• Title/Summary/Keyword: Virtual communities

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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.

Operation Strategy in Online Knowledge Sharing Community (지식공유 목적의 가상 커뮤니티 운영전략에 관한 연구)

  • Lee, Kook-Yong
    • 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.

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Analysis on Factors Affecting Knowledge Sharing Behavior in Virtual Community (가상커뮤니티에서 지식공유 행동에 영향을 미치는 요인 분석)

  • Park, Kyung-Soo;Lim, Yong-Hwan
    • Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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    • v.13 no.3
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    • pp.38-53
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    • 2008
  • This study focuses on identifying motivation factors affecting knowledge sharing behavior in virtual communities. To achieve this research objective, a research model has been developed through two major coordinated theories such as social cognitive theory(self-efficacy and community-related outcome expectation) and social exchange theory (codification effort, image, reciprocity, and enjoyment in helping others). 246 samples have been collected and simple regression and multiple regression methods have been used for empirical analysis. The research result is that self-efficacy has a positive influence on image, reciprocity, enjoyment in helping others, and community-related outcome expectation and thus this result reveals that self-efficacy indirectly affects knowledge sharing behavior. Among the antecedents of knowledge sharing behavior, codification effort, enjoyment in helping others and community-related outcome expectation are significant, but image and reciprocity are not. The research results help to derive practical strategic implications related to knowledge sharing to activate a virtual community.

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Space Composition Characteristics Analysis of the Community-Centered Shared Office (공유오피스의 커뮤니티 중심 공간 구성 특성)

  • Lee, hye-su;Nam, Kyung-Sook
    • Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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    • v.27 no.1
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    • pp.3-11
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    • 2018
  • The number of shared offices has increased and changed within the flow of the era into various forms in recent days. Co-working spaces and related shared space businesses are growing fast, keeping pace with the trend recently. It is confirmed that the need of spaces grew 180% since 2015 to 2017. Most of the shared offices in Seoul are placed in Gangnam circle, it is verified that shared office is providing work, space, and community by visiting cases of foreign companies, domestic companies, local companies. Meanwhile, shared space can be categorized into serviced office, co-working space, virtual office, and daily office. It is to consider various target levels by leasing service or the difference of costs. It is divided into forms of dispersion, circulation, and concentration and is planned to increase the utilization of communities' traffic according to the allocation of shared office. The business is conducted network-centered. During the process of communication, members can get chances to exchange and build communities. They are making business ecosystem which they can coexist and grow together. Shared offices have a view of a solution to empty rooms and will last for a while, and it is expected that co-working system be settled as office space and giving people sense of belonging on their workspace.

Online Brand Community and Its Outcomes

  • Ha, Yongsoo
    • The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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    • v.5 no.4
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    • pp.107-116
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    • 2018
  • The aim of this study is to delve deeper into the online brand community study. This study tests (a) the effects of online brand community on its outcomes, (b) the impact of value creation practice construct as a whole, (c) the effects of value creating practice construct on the two types of loyalty, loyalty toward the brand and the community. Participants of this study (N=353) are members of four types of online brand communities (e.g., business-to-consumer virtual product support community, firm-hosted online community, user-generated online community, peer-to-peer problem-solving community, and social media based brand community). Data were collected online using Amazon Mechanical Turk from April 10, 2016 to May 10, 2016. The data were analyzed through structural equations modeling using AMOS 20. The three community markers (e.g., consciousness of kind, rituals and traditions, and moral responsibility) and the four value creation practices (e.g., social networking, impression management, community engagement, and brand use) are proved to be significant indicators of online brand community and value creation practice constructs, respectively. Test results showed that strong and effective online brand communities generate value creation practices, and value creation practices enhance brand loyalty. The mediating effects of community loyalty between value creation practices and brand loyalty were revealed.

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.

Ukrainian Students' Analysis of Abuse Treatment by Parents: Retrospective and Perspective in Virtual and Real Environments

  • Stoliarchuk, Olesia;Kokhanova, Olena;Prorok, Nataliia;Khrypko, Svitlana;Shevtsova, Olena;Tkachyshyna, Oksana;Lobanchuk, Olena
    • International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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    • v.22 no.8
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    • pp.197-207
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    • 2022
  • Given the prevalence of violence in Ukrainian families, measures to prevent parental abusive treatment against children are urgent. It is important to study today's youth awareness about violence within families in order to enhance a culture of engagement with spouses and children in future. The aim of the study is to examine students' reflective experiences and their attitudes towards forms, frequency, causes and effects of parental abusive treatment. During the research the following methods were used step-by-step: theoretical analyses of scientific resources, anonymous questionnaire, quantitative and correlation analyses. According to result of survey 98 students who were interviewed, none of them fell victim of sexual abuse in their families. However, more than a half (51%) of the students surveyed experienced some forms of parental physical punishment. All the interviewed students encountered psychological cases of parental violence. The mostprevalent forms of parental abuse among the interviewees are criticism, negative comparison, emotional detachment, arrogance, intimidation, blackmail and humiliation. The most prevalent consequences of parental abuse among students are anxiety, low self-esteem, insecurity, impatience, suspiciousness, constraint in communication. Students agree that budget limitations, forced labor, criticism, spanking, emotional detachment, ignoring type of communication, reproach, blackmail are acceptable methods of punishment to use when raising their own children. These results clearly demonstrate the problem of the impact of parental abuse on children and its consequences in the future. A virtual dimension of the actualized problem is considered, namely: - virtualization of aggression and cruelty in the postmodern world. - the level of determining the factor of cruelty from the space of virtual culture. - the mirror image of everyday cruelty in the virtual environment; - the phenomenon of video games as a source and context of representation of the factor of cruelty in behavioral realities; - cybercrime as a virtualized result of cruelty in family and everyday realities. - futurological perspectives of virtualization of cruelty in communicative culture in general and in family relations in particular. The postmodern world is fundamentally different from the traditions and culture of the past, primarily due to the development of computer technologies and the virtualization of life in general. So, for example, virtual communities have become, in a certain way, another world, a second reality of life in general. And certain behavioral factors, in particular cruelty in the private environment, became a projection of such a phenomenon as cybercrime. Video games are a unique modern phenomenon, which multipolarly absorb all facets of human potential, communicative tendencies, behavioral and characterological factors, from the warmth of interpersonal relationships to the extreme degree of cruelty.

Facebook Users' Behaviour and Motivation for Writing Reviews

  • Jeong, So Hee;Chung, Myoung Sug;Lee, Joo Yeoun
    • Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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    • v.23 no.3
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    • pp.97-116
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    • 2018
  • Individuals depend considerably on gathering information from personal social networks rather than from commercial network channels or the mass media. Most academic journals that have examined this topic concentrate on online users' information-searching behaviours; however, this paper discusses online users' information-providing behaviour in the online community. The aim of this study is to investigate that online users' motivation to write reviews on Facebook and how the motivations affect users' information-providing behaviour. This study focusses on Facebook members' motivations that affect their review-writing behaviour. The fundamental theory for examining this topic is Vogt and Fesenmaier's (1998) 'information need'. This study modifies Vogt and Fesenmaier's (1998) theory for virtual communities through the development of each concept's measurement items, selecting the information need of four variables: functional, hedonic, innovation, and sign need. Among the four variables, sign need is the most important factor for Facebook users in the virtual environment. Through sign need, people indicate their status, personality form, and position, which significantly affects members' review-writing behaviour on Facebook.

Contents and Item Development for Virtual Communities in Apartment - The Revitalization for Commununities Program - (아파트 단지 내 사이버 커뮤니티 콘텐츠 및 아이템 개발 - 공동체 활성화를 위한 프로그램 중심으로 -)

  • Park, Na-Rae;Kang, Soon-Joo
    • Proceeding of Spring/Autumn Annual Conference of KHA
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    • 2008.11a
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    • pp.344-349
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    • 2008
  • When it comes to discussing the natural behaviors of human life, defining the word "community" itself can be extremely crucial. The word "Community" can be defined as a group of interacting human beings sharing an environment. It is also the basic form for "dwelling" which can be explained as a quint essential factor in human life. Compared to the previous traditional society with strong bonding and close chemistry between neighbors, modern society with simple and monolithic apartments brought a literal extinction of what has been called as a 'relationship'. Hence, people started to take this phenomenon as a problematic issue. Also, high-rise apartments made its residents more isolated and individualistic on a growing basis. In order to aid the aggravating symptoms, there has been a wide recognition between the "dwellers" to develop and strengthen their "community". This movement in strengthening the "community" is currently on a full expansion towards the cyber space, riding the tides of a drastic improvement of the Internet. Apartment web sites today not only displays introductory level of information they also provide wider meanings of general lifestyle plus deeper content, which can enhance their community.

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A Symbolic Meaning of Youth Fashion in Media Culture (미디어 문화에 나타난 청소년 패션의 상징적 의미)

  • Kim, So-Young;Yang, Hee-Young
    • Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
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    • v.10 no.3
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    • pp.73-88
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    • 2008
  • The media culture influences upon young people while introducing new cultures by every hour. Considering the mainstream culture, in which media has the greatest effect on young people, this article examines the symbolic significances of youth fashion through media culture. The results of this study can be summarized as the following: First, young people's popular culture ("pop culture") is becoming the medium that leads to the creation of similar cultures of the young people globally through various routes. Culture is being created by integration of diverse media, and not by what is seen through a single medium. Typical young people's culture, which is formed due to the influence of media culture, includes community culture, pun culture, virtual culture and fandom culture. Second, in order to examine youth fashion that is seen in those media, the survey has been conducted on media stars, tecktonik dance groups, fashion models, avatars and online communities, which are fashion icons influencing young people. Third, youth fashion, which has been formed centering on media culture, has the flexible property that varies the symbolic significance according to which culture becomes the main axis. The symbolic significance in fashion, which is seen on media culture young people are contacting, has been examined in the aspects of value orientation, diversity orientation, speed orientation and digital orientation.

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