• Title/Summary/Keyword: a Decision-Making Model

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Study on Tourism Demand Forecast and Influencing Factors in Busan Metropolitan City (부산 연안도시 관광수요 예측과 영향요인에 관한 연구)

  • Kyu Won Hwang;Sung Mo Nam;Ah Reum Jang;Moon Suk Lee
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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    • v.29 no.7
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    • pp.915-929
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    • 2023
  • Improvements in people's quality of life, diversification of leisure activities, and changes in population structure have led to an increase in the demand for tourism and an expansion of the diversification of tourism activities. In particular, for coastal cities where land and marine tourism elements coexist, various factors influence their tourism demands. Tourism requires the construction of infrastructure and content development according to the demand at the tourist destination. This study aims to improve the prediction accuracy and explore influencing factors through time series analysis of tourism scale using agent-based data. Basic local governments in the Busan area were examined, and the data used were the number of tourists and the amount of tourism consumption on a monthly basis. The univariate time series analysis, which is a deterministic model, was used along with the SARIMAX analysis to identify the influencing factor. The tourism consumption propensity, focusing on the consumption amount according to business types and the amount of mentions on SNS, was set as the influencing factor. The difference in accuracy (RMSE standard) between the time series models that did and did not consider COVID-19 was found to be very wide, ranging from 1.8 times to 32.7 times by region. Additionally, considering the influencing factor, the tourism consumption business type and SNS trends were found to significantly impact the number of tourists and the amount of tourism consumption. Therefore, to predict future demand, external influences as well as the tourists' consumption tendencies and interests in terms of local tourism must be considered. This study aimed to predict future tourism demand in a coastal city such as Busan and identify factors affecting tourism scale, thereby contributing to policy decision-making to prepare tourism demand in consideration of government tourism policies and tourism trends.

<Field Action Report> Local Governance for COVID-19 Response of Daegu Metropolitan City (<사례보고> 코로나바이러스감염증-19 유행과 로컬 거버넌스 - 2020년 대구광역시 유행에 대한 대응을 중심으로 -)

  • Kyeong-Soo Lee;Jung Jeung Lee;Keon-Yeop Kim;Jong-Yeon Kim;Tae-Yoon Hwang;Nam-Soo Hong;Jun Hyun Hwang;Jaeyoung Ha
    • Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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    • v.49 no.1
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    • pp.13-36
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    • 2024
  • Objectives: The purpose of this field case report is 1) to analyze the community's strategy and performance in responding to infectious diseases through the case of COVID-19 infectious disease crisis response of Daegu Metropolitan City, and 2) to interpret this case using governance theory and infectious disease response governance framework. and 3) to propose a strategic model to prepare for future infectious disease outbreaks of the community. Methods: Cases of Daegu Metropolitan City's infectious disease crisis response were analyzed through researchers' participatory observations. And review of OVID-19 White Paper of Daegu Metropolitan City, Daegu Medical Association's COVID-19 White Paper, and literature review of domestic and international governance, and administrative documents. Results: Through the researcher's participatory observation and literature review, 1) establishment of leadership and response system to respond to the infectious disease crisis in Daegu Metropolitan City, 2) citizen's participation and communication strategy through the pan-citizen response committee, 3) cooperation between Daegu Metropolitan City and governance of public-private medical facilities, 4) decision-making and crisis response through participation and communication between the Daegu Metropolitan City Medical Association, Medi-City Daegu Council, and medical experts of private sector, 5) symptom monitoring and patient triage strategies and treatment response for confirmed infectious disease patients by member of Daegu Medical Association, 6) strategies and implications for establishing and utilizing a local infectious disease crisis response information system were derived. Conclusions: The results of the study empirically demonstrate that collaborative governance of the community through the participation of citizens, private sector experts, and community medical facilities is a key element for effective response to infectious disease crises.

Analysis of Influential Factors of Roadkill Occurrence - A Case Study of Seorak National Park - (로드킬 발생 영향요인 분석 - 설악산 국립공원 44번 국도를 대상으로 -)

  • Son, Seung-Woo;Kil, Sung-Ho;Yun, Young-Jo;Yoon, Jeong-Ho;Jeon, Hyung-Jin;Son, Young-Hoon;Kim, Min-Sun
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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    • v.44 no.3
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    • pp.1-12
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    • 2016
  • This study aimed to interpret the fundamental cause of road-kill occurrences and analyzed spatial characteristics of the road-kill locations from Route 44 in Seorak National Park, Korea. Logistic regression analysis was utilized for backward elimination on variables. Seorak National Park Service has constructed GIS-data of 81 road-kill occurrences from 2008 to 2013 and these data were assigned as dependent variables in this study. Considered as independent variables from previous studies and field surveys, vegetation age-class, distance to streams, coverage of fences and retaining walls, and distance to building sites were assigned as road-kill impact factors. The coverage of fences and retaining walls(-1.0135) was shown as the most influential factor whereas vegetation age-class(0.0001) was the least influential among all of the significant factor estimates. Accordingly, the rate of road-kill occurrence can increase as the distance to building sites and stream becomes closer and vegetation age-class becomes higher. The predictive accuracy of road-kill occurrence was shown to be 72.2% as a result of analysis, assuming as partial causes of road-kill occurrences reflecting spatial characteristics. This study can be regarded as beneficial to provide objective basis for spatial decision making including road-kill occurrence mitigation policies and plans in the future.

Prioritization of Species Selection Criteria for Urban Fine Dust Reduction Planting (도시 미세먼지 저감 식재를 위한 수종 선정 기준의 우선순위 도출)

  • Cho, Dong-Gil
    • Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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    • v.33 no.4
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    • pp.472-480
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    • 2019
  • Selection of the plant material for planting to reduce fine dust should comprehensively consider the visual characteristics, such as the shape and texture of the plant leaves and form of bark, which affect the adsorption function of the plant. However, previous studies on reduction of fine dust through plants have focused on the absorption function rather than the adsorption function of plants and on foliage plants, which are indoor plants, rather than the outdoor plants. In particular, the criterion for selection of fine dust reduction species is not specific, so research on the selection criteria for plant materials for fine dust reduction in urban areas is needed. The purpose of this study is to identify the priorities of eight indicators that affect the fine dust reduction by using the fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making model (MCDM) and establish the tree selection criteria for the urban planting to reduce fine dust. For the purpose, we conducted a questionnaire survey of those who majored in fine dust-related academic fields and those with experience of researching fine dust. A result of the survey showed that the area of leaf and the tree species received the highest score as the factors that affect the fine dust reduction. They were followed by the surface roughness of leaves, tree height, growth rate, complexity of leaves, edge shape of leaves, and bark feature in that order. When selecting the species that have leaves with the coarse surface, it is better to select the trees with wooly, glossy, and waxy layers on the leaves. When considering the shape of the leaves, it is better to select the two-type or three-type leaves and palm-shaped leaves than the single-type leaves and to select the serrated leaves than the smooth edged leaves to increase the surface area for adsorbing fine dust in the air on the surface of the leaves. When considering the characteristics of the bark, it is better to select trees that have cork layers or show or are likely to show the bark loosening or cracks than to select those with lenticel or patterned barks. This study is significant in that it presents the priorities of the selection criteria of plant material based on the visual characteristics that affect the adsorption of fine dust for the planning of planting to reduce fine dust in the urban area. The results of this study can be used as basic data for the selection of trees for plantation planning in the urban area.

Determinants of Consumer Responses to Retail Out-of-Stocks (점포내 품절상황에서 소비자 반응행동유형별 결정요인)

  • Chun, Dal-Young;Choi, Jong-Rae;Joo, Young-Jin
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.16 no.4
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    • pp.29-64
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    • 2011
  • Overview of Research: Product availability is one of important competences of store to fulfill consumer needs. If stock-outs which means a product what consumer wants to buy is not available occurs, consumer will face decision-making uncertainty that leads to consumer's negative responses such as consumer dissatisfaction on store. Stockouts was much studied in the field of academia as well as practice in other countries. However, stock-outs has not been researched at all in Marketing and/or Distribution area in Korea. The main objectives of this study are to find out determinants of consumer responses such as Substitute, Delay, and Leave(SDL) when consumer encounters out-of-stock situation and then to examine the effects of these factors on consumer responses. Specifically, this study focuses on situational characteristics(e.g., purchase urgency and surprise), store characteristics (e.g., product assortment and store convenience), and consumer characteristics (e.g., brand loyalty and store loyalty). Then, this study empirically investigates relationships these factors with consumers behaviors such as product substitution, purchase delay, and store switching.

    shows the research model of this study. To accomplish above-mentioned research objectives, the following ten hypotheses were proposed and verified : ${\bullet}$ H 1 : When out-of-stock situation occurs, purchase urgency will increase product substitution but will decrease purchase delay and store switching among consumer responses. ${\bullet}$ H 2 When out-of-stock situation occurs, surprise will decrease product substitution and purchase delay but will Increase store switching among consumer responses. ${\bullet}$ H 3 : When out-of-stock situation occurs, purchase quantities will increase product substitution and store switching but will decrease purchase delay among consumer responses. ${\bullet}$ H 4 : When out-of-stock situation occurs, pre-purchase plan will decrease product substitution but will increase purchase delay and store switching among consumer responses. ${\bullet}$ H 5 : When out-of-stock situation occurs, product assortment will increase product substitution but will decrease purchase delay and store switching among consumer responses. ${\bullet}$ H 6 : When out-of-stock situation occurs, competitive store price image will increase product substitution and purchase delay but will decrease store switching among consumer responses. ${\bullet}$ H 7 : When out-of-stock situation occurs, store convenience will increase product substitution but will decrease purchase delay and store switching among consumer responses. ${\bullet}$ H 8 : When out-of-stock situation occurs, salesperson services will increase product substitution but will decrease purchase delay and store switching among consumer responses. ${\bullet}$ H 9 : When out-of-stock situation occurs, brand loyalty will decrease product substitution but will increase purchase delay and store switching among consumer responses. ${\bullet}$ H 10 When out-of-stock situation occurs, store loyalty will increase product substitution and purchase delay but will decrease store switching among consumer responses. Analysis: Data were collected from 353 respondents who experienced out-of-stock situations in various store types such as large discount stores, supermarkets, etc. Research model and hypotheses were verified using multinomial logit(MNL) analysis. Results and Implications: is the estimation results of l\1NL model, and
    shows the marginal effects for each determinant to consumer's responses(SDL). Significant statistical results were as follows. Purchase urgency, purchase quantities, pre-purchase plan, product assortment, store price image, brand loyalty, and store loyalty were turned out to be significant determinants to influence consumer alternative behaviors in case of out-of-stock situation. Specifically, first, product substitution behavior was triggered by purchase urgency, surprise, purchase quantities, pre-purchase plan, product assortment, store price image, brand loyalty, and store loyalty. Second, purchase delay behavior was led by purchase urgency, purchase quantities, and brand loyalty. Third, store switching behavior was influenced by purchase urgency, purchase quantities, pre-purchase plan, product assortment, store price image, brand loyalty, and store loyalty. Finally, when out-of-stock situation occurs, store convenience and salesperson service did not have significant effects on consumer alternative responses.

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  • Relationship between Radiation and Yield of Sweet Pepper Cultivars (광량과 파프리카 품종에 따른 수량과의 상호관계)

    • Myung, Dong Ju;Bae, Jong Hyang;Kang, Jong Goo;Lee, Jeong Hyun
      • Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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      • v.21 no.3
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      • pp.243-246
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      • 2012
    • The study was aimed at the development of the simple linear regression model to estimate the fruit yield of sweet pepper and to support decision-making management for growing sweet pepper crop in Korea. For quantitative analysis of relationship between environmental data and periodical yield of sweet pepper the data obtained from the commercial Venlo-type glasshouse for 2 years. Obtained periodical yield data of five different cultivars and radiation data were accumulated and fitted by linear regression. A significant linear relationship was found between radiation integral and fruit yield, whereas the production per unit of radiation was different between cultivars. The slope of linear regression could indicate as light use efficiency for fruit production ($LUE_F$, $g{\cdot}MJ^{-1}$). $LUE_F$ of 'Ferrari' was $5.85g{\cdot}MJ^{-1}$, 'Fiesta' 5.32 for first year and $4.75g{\cdot}MJ^{-1}$ and for second year, 'President' was $4.66g{\cdot}MJ^{-1}$, 'Cupra' was $3.86g{\cdot}MJ^{-1}$, and 'Boogie' was $6.48g{\cdot}MJ^{-1}$. The amount of light requirement for the unit gram of fruit was between $25.88J{\cdot}g^{-1}$, for 'Cupra' and $15.42J{\cdot}g^{-1}$ for 'Boogie'. Although we found the linear relationship between radiation and fruit yield, $LUE_F$ was varied between cultivars and as well as year. The linear relationship could describe the fruit yield as function of radiation, but it needed more variable to generalization of the production, such as cultivar specifications, temperature, and number of fruits set per plant or unit of ground.

    Financial Characteristics Affecting the Accounting Choices of Capitalized Interest Costs (기업의 재무적 특성이 금융비용 자본화의 회계선택에 미치는 영향)

    • Park, Hee-Woo;Shin, Hyun-Geol
      • 한국산학경영학회:학술대회논문집
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      • 2004.11a
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      • pp.55-72
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      • 2004
    • Before 2003 the companies In Korea should capitalize the interest expenses that are attributable to the acquisition, construction or production of a qualifying assets. However, according to the revised standard which should be applied from 2003, the companies can either capitalize the interest expenses or recognize as an expense when they are incurred. Therefore almost all the companies confronted with the decision making of accounting choices on the interest capitalization. This paper empirically examines which financial characteristics of the companies affect the accounting choice by using logistic regression model and reviews the sufficiency of the foot notes disclosures regarding the capitalized interest. The variables of the financial characteristics are change of debt-equity ratio, borrowing ratio, qualifying assets ratio, firm sire and income smoothing. The results of this study are summarized as follows. First, among the financial characteristics, only qualifying asset ratio has the significant difference between capitalized companies and expensing companies. Second, the results of logistic regression indicate that qualifying asset ratio and firm size have the significant influence on the accounting choices. Therefore, I cannot find the evidence supporting that the companies use the accounting choice to manage the financial ratios.

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    Analysis of Literatures Related to Crop Growth and Yield of Onion and Garlic Using Text-mining Approaches for Develop Productivity Prediction Models (양파·마늘 생산성 예측 모델 개발을 위한 텍스트마이닝 기법 활용 생육 및 수량 관련 문헌 분석)

    • Kim, Jin-Hee;Kim, Dae-Jun;Seo, Bo-Hun;Kim, Kwang Soo
      • Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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      • v.23 no.4
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      • pp.374-390
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      • 2021
    • Growth and yield of field vegetable crops would be affected by climate conditions, which cause a relatively large fluctuation in crop production and consumer price over years. The yield prediction system for these crops would support decision-making on policies to manage supply and demands. The objectives of this study were to compile literatures related to onion and garlic and to perform data-mining analysis, which would shed lights on the development of crop models for these major field vegetable crops in Korea. The literatures on crop growth and yield were collected from the databases operated by Research Information Sharing Service, National Science & Technology Information Service and SCOPUS. The keywords were chosen to retrieve research outcomes related to crop growth and yield of onion and garlic. These literatures were analyzed using text mining approaches including word cloud and semantic networks. It was found that the number of publications was considerably less for the field vegetable crops compared with rice. Still, specific patterns between previous research outcomes were identified using the text mining methods. For example, climate change and remote sensing were major topics of interest for growth and yield of onion and garlic. The impact of temperature and irrigation on crop growth was also assessed in the previous studies. It was also found that yield of onion and garlic would be affected by both environment and crop management conditions including sowing time, variety, seed treatment method, irrigation interval, fertilization amount and fertilizer composition. For meteorological conditions, temperature, precipitation, solar radiation and humidity were found to be the major factors in the literatures. These indicate that crop models need to take into account both environmental and crop management practices for reliable prediction of crop yield.

    A Study on Perceived Quality affecting the Service Personal Value in the On-off line Channel - Focusing on the moderate effect of the need for cognition - (온.오프라인 채널에서 지각된 품질이 서비스의 개인가치에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구 -인지욕구의 조정효과를 중심으로-)

    • Sung, Hyung-Suk
      • Journal of Distribution Research
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      • v.15 no.3
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      • pp.111-137
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      • 2010
    • The basic purpose of this study is to investigate perceived quality and service personal value affecting the result of long-term relationship between service buyers and suppliers. This research presented a constructive model(perceived quality affecting the service personal value and the moderate effect of NFC) in the on off line and then propose the research model base on prior researches and studies about relationships among components of service. Data were gathered from respondents who visit at the education service market. For this study, Data were analyzed by AMOS 7.0. We integrate the literature on services marketing with researches on personal values and perceived quality. The SERPVAL scale presented here allows for the creation of a common ground for assessing service personal values, giving a clear understanding of the key value dimensions behind service choice and usage. It will lead to a focus of future research in services marketing, extending knowledge in the field and stimulating further empirical research on service personal values. At the managerial level, as a tool the SERPVAL scale should allow practitioners to evaluate and improve the value of a service, and consequently, to define strategies and actions to address services for customers based on their fundamental personal values. Through qualitative and empirical research, we find that the service quality construct conforms to the structure of a second-order factor model that ties service quality perceptions to distinct and actionable dimensions: outcome, interaction, and environmental quality. In turn, each has two subdimensions that define the basis of service quality perceptions. The authors further suggest that for each of these subdimensions to contribute to improved service quality perceptions, the quality received by consumers must be perceived to be reliable, responsive, and empathetic. Although the service personal value may be found in researches that explore individual values and their consequences for consumer behavior, there is no established operationalization of a SERPVAL scale. The inexistence of an established scale, duly adapted in order to understand and analyze personal values behind services usage, exposes the need of a measurement scale with such a purpose. This need has to be rooted, however, in a conceptualization of the construct being scaled. Service personal values can be defined as a customer's overall assessment of the use of a service based on the perception of what is achieved in terms of his own personal values. As consumer behaviors serve to show an individual's values, the use of a service can also be a way to fulfill and demonstrate consumers'personal values. In this sense, a service can provide more to the customer than its concrete and abstract attributes at both the attribute and the quality levels, and more than its functional consequences at the value level. Both values and services literatures agree, that personal value is the highest-level concept, followed by instrumental values, attitudes and finally by product attributes. Purchasing behaviors are agreed to be the end result of these concepts' interaction, with personal values taking a major role in the final decision process. From both consumers' and practitioners' perspectives, values are extremely relevant, as they are desirable goals that serve as guiding principles in people's lives. While building on previous research, we propose to assess service personal values through three broad groups of individual dimensions; at the self-oriented level, we use (1) service value to peaceful life (SVPL) and, at the social-oriented level, we use (2) service value to social recognition (SVSR), and (3) service value to social integration (SVSI). Service value to peaceful life is our first dimension. This dimension emerged as a combination of values coming from the RVS scale, a scale built specifically to assess general individual values. If a service promotes a pleasurable life, brings or improves tranquility, safety and harmony, then its user recognizes the value of this service. Generally, this service can improve the user's pleasure of life, since it protects or defends the consumer from threats to life or pressures on it. While building upon both the LOV scale, a scale built specifically to assess consumer values, and the RVS scale for individual values, we develop the other two dimensions: SVSR and SVSI. The roles of social recognition and social integration to improve service personal value have been seriously neglected. Social recognition derives its outcome utility from its predictive utility. When applying this underlying belief to our second dimension, SVSR, we assume that people use a service while taking into consideration the content of what is delivered. Individuals consider whether the service aids in gaining respect from others, social recognition and status, as well as whether it allows achieving a more fulfilled and stimulating life, which might then be revealed to others. People also tend to engage in behavior that receives social recognition and to avoid behavior that leads to social disapproval, and this contributes to an individual's social integration. This leads us to the third dimension, SVSI, which is based on the fact that if the consumer perceives that a service strengthens friendships, provides the possibility of becoming more integrated in the group, or promotes better relationships at the social, professional or family levels, then the service will contribute to social integration, and naturally the individual will recognize personal value in the service. Most of the research in business values deals with individual values. However, to our knowledge, no study has dealt with assessing overall personal values as well as their dimensions in a service context. Our final results show that the scales adapted from the Schwartz list were excluded. A possible explanation is that although Schwartz builds on Rokeach work in order to explore individual values, its dimensions might be especially focused on analyzing societal values. As we are looking for individual dimensions, this might explain why the values inspired by the Schwartz list were excluded from the model. The hierarchical structure of the final scale presented in this paper also presents theoretical implications. Although we cannot claim to definitively capture the dimensions of service personal values, we believe that we come close to capturing these overall evaluations because the second-order factor extracts the underlying commonality among dimensions. In addition to obtaining respondents' evaluations of the dimensions, the second-order factor model captures the common variance among these dimensions, reflecting the respondents' overall assessment of service personal values. Towards this fact, we expect that the service personal values conceptualization and measurement scale presented here contributes to both business values literature and the service marketing field, allowing for the delineation of strategies for adding value to services. This new scale also presents managerial implications. The SERPVAL dimensions give some guidance on how to better pursue a highly service-oriented business strategy. Indeed, the SERPVAL scale can be used for benchmarking purposes, as this scale can be used to identify whether or not a firms' marketing strategies are consistent with consumers' expectations. Managerial assessment of the personal values of a service might be extremely important because it allows managers to better understand what customers want or value. Thus, this scale allows us to identify what services are really valuable to the final consumer; providing knowledge for making choices regarding which services to include. Traditional approaches have focused their attention on service attributes (as quality) and service consequences(as service value), but personal values may be an important set of variables to be considered in understanding what attracts consumers to a certain service. By using the SERPVAL scale to assess the personal values associated with a services usage, managers may better understand the reasons behind services' usage, so that they may handle them more efficiently. While testing nomological validity, our empirical findings demonstrate that the three SERPVAL dimensions are positively and significantly associated with satisfaction. Additionally, while service value to social integration is related only with loyalty, service value to peaceful life is associated with both loyalty and repurchase intent. It is also interesting and surprising that service value to social recognition appears not to be significantly linked with loyalty and repurchase intent. A possible explanation is that no mobile service provider has yet emerged in the market as a luxury provider. All of the Portuguese providers are still trying to capture market share by means of low-end pricing. This research has implications for consumers as well. As more companies seek to build relationships with their customers, consumers are easily able to examine whether these relationships provide real value or not to their own lives. The selection of a strategy for a particular service depends on its customers' personal values. Being highly customer-oriented means having a strong commitment to customers, trying to create customer value and understanding customer needs. Enhancing service distinctiveness in order to provide a peaceful life, increase social recognition and gain a better social integration are all possible strategies that companies may pursue, but the one to pursue depends on the outstanding personal values held by the service customers. Data were gathered from 284 respondents in the korean discount store and online shopping mall market. This research proposed 3 hypotheses on 6 latent variables and tested through structural equation modeling. 6 alternative measurements were compared through statistical significance test of the 6 paths of research model and the overall fitting level of structural equation model. and the result was successful. and Perceived quality more positively influences service personal value when NFC is high than when no NFC is low in the off-line market. The results of the study indicate that service quality is properly modeled as an antecedent of service personal value. We consider the research and managerial implications of the study and its limitations. In sum, by knowing the dimensions a consumer takes into account when choosing a service, a better understanding of purchasing behaviors may be realized, guiding managers toward customers expectations. By defining strategies and actions that address potential problems with the service personal values, managers might ultimately influence their firm's performance. we expect to contribute to both business values and service marketing literatures through the development of the service personal value. At a time when marketing researchers are challenged to provide research with practical implications, it is also believed that this framework may be used by managers to pursue service-oriented business strategies while taking into consideration what customers value.

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    Consumer's Negative Brand Rumor Acceptance and Rumor Diffusion (소비자의 부정적 브랜드 루머의 수용과 확산)

    • Lee, Won-jun;Lee, Han-Suk
      • Asia Marketing Journal
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      • v.14 no.2
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      • pp.65-96
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      • 2012
    • Brand has received much attention from considerable marketing research. When consumers consume product or services, they are exposed to a lot of brand related stimuli. These contain brand personality, brand experience, brand identity, brand communications and so on. A special kind of new crisis occasionally confronting companies' brand management today is the brand related rumor. An important influence on consumers' purchase decision making is the word-of-mouth spread by other consumers and most decisions are influenced by other's recommendations. In light of this influence, firms have reasonable reason to study and understand consumer-to-consumer communication such as brand rumor. The importance of brand rumor to marketers is increasing as the number of internet user and SNS(social network service) site grows. Due to the development of internet technology, people can spread rumors without the limitation of time, space and place. However relatively few studies have been published in marketing journals and little is known about brand rumors in the marketplace. The study of rumor has a long history in all major social science. But very few studies have dealt with the antecedents and consequences of any kind of brand rumor. Rumor has been generally described as a story or statement in general circulation without proper confirmation or certainty as to fact. And it also can be defined as an unconfirmed proposition, passed along from people to people. Rosnow(1991) claimed that rumors were transmitted because people needed to explain ambiguous and uncertain events and talking about them reduced associated anxiety. Especially negative rumors are believed to have the potential to devastate a company's reputation and relations with customers. From the perspective of marketer, negative rumors are considered harmful and extremely difficult to control in general. It is becoming a threat to a company's sustainability and sometimes leads to negative brand image and loss of customers. Thus there is a growing concern that these negative rumors can damage brands' reputations and lead them to financial disaster too. In this study we aimed to distinguish antecedents of brand rumor transmission and investigate the effects of brand rumor characteristics on rumor spread intention. We also found key components in personal acceptance of brand rumor. In contextualist perspective, we tried to unify the traditional psychological and sociological views. In this unified research approach we defined brand rumor's characteristics based on five major variables that had been found to influence the process of rumor spread intention. The five factors of usefulness, source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness, encompass multi level elements of brand rumor. We also selected product involvement as a control variable. To perform the empirical research, imaginary Korean 'Kimch' brand and related contamination rumor was created and proposed. Questionnaires were collected from 178 Korean samples. Data were collected from college students who have been experienced the focal product. College students were regarded as good subjects because they have a tendency to express their opinions in detail. PLS(partial least square) method was adopted to analyze the relations between variables in the equation model. The most widely adopted causal modeling method is LISREL. However it is poorly suited to deal with relatively small data samples and can yield not proper solutions in some cases. PLS has been developed to avoid some of these limitations and provide more reliable results. To test the reliability using SPSS 16 s/w, Cronbach alpha was examined and all the values were appropriate showing alpha values between .802 and .953. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted successfully. And structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model using smartPLS(ver. 2.0) s/w. Overall, R2 of adoption of rumor is .476 and R2 of intention of rumor transmission is .218. The overall model showed a satisfactory fit. The empirical results can be summarized as follows. According to the results, the variables of brand rumor characteristic such as source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness affect argument strength of rumor. And argument strength of rumor also affects rumor intention. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived usefulness and argument strength of rumor is not significant. The moderating effect of product involvement on the relations between argument strength of rumor and rumor W.O.M intention is not supported neither. Consequently this study suggests some managerial and academic implications. We consider some implications for corporate crisis management planning, PR and brand management. This results show marketers that rumor is a critical factor for managing strong brand assets. Also for researchers, brand rumor should become an important thesis of their interests to understand the relationship between consumer and brand. Recently many brand managers and marketers have focused on the short-term view. They just focused on strengthen the positive brand image. According to this study we suggested that effective brand management requires managing negative brand rumors with a long-term view of marketing decisions.

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