• Title/Summary/Keyword: analysis and modeling

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Violations of Information Security Policy in a Financial Firm: The Difference between the Own Employees and Outsourced Contractors (금융회사의 정보보안정책 위반요인에 관한 연구: 내부직원과 외주직원의 차이)

  • Jeong-Ha Lee;Sang-Yong Tom Lee
    • Information Systems Review
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    • v.18 no.4
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    • pp.17-42
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    • 2016
  • Information security incidents caused by authorized insiders are increasing in financial firms, and this increase is particularly increased by outsourced contractors. With the increase in outsourcing in financial firms, outsourced contractors having authorized right has become a threat and could violate an organization's information security policy. This study aims to analyze the differences between own employees and outsourced contractors and to determine the factors affecting the violation of information security policy to mitigate information security incidents. This study examines the factors driving employees to violate information security policy in financial firms based on the theory of planned behavior, general deterrence theory, and information security awareness, and the moderating effects of employee type between own employees and outsourced contractors. We used 363 samples that were collected through both online and offline surveys and conducted partial least square-structural equation modeling and multiple group analysis to determine the differences between own employees (246 samples, 68%) and outsourced contractors (117 samples, 32%). We found that the perceived sanction and information security awareness support the information security policy violation attitude and subjective norm, and the perceived sanction does not support the information security policy behavior control. The moderating effects of employee type in the research model were also supported. According to the t-test result between own employees and outsourced contractors, outsourced contractors' behavior control supported information security violation intention but not subject norms. The academic implications of this study is expected to be the basis for future research on outsourced contractors' violation of information security policy and a guide to develop information security awareness programs for outsourced contractors to control these incidents. Financial firms need to develop an information security awareness program for outsourced contractors to increase the knowledge and understanding of information security policy. Moreover, this program is effective for outsourced contractors.

Future hydrological changes in Jeju Island based on CMIP6 climate change scenarios (CMIP6 기후변화 시나리오에 따른 제주도 지역의 미래 수문변화 전망)

  • Kim, Chul-Gyum;Cho, Jaepil;Lee, Jeong Eun;Chang, Sunwoo
    • Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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    • v.56 no.11
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    • pp.737-749
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    • 2023
  • In this study, we analyzed the hydrological impacts of future climate change on Jeju Island using SSP-based climate change scenarios from 18 climate models and watershed modeling (SWAT-K). Despite discrepancies among climate models, we generally observed an increase in evapotranspiration due to rising future temperatures. Furthermore, a significant increase in runoff and recharge was noted due to increased precipitation. These increasing trends were particularly pronounced in the SSP5-8.5 scenario, and differences among GCM models became more significant in the late 21 century. When compared to the historical period (1981-2010), the projected changes for the far-future period (2071-2100) in the SSP5-8.5 scenario showed a 21.4% increase in precipitation, a 19.2% increase in evapotranspiration, a 40.9% increase in runoff, and a 16.6% increase in recharge on an annual average basis. On a monthly basis in the SSP5-8.5 scenario, precipitation was expected to increase by 24.5% in September, evapotranspiration by 34.1% in April, runoff by 58.1% in October, and recharge by 33.8% in September. To further assess projections based on extreme climate scenarios, we selected two models, CanESM5 and ACCESS-ESM1-5, which represented the maximum and minimum future precipitation forecasts, and compared the hydrological changes in the future scenarios. The results indicated that runoff and recharge rates were relatively higher in the CanESM5 model with the highest precipitation forecast, while evapotranspiration rates were higher in the ACCESS-ESM1-5 model with the lowest precipitation forecast. Based on the climate change scenarios used in this study, the overall available water resources on Jeju Island are more likely to increase. However, since results vary by season and region depending on the climate model and scenario, it is considered necessary to conduct a comprehensive analysis and develop response measures using various scenarios.

An Empirical Study on Motivation Factors and Reward Structure for User's Createve Contents Generation: Focusing on the Mediating Effect of Commitment (창의적인 UCC 제작에 영향을 미치는 동기 및 보상 체계에 대한 연구: 몰입에 매개 효과를 중심으로)

  • Kim, Jin-Woo;Yang, Seung-Hwa;Lim, Seong-Taek;Lee, In-Seong
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.20 no.1
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    • pp.141-170
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    • 2010
  • User created content (UCC) is created and shared by common users on line. From the user's perspective, the increase of UCCs has led to an expansion of alternative means of communications, while from the business perspective UCCs have formed an environment in which an abundant amount of new contents can be produced. Despite outward quantitative growth, however, many aspects of UCCs do not meet the expectations of general users in terms of quality, and this can be observed through pirated contents and user-copied contents. The purpose of this research is to investigate effective methods for fostering production of creative user-generated content. This study proposes two core elements, namely, reward and motivation, which are believed to enhance content creativity as well as the mediating factor and users' committement, which will be effective for bridging the increasing motivation and content creativity. Based on this perspective, this research takes an in-depth look at issues related to constructing the dimensions of reward and motivation in UCC services for creative content product, which are identified in three phases. First, three dimensions of rewards have been proposed: task dimension, social dimension, and organizational dimention. The task dimension rewards are related to the inherent characteristics of a task such as writing blog articles and pasting photos. Four concrete ways of providing task-related rewards in UCC environments are suggested in this study, which include skill variety, task significance, task identity, and autonomy. The social dimensioni rewards are related to the connected relationships among users. The organizational dimension consists of monetary payoff and recognition from others. Second, the two types of motivations are suggested to be affected by the diverse rewards schemes: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation occurs when people create new UCC contents for its' own sake, whereas extrinsic motivation occurs when people create new contents for other purposes such as fame and money. Third, commitments are suggested to work as important mediating variables between motivation and content creativity. We believe commitments are especially important in online environments because they have been found to exert stronger impacts on the Internet users than other relevant factors do. Two types of commitments are suggested in this study: emotional commitment and continuity commitment. Finally, content creativity is proposed as the final dependent variable in this study. We provide a systematic method to measure the creativity of UCC content based on the prior studies in creativity measurement. The method includes expert evaluation of blog pages posted by the Internet users. In order to test the theoretical model of our study, 133 active blog users were recruited to participate in a group discussion as well as a survey. They were asked to fill out a questionnaire on their commitment, motivation and rewards of creating UCC contents. At the same time, their creativity was measured by independent experts using Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Finally, two independent users visited the study participants' blog pages and evaluated their content creativity using the Creative Products Semantic Scale. All the data were compiled and analyzed through structural equation modeling. We first conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to validate the measurement model of our research. It was found that measures used in our study satisfied the requirement of reliability, convergent validity as well as discriminant validity. Given the fact that our measurement model is valid and reliable, we proceeded to conduct a structural model analysis. The results indicated that all the variables in our model had higher than necessary explanatory powers in terms of R-square values. The study results identified several important reward shemes. First of all, skill variety, task importance, task identity, and automony were all found to have significant influences on the intrinsic motivation of creating UCC contents. Also, the relationship with other users was found to have strong influences upon both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Finally, the opportunity to get recognition for their UCC work was found to have a significant impact on the extrinsic motivation of UCC users. However, different from our expectation, monetary compensation was found not to have a significant impact on the extrinsic motivation. It was also found that commitment was an important mediating factor in UCC environment between motivation and content creativity. A more fully mediating model was found to have the highest explanation power compared to no-mediation or partially mediated models. This paper ends with implications of the study results. First, from the theoretical perspective this study proposes and empirically validates the commitment as an important mediating factor between motivation and content creativity. This result reflects the characteristics of online environment in which the UCC creation activities occur voluntarily. Second, from the practical perspective this study proposes several concrete reward factors that are germane to the UCC environment, and their effectiveness to the content creativity is estimated. In addition to the quantitive results of relative importance of the reward factrs, this study also proposes concrete ways to provide the rewards in the UCC environment based on the FGI data that are collected after our participants finish asnwering survey questions. Finally, from the methodological perspective, this study suggests and implements a way to measure the UCC content creativity independently from the content generators' creativity, which can be used later by future research on UCC creativity. In sum, this study proposes and validates important reward features and their relations to the motivation, commitment, and the content creativity in UCC environment, which is believed to be one of the most important factors for the success of UCC and Web 2.0. As such, this study can provide significant theoretical as well as practical bases for fostering creativity in UCC contents.

The Effects of Service Employee's Surface Acting on Counterproductive Work Behavior: The Mediating Roles of Emotional Exhaustion (서비스 종업원의 표면행위가 반생산적 과업행동에 미치는 효과에 관한 연구: 감정소모의 매개효과를 중심으로)

  • Kang, Seong-Ho;Chay, Jong-Hak;Lee, Ji-Ae;Hur, Won-Moo
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.14 no.2
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    • pp.73-82
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    • 2016
  • Purpose - Counterproductive work behavior(CWB) was typically categorized according to the behavior whether it targets other people(i.e., interpersonal CWB: I-CWB). Employing organizations(i.e., organizational CWB: O-CWB) has emerged as major concerns among researchers, managers, and the general public. An abundance of researches has informed us about the understanding for the antecedents of CWB, whereas little is known about the antecedents of CWB directed distribution service in employee's emotional labor. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to propose a research model in which surface acting enhances emotional exhaustion as an emotional labor strategy, which eventually increases counterproductive work behavior(including I-CWM and O-CWB). Research design, data, and methodology - This empirical research data were gathered from the samples of full time frontline hotel employees(including front office, call center, food/beverage, concierge, and room service) in South Korea. Six hotels were selected ranged from four to five stars, including privately owned and joint-venture properties. A convenience sampling method was used to select hotels. Full time frontline hotel employees from the six hotels were surveyed using a self-administered instrument for data collection. With the strong support of hotel managers, a total of 300 questionnaires were distributed, and 252 responses were collected indicating a response rate of 84.0%. In the process of working with the 252 samples, structural equation modeling is employed to test research hypotheses(H1: The relationship between surface acting and Interpersonal counterproductive work behavior(I-CWB) is mediated by emotional exhaustion, H2: The relationship between surface acting and organizational counterproductive work behavior(O-CWB) is mediated by emotional exhaustion). SPSS 18.0 and M-Plus 7.31 software were used for the data analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to assess the distribution of the employee profiles and correlations between factors. M-Plus 7.31 software was used to test the model fit, validity, and reliability of the factors, significance of the relationship between factors, and the effects of factors in the model. Results - To test our mediation hypotheses, we used an analytical strategy suggested by Preacher & Hayes (2008) and Shrout & Bolger (2002). This mediation approach directly tests the indirect effect between the predictor and the criterion variables through the mediator via a bootstrapping procedure. Thus, it addresses some weaknesses associated with the Sobel test. We found that surface acting was positively related to emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, emotional exhaustion was a significant predictor from the two kinds of counterproductive work behavior. In addition, surface acting was not significantly associated with the two kinds of counterproductive work behavior. These results indicated that the surface acting by frontline hotel employees was associated with higher emotional exhaustion, which is related with higher interpersonal counterproductive work behavior(I-CWB) and organizational counterproductive work behavior(O-CWB). In sum, we confirmed that the positive relationship between surface acting and the two kinds of counterproductive work behavior was fully mediated by emotional exhaustion. Conclusions - The current research broadens the conceptual work and empirical studies in counterproductive work behavior literature by representing a fundamental mechanism that how surface acting affects counterproductive work behavior.

Calculation of Surface Heat Flux in the Southeastern Yellow Sea Using Ocean Buoy Data (해양부이 자료를 이용한 황해 남동부 해역 표층 열속 산출)

  • Kim, Sun-Bok;Chang, Kyung-Il
    • The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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    • v.19 no.3
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    • pp.169-179
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    • 2014
  • Monthly mean surface heat fluxes in the southeastern Yellow Sea are calculated using directly observed airsea variables from an ocean buoy station including short- and longwave radiations, and COARE 3.0 bulk flux algorithm. The calculated monthly mean heat fluxes are then compared with previous estimates of climatological monthly mean surface heat fluxes near the buoy location. Sea surface receives heat through net shortwave radiation ($Q_i$) and loses heat as net longwave radiation ($Q_b$), sensible heat flux ($Q_h$), and latent heat flux ($Q_e$). $Q_e$ is the largest contribution to the total heat loss of about 51 %, and $Q_b$ and $Q_h$ account for 34% and 15% of the total heat loss, respectively. Net heat flux ($Q_n$) shows maximum in May ($191.4W/m^2$) when $Q_i$ shows its annual maximum, and minimum in December ($-264.9W/m^2$) when the heat loss terms show their annual minimum values. Annual mean $Q_n$ is estimated to be $1.9W/m^2$, which is negligibly small considering instrument errors (maximum of ${\pm}19.7W/m^2$). In the previous estimates, summertime incoming radiations ($Q_i$) are underestimated by about $10{\sim}40W/m^2$, and wintertime heat losses due to $Q_e$ and $Q_h$ are overestimated by about $50W/m^2$ and $30{\sim}70W/m^2$, respectively. Consequently, as compared to $Q_n$ from the present study, the amount of net heat gain during the period of net oceanic heat gain between April and August is underestimated, while the ocean's net heat loss in winter is overestimated in other studies. The difference in $Q_n$ is as large as $70{\sim}130W/m^2$ in December and January. Analysis of long-term reanalysis product (MERRA) indicates that the difference in the monthly mean heat fluxes between the present and previous studies is not due to the temporal variability of fluxes but due to inaccurate data used for the calculation of the heat fluxes. This study suggests that caution should be exercised in using the climatological monthly mean surface heat fluxes documented previously for various research and numerical modeling purposes.

Environmental Health Surveillance of Low Birth Weight in Seoul using Air Monitoring and Birth Data (2002년 서울시 대기오염과 출생 자료를 이용한 저체중아 환경보건감시체계 연구)

  • Seo, Ju-Hee;Kim, Ok-Jin;Kim, Byung-Mi;Park, Hye-Sook;Leem, Jong-Han;Hong, Yun-Chul;Kim, Young-Ju;Ha, Eun-Hee
    • Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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    • v.40 no.5
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    • pp.363-370
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    • 2007
  • Objectives: The principal objective of this study was to determine the relationship between maternal exposure to air pollution and low birth weight and to propose a possible environmental health surveillance system for low birth weight. Methods: We acquired air monitoring data for Seoul from the Ministry of Environment, the meteorological data from the Korean Meteorological Administration, the exposure assessments from the National Institute of Environmental Research, and the birth data from the Korean National Statistical Office between January 1, 2002 and December 31, 2003. The final birth data were limited to singletons within $37{\sim}44$ weeks of gestational age. We defined the Low Birth Weight (LBW) group as infants with birth weights of less than 2500g and calculated the annual LBW rate by district. The air monitoring data were measured for $CO,\;SO_2,\;NO_2,\;and\;PM_{10}$ concentrations at 27 monitoring stations in Seoul. We utilized two models to evaluate the effects of air pollution on low birth weight: the first was the relationship between the annual concentration of air pollution and low birth weight (LBW) by individual and district, and the second involved a GIS exposure model constructed by Arc View 3.1. Results: LBW risk (by Gu, or district) was significantly increased to $1.113(95%\;CI=1.111{\sim}1.116)\;for\;CO,\;1.004(95%\;CI=1.003{\sim}1.005)\;for\;NO_2,\;1.202(95%\;CI=1.199{\sim}1.206\;for\;SO_2,\;and\;1.077(95%\;CI=1.075{\sim}1.078)\;\;for\;PM_{10}$ with each interquartile range change. Personal LBW risk was significantly increased to $1.081(95%\;CI=1.002{\sim}1.166)\;for\;CO,\;1.145(95%\;CI=1.036{\sim}1.267)\;for\;SO_2,\;and\;1.053(95%\;CI=1.002{\sim}1.108)\;for\;PM_{10}$ with each interquartile range change. Personal LBW risk was increased to $1.003(95%\;CI=0.954{\sim}1.055)\;for\;NO_2$, but this was not statistically significant. The air pollution concentrations predicted by GIS positively correlated with the numbers of low birth weights, particularly in highly polluted regions. Conclusions: Environmental health surveillance is a systemic, ongoing collection effort including the analysis of data correlated with environmentally-associated diseases and exposures. In addition. environmental health surveillance allows for a timely dissemination of information to those who require that information in order to take effective action. GIS modeling is crucially important for this purpose, and thus we attempted to develop a GIS-based environmental surveillance system for low birth weight.

Ontology-based Course Mentoring System (온톨로지 기반의 수강지도 시스템)

  • Oh, Kyeong-Jin;Yoon, Ui-Nyoung;Jo, Geun-Sik
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.20 no.2
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    • pp.149-162
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    • 2014
  • Course guidance is a mentoring process which is performed before students register for coming classes. The course guidance plays a very important role to students in checking degree audits of students and mentoring classes which will be taken in coming semester. Also, it is intimately involved with a graduation assessment or a completion of ABEEK certification. Currently, course guidance is manually performed by some advisers at most of universities in Korea because they have no electronic systems for the course guidance. By the lack of the systems, the advisers should analyze each degree audit of students and curriculum information of their own departments. This process often causes the human error during the course guidance process due to the complexity of the process. The electronic system thus is essential to avoid the human error for the course guidance. If the relation data model-based system is applied to the mentoring process, then the problems in manual way can be solved. However, the relational data model-based systems have some limitations. Curriculums of a department and certification systems can be changed depending on a new policy of a university or surrounding environments. If the curriculums and the systems are changed, a scheme of the existing system should be changed in accordance with the variations. It is also not sufficient to provide semantic search due to the difficulty of extracting semantic relationships between subjects. In this paper, we model a course mentoring ontology based on the analysis of a curriculum of computer science department, a structure of degree audit, and ABEEK certification. Ontology-based course guidance system is also proposed to overcome the limitation of the existing methods and to provide the effectiveness of course mentoring process for both of advisors and students. In the proposed system, all data of the system consists of ontology instances. To create ontology instances, ontology population module is developed by using JENA framework which is for building semantic web and linked data applications. In the ontology population module, the mapping rules to connect parts of degree audit to certain parts of course mentoring ontology are designed. All ontology instances are generated based on degree audits of students who participate in course mentoring test. The generated instances are saved to JENA TDB as a triple repository after an inference process using JENA inference engine. A user interface for course guidance is implemented by using Java and JENA framework. Once a advisor or a student input student's information such as student name and student number at an information request form in user interface, the proposed system provides mentoring results based on a degree audit of current student and rules to check scores for each part of a curriculum such as special cultural subject, major subject, and MSC subject containing math and basic science. Recall and precision are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed system. The recall is used to check that the proposed system retrieves all relevant subjects. The precision is used to check whether the retrieved subjects are relevant to the mentoring results. An officer of computer science department attends the verification on the results derived from the proposed system. Experimental results using real data of the participating students show that the proposed course guidance system based on course mentoring ontology provides correct course mentoring results to students at all times. Advisors can also reduce their time cost to analyze a degree audit of corresponding student and to calculate each score for the each part. As a result, the proposed system based on ontology techniques solves the difficulty of mentoring methods in manual way and the proposed system derive correct mentoring results as human conduct.

A Study on the Effect of Person-Job Fit and Organizational Justice Recognition on the Job Competency of Small and Medium Enterprises Workers (중소기업 종사자들의 직무 적합성과 조직 공정성 인식이 직무역량에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구)

  • Jung, Hwa;Ha, Kyu Soo
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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    • v.14 no.3
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    • pp.73-84
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    • 2019
  • Despite decades of work experience, workers at small- and medium-sized enterprises(SME) here have yet to make inroads into the self-employed sector that utilizes the job competency they have accumulated at work after retirement. Unlike large companies, SME do not have a proper system for improving the long-term job competency of their employees as they focus on their immediate performance. It is necessary to analyse the independent variables affecting the job competency of employees of SME to derive practical implications for the personnel of SME. In the preceding studies, there are independent variable analyses that affect job competency in specialized industries, such as health care, public officials and IT, but the analysis of workers at SME is insufficient. This study set the person-job fit and organizational justice based on the prior studies of the independent variables that affect the job competency of SME general workers as a dependent variable. The sub-variables of each variable derived knowledge, skills, experience, and desire for person-job fit, and distribution, procedural and deployment justice for organizational justice, respectively. The survey of employees of SME in Korea was conducted from February to March 2019 by Likert 5 scales, and the survey was retrieved from 323 people and analyzed in a demonstration using the SPSS and AMOS statistics package. Among the four sub-independent variables of person-job fit, knowledge, skills and experience were shown to have a significant impact on the job competency, and desire was not shown to be so. Among the three sub-independent variables of organizational justice, deployment justice has a significant impact on job competency, but distribution and procedural justices have not. Personnel managers of SME need to improve the job competency of their employees by appropriately utilizing independent variables such as knowledge, skills, experience and deployment at each stage, including recruitment, deployment, and promotion. Future job competency modeling studies are needed to overcome the limitations of this study, which fails to objectively measure job competency.

The Impact of e-Store Personality on e-Store Loyalty-Focus on the Mediating Role of Identification, Trust, and Engagement (온라인에서 점포 개성이 점포 충성도에 미치는 영향-동일시, 신뢰, 인게이지먼트의 매개 역할을 중심으로)

  • Park, Hyo-Hyun;Jung, Gang-Ok;Lee, Seung-Chang
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.16 no.2
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    • pp.57-94
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    • 2011
  • Nowadays, it is common that most consumers are purchasing goods in e-stores. The e-stores eager to attract, revisit, retain, and finally convert them into loyal customers. The e-store marketers have planned and executed numerous marketing efforts. As one of the marketing activities, e-store managers attempt to build web sites that meet customers' functional and psychological needs. A wide array of studies has been done to identify factors that could affect customers' response of web sites. Majority of studies were conducted to verify technology-related and functional variables of the website which facilitate transactions and enhance customer responses such as purchase intention and website loyalty. However, there has been little research on the external cues of website and psychological variables of consumer that could have positive influences on customer response. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of e-store personality on e-store loyalty through mediating variables such as e-store identification, e-store trust, and e-store engagement. The authors of this study develop the model and set up the six main hypotheses and a set of sub-hypotheses based on a literature review, shown in

    . This model is composed of four paths such as dimensions of e-store personality${\rightarrow}$e-store identification, e-store identification${\rightarrow}$e-store loyalty, e-store identification ${\rightarrow}$e-store trust${\rightarrow}$e-store loyalty, and e-store identification${\rightarrow}$e-store engagement${\rightarrow}$e-store loyalty. II. Research Method Ladies under 30s were the respondents of this survey. Data were collected from January 20th to February 26th in 2010. A total of 200 questionnaires were distributed and 169 respondents were analysed finally to test hypotheses because 31 questionnaires had incorrect or missing responses. SPSS 12.0 and LISREL 7.0 program were used to test frequency, reliability, factor, and structural equation modeling analysis. III. Result and Conclusion According to results from factor analysis, eigen value was over 1.0 and items which were below 0.6 were deleted. Consequently, 9 factors(% of total variance is 72.011%) were searched. All Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ values are over the recommended level(${\alpha}$ > 0.7). The overall fit indices are acceptable such as ${\chi}^2$=2028.36(p=0.00), GFI=0.87, AGFI=0.82, CFI=0.81, IFI=0.92, RMR=0.075. All factor loadings were over the recommended level. As the result of discriminant validity check with chi-square difference test between paired constructs, each construct has good discriminant validity. The overall fit indices of final model are acceptable such as ${\chi}^2$=340.73(df=36, p=0.00), GFI=0.92, AGFI=0.81, CFI=0.91, IFI=0.91, RMR=0.085. As test results, 5 out of 6 hypotheses are supported because there are statistically significant casual relationships in structural equation model, shown in . First of all, hypothesis 1 is partially supported because sub-hypothesis 1-1 and 1-2 are supported, whereas sub-hypothesis 1-3, 1-4, and 1-5 are rejected. Specifically, it reveals that warmth and sophistication dimensions in e-store personality have positive influence on e-store identification, however, activity, progressiveness, and strictness does not have any significant relationship on e-store identification. Secondly, hypothesis 2 was supported. Therefore, it can be said that e-store identification has a positive impact on e-store trust. Thirdly, hypothesis 3 is also supported. Hence, there is a positive relationship between e-store identification and e-store engagement. Fourthly, hypothesis 4 is supported too. e-store identification has a positive influence on e-store loyalty. Fifthly, hypothesis 5 is also accepted. This indicates that e-store trust is a precedent variable which positively affects e-store loyalty. Lastly, it reveals that e-store engagement has a positive impact on e-store loyalty. Therefore, hypothesis 6 is supported. The findings of the study imply that some dimensions of e-store personality have a positive influence on e-store identification, and that e-store identification has direct and indirect influence on e-store loyalty through e-store trust and e-store engagement positively. These results also suggest that the e-store identification in e-store personality is a precedent variable which positively affects e-store loyalty directly and indirectly through e-store trust and engagement as a mediating variable. Therefore, e-store marketers need to implement website strategy based on e-store personality, e-store identification, e-store trust, and e-store engagement to meet customers' psychological needs and enhance e-store loyalty. Finally, the limitations and future study directions based on this study are discussed.

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  • How Enduring Product Involvement and Perceived Risk Affect Consumers' Online Merchant Selection Process: The 'Required Trust Level' Perspective (지속적 관여도 및 인지된 위험이 소비자의 온라인 상인선택 프로세스에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구: 요구신뢰 수준 개념을 중심으로)

    • Hong, Il-Yoo B.;Lee, Jung-Min;Cho, Hwi-Hyung
      • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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      • v.22 no.1
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      • pp.29-52
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      • 2012
    • Consumers differ in the way they make a purchase. An audio mania would willingly make a bold, yet serious, decision to buy a top-of-the-line home theater system, while he is not interested in replacing his two-decade-old shabby car. On the contrary, an automobile enthusiast wouldn't mind spending forty thousand dollars to buy a new Jaguar convertible, yet cares little about his junky component system. It is product involvement that helps us explain such differences among individuals in the purchase style. Product involvement refers to the extent to which a product is perceived to be important to a consumer (Zaichkowsky, 2001). Product involvement is an important factor that strongly influences consumer's purchase decision-making process, and thus has been of prime interest to consumer behavior researchers. Furthermore, researchers found that involvement is closely related to perceived risk (Dholakia, 2001). While abundant research exists addressing how product involvement relates to overall perceived risk, little attention has been paid to the relationship between involvement and different types of perceived risk in an electronic commerce setting. Given that perceived risk can be a substantial barrier to the online purchase (Jarvenpaa, 2000), research addressing such an issue will offer useful implications on what specific types of perceived risk an online firm should focus on mitigating if it is to increase sales to a fullest potential. Meanwhile, past research has focused on such consumer responses as information search and dissemination as a consequence of involvement, neglecting other behavioral responses like online merchant selection. For one example, will a consumer seriously considering the purchase of a pricey Guzzi bag perceive a great degree of risk associated with online buying and therefore choose to buy it from a digital storefront rather than from an online marketplace to mitigate risk? Will a consumer require greater trust on the part of the online merchant when the perceived risk of online buying is rather high? We intend to find answers to these research questions through an empirical study. This paper explores the impact of enduring product involvement and perceived risks on required trust level, and further on online merchant choice. For the purpose of the research, five types or components of perceived risk are taken into consideration, including financial, performance, delivery, psychological, and social risks. A research model has been built around the constructs under consideration, and 12 hypotheses have been developed based on the research model to examine the relationships between enduring involvement and five components of perceived risk, between five components of perceived risk and required trust level, between enduring involvement and required trust level, and finally between required trust level and preference toward an e-tailer. To attain our research objectives, we conducted an empirical analysis consisting of two phases of data collection: a pilot test and main survey. The pilot test was conducted using 25 college students to ensure that the questionnaire items are clear and straightforward. Then the main survey was conducted using 295 college students at a major university for nine days between December 13, 2010 and December 21, 2010. The measures employed to test the model included eight constructs: (1) enduring involvement, (2) financial risk, (3) performance risk, (4) delivery risk, (5) psychological risk, (6) social risk, (7) required trust level, (8) preference toward an e-tailer. The statistical package, SPSS 17.0, was used to test the internal consistency among the items within the individual measures. Based on the Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ coefficients of the individual measure, the reliability of all the variables is supported. Meanwhile, the Amos 18.0 package was employed to perform a confirmatory factor analysis designed to assess the unidimensionality of the measures. The goodness of fit for the measurement model was satisfied. Unidimensionality was tested using convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity. The statistical evidences proved that the three types of validity were all satisfied. Now the structured equation modeling technique was used to analyze the individual paths along the relationships among the research constructs. The results indicated that enduring involvement has significant positive relationships with all the five components of perceived risk, while only performance risk is significantly related to trust level required by consumers for purchase. It can be inferred from the findings that product performance problems are mostly likely to occur when a merchant behaves in an opportunistic manner. Positive relationships were also found between involvement and required trust level and between required trust level and online merchant choice. Enduring involvement is concerned with the pleasure a consumer derives from a product class and/or with the desire for knowledge for the product class, and thus is likely to motivate the consumer to look for ways of mitigating perceived risk by requiring a higher level of trust on the part of the online merchant. Likewise, a consumer requiring a high level of trust on the merchant will choose a digital storefront rather than an e-marketplace, since a digital storefront is believed to be trustworthier than an e-marketplace, as it fulfills orders by itself rather than acting as an intermediary. The findings of the present research provide both academic and practical implications. The first academic implication is that enduring product involvement is a strong motivator of consumer responses, especially the selection of a merchant, in the context of electronic shopping. Secondly, academicians are advised to pay attention to the finding that an individual component or type of perceived risk can be used as an important research construct, since it would allow one to pinpoint the specific types of risk that are influenced by antecedents or that influence consequents. Meanwhile, our research provides implications useful for online merchants (both online storefronts and e-marketplaces). Merchants may develop strategies to attract consumers by managing perceived performance risk involved in purchase decisions, since it was found to have significant positive relationship with the level of trust required by a consumer on the part of the merchant. One way to manage performance risk would be to thoroughly examine the product before shipping to ensure that it has no deficiencies or flaws. Secondly, digital storefronts are advised to focus on symbolic goods (e.g., cars, cell phones, fashion outfits, and handbags) in which consumers are relatively more involved than others, whereas e- marketplaces should put their emphasis on non-symbolic goods (e.g., drinks, books, MP3 players, and bike accessories).

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