward building personal networks.

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