• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.59-71
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• 2021

This study investigates the effects of restaurants' physical environments on customers' words of moth and return intention. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire from restaurants during summer of 2020 and received 627 useful responses. The data was analyzed using the hierarchical multiple regression. The results showed that restaurants' physical environments was statistically significant influencing factors on customers' positive word-of-mouth and return intention. Hygiene environmental variables did not moderated the relationship between restaurants' physical environments and customers' word-of-mouth whereas hygiene environmental variables did moderated the relationship between restaurants' physical environments and customers' return intention. The results of this study suggested that restaurant business owners need to maintain clean environment and to continuously educate employees to protect customers from COVID-19 spread.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.15-23
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• 2011

This study examined the effects educational service elements have on the satisfaction of educational service; it also analyzed how such satisfaction influenced educational institutions' registration renewal and word-of-mouth communications about the schools. The key factors of educational services included the following four components: physical environment, education programs, instructors, and tuition fee. An investigation into how the factors of educational services in private educational institutions may affect consumer satisfaction was an additional goal of this study. Based on the cause-and-effect analysis of the above constructs, the degree of influence that each of the attributes and the component factors have on consumers' educational service selection, as well as the consumers' satisfaction, were explored. An empirical analysis was conducted on students who were taking classes in cram schools; the analysis was also conducted on the students' parents. The results indicated that the hypotheses regarding the elements of educational service, educational program, and the instructor factor were supported. Furthermore, a hypothesis concerning the effects educational service satisfaction has on re-registration and word of mouth was supported, as well. Upon aggregating the above study results, it was concluded that when determining the effects of satisfaction on educational service, the educational program, and the instructor factor played a crucial role, while physical surroundings and tuition did not. When addressing the influence of the educational services factors on educational services satisfaction, education programs and instructors had a positive effect, whereas physical environment and tuition fee had no statistically significant impact. According to the influence of educational services satisfaction on registration renewal and word-of-mouth effects, educational services satisfaction was found to be a positive influential factor for both. In addition, it was found that satisfaction of educational service had a positive effect on renewing enrollment and forming word-of-mouth recommendations. Although the research seems simple, some theoretical implications can be drawn, as follows: First, one interpretation of the findings that the programs' and instructors' factors had a positive effect on educational services satisfaction but the physical environment and tuition fee factors did not have a significant effect suggests that the greatest influence factors in educational services are educational programs and instructors. Second, increased educational services satisfaction may result in consumer behavior changing, resulting in more registration renewals and more favorable word-of-mouth comments. Third, increased educational services satisfaction may result in enhancing consumer responses, resulting in more registration renewals and more favorable word-of-mouth opinions. Further research directions should include developing an integrated model that will allow for variation over time, before and after purchases, in relation to consumers' choices of educational services.

• Journal of Service Research and Studies
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.1-17
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• 2024

One of the most important decisions for managers in the online banner advertising industry, is to choose the best banner alternative for exposure to customers. Since it is difficult to know the click probability of each banner alternative in advance, managers must experiment with multiple alternatives, estimate the click probability of each alternative based on customer clicks, and find the optimal alternative. In this reinforcement learning process, the main decision problem is to find the optimal balance between the level of exploitation strategy that utilizes the accumulated estimated click probability information and exploration strategy that tries new alternatives to find potentially better options. In this study we analyze the impact of word-of-mouth effects and the number of alternatives on the optimal exploration-exploitation strategies. More specifically, we focus on the word-of-mouth effect, where the click-through rate of the banner increases as customers promote the related product to those around them after clicking the exposed banner, and add it to the overall reinforcement learning process. We analyze our problem by employing the Multi-Armed Bandit model, and the analysis results show that the larger the word-of-mouth effect and the fewer the number of banner alternatives, the higher the optimal exploration level of advertising reinforcement learning. We find that as the probability of customers clicking on the banner increases due to the word-of-mouth effect, the value of the previously accumulated estimated click-through rate knowledge decreases, and therefore the value of exploring new alternatives increases. Additionally, when the number of advertising alternatives is small, a larger increase in the optimal exploration level was observed as the magnitude of the word-of-mouth effect increased. This study provides meaningful academic and managerial implications at a time when online word-of-mouth and its impact on society and business is becoming more important.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.15 no.1 s.66
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• pp.58-67
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• 2007

The popularity of communities on the Internet has captured the attention of marketing professionals and more consumers are involved in online activities of fashion brands. The primary purpose of this research was to explain the process of how online interactivity influence members' relational market behavior. Subjects of this study were male and female members of online communities of fashion brands. Online survey data were obtained from 416 respondents. Empirical findings of this study were suggestive of two types of interaction in fashion online communities: community-customer interaction and customer-customer interaction. Fashion online community customers' relational market behavior (word of mouth and repurchase intention) was significantly influenced by both types of interactivity. The influence of interactivity on relational behavior was stronger for word of mouth intention than for repurchase intention. This study highlights the importance of interactivity in cyberspace as well as relational market behavior and contributes to e-relationship marketing strategies of fashion brands.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.34 no.8
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• pp.1242-1252
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• 2010

This research investigates the effect of fashion leadership on Word of Mouth (WOM) communications on the Internet. This research categorizes consumers into groups by fashion leadership and compares the groups regarding the WOM behavior (degrees of WOM acceptance and delivery as well as the motivations of WOM acceptance and delivery). The subjects of the study were 325 males and females. Major statistical methods used for the study were factor analysis, ANOVA, Scheff$\acute{e}$'s test, and chi-square test. The results categorized consumers into five groups by fashion leadership (dual leaders, fashion innovators, fashion opinion leaders, fashion followers, and fashion laggards). There were significant differences among fashion leadership groups over WOM behavior (acceptance and delivery) and monthly clothing expenditures. Fashion dual leaders had a higher degree of WOM acceptance with motivation of fashion information acquisition and compliance, and they had a higher degree of WOM delivery through motivation of economic compensation, pleasure, and advice. In addition, they had a higher expenditure for clothing products. Fashion innovators had a lower degree of compliance in WOM acceptance. Fashion opinion leaders had a higher degree of WOM delivery through motivation from advice. Fashion followers delivered WOM through motivation of economic compensation and advice. Fashion laggards had a lower degree of WOM acceptance and delivery.

• Journal of Sport and Applied Science
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.1-9
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• 2020

Purpose: This study sought to investigate the critical features of Word of mouth (WOM) advertising and their impact on sport consumer behavior. Research design, data, and methodology: Target population of the study consisted of all sports consumer of the Federation of Special Patients and Organ Transplantation, Tehran (Iran), who had indirectly watched the World Organ Transplant Competition documentary at least once on others' advice. For this purpose, 360 sports consumers of the federation were purposefully selected and they were asked to complete the standard WOM advertising questionnaire of Asda and Ko. Pearson correlation coefficient test and modeling of structural equations were performed using Spss24 and Smart PLS software at an error level of 0.05 used to analyze the data. Results: The findings show that there is a significant relationship between experience and expertise, trust and validity, content richness, and the power of message transmission through WOM advertising and its predictability. Finally, interpersonal relationships and work involvement also had a moderating role in this regard. Conclusions: The general conclusion is that the components of WOM advertising as well as involvement and homophily with the mediating role directly as one of the presuppositions for persuasion. The sports consumer was promoting WOM.

• Journal of Smart Tourism
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.31-44
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• 2021

The emergence of the digital economy and easy accessibility to Web 2.0 tools has seen an expansion of the influencer ecosystem within the travel and tourism industry. Founded on the principles of reference groups and peer reference there is a growing trend amongst industry practitioners who are now opting to move away from many of the traditional approaches used to market their products and services and are instead taking advantage of the concept of e-word-of-mouth (eWOM). Whilst there is a growing body of academic literature addressing the notion of influencer marketing, there is little understanding of influencer marketers themselves. Consequentially, this study addresses this gap in the literature through the quantitative examination of those who promote products, services, or companies by distributing eWOM through their online digital channels and presence; otherwise known as travel influencers. A quantitative research approach involving an online survey yielded 255 responses from travel influencers. The research findings indicate that those who work in this field prefer not to be awarded the label "travel influencer," focusing instead on their specific method of influencing, such as blogging and vlogging or sharing Instagram updates. The research also demonstrates how the new influencers have a strong role in generating travel urge and desire. The research contributes to the wider body of academic literature and travel industry practitioners by establishing the general profile of influencers and their increasingly specialized role in tourism and hospitality marketing.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.433-440
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• 2021

This study aims at testing word-of-mouth (WOM) by mediating positive and negative perceptions of purchase intention on low-cost carriers (LCC) flights in Indonesia. One of the communications mixes that airlines can carry out is WOM. WOM is a form of communication between passengers after using a flight. The formation of a positive perception of WOM is expected by airlines. If a positive perception of WOM has formed, a purchase intention will arise. The study population included LCC flight passengers in Indonesia, involving 387 respondents. For indicators and variables, validity and reliability tests were conducted using CFA, CR, and AVE tools. Sampling locations were Soekarno-Hatta and Kualanamu airports. Sample collection was obtained through purposive sampling, and the analytical tool used was structural equation modeling (SEM) with Lisrel. The results showed that WOM influenced purchase intention through positive and negative perceptions of WOM. It can be seen that a positive perception of WOM has a direct effect, while a negative perception of WOM has the opposite effect. In conclusion, the mediation of perceptions influences purchase intention, whether it in the same direction or the opposite ones. To conclude, WOM is an antecedent for it influences purchase intention.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.15 no.10
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• pp.81-92
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• 2017

Purpose - One of the main objectives of this paper is to identify the most effective type of social media and to analyze the priority of blogs by their informational attributes in the aspect of their impacts on word-of-mouth intention(WOM) in on-line markets. Research design, data, and methodology - We set 'attitude' variable in the middle to see if there is mediating effects between blog information and word-of-mouth intention. We conducted a survey by questionnaire and received 206 answers. Employing the OLS statistical methods through the SPSS package, we tested our hypotheses. Results - Some of the main results are the followings. First, blog, micro-blog, and profile-based services showed significant effects on WOM, while Internet community and mini-homepages are not significant. Second, blog has positive impacts on WOM. Third, attitude has perfect mediating effects between blog and WOM. Fourth, in terms of effects on WOM, interactivity shows the first priority and reliability and usability follows. Finally, attitude has a more significant effect for users of 3 types of blog compared with those of 2 types. Conclusions - In this paper, we analyzed the effects of social network services by type and identified the priority among various attributes of information contained in blogs. It would provide businesses with viable strategic options to establish public relations in their sales promotion.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.31-52
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• 2011

The cutthroat competition of the market for the medical services caused changes and developments of hospital management from the traditional provider-oriented management to a consumer-oriented management toward the customer. And the popularization of on-line community through the growth and spread of internet technology is developed into an important exploration activity to provide various medical information to patient(or customer) who wishes a high-quality medical services. This is an on-line Word-of-Mouth(WOM). It is a kind of information exploration that is performed by customers before choosing the hospital with off-line word-of-mouth. In this study, we develop our research model to verify the causal relationships among on/off-line WOM, key determinants of hospital choice and the customer's will to make use of the hospitals, and total effect of these variables. We adopt a component-based PSL method for an empirical analysis of the patients experienced dermatology or obstetrics gynecology. Finally, we understand the characteristics of the various medical services and draw new and significant strategic previews.