• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.12 no.12
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• pp.733-741
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• 2012

In recent, many consumers visit the online shopping malls or price comparison sites to collect the information on the product category that they are interested in. However, the volumes of the data provided by such web sites are often too enormous, and significant number of consumers have trouble in making purchase decision based on the plethora of products and sellers. In this context, modern online shopping agents need to process the retrieved information in more intelligent way before providing them to the users. This paper proposes a novel approach for identifying the main price ranges hidden in a single product category. To this end, the price of an item in the category is represented as a row vector and k-means clustering analysis is applied to the price vectors to produce the clusters that consists of the product items with similar price vectors. Then, the main price ranges of the product category can be identified from the result of clustering analysis. In general, the price is one of the most important factors in the consumers' purchase decision, and the identified main price ranges will be helpful for the online shoppers to find appropriate items effectively.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.424-432
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• 2011

Today's wide-spread Internet technology allowed consumers to access much Word-of-Mouth information through an online board. As communication and exchanging information between travelers becomes easier and faster, e-WOM (Electronic Word-of-Mouth) is recognized as one of the most influencing communication methods in today's society. This new trend implies a significant impact to travel industry. This study focuses on interaction between Credibility on e-WOM, brand attitude, WOM acceptance, WOM activity and purchasing intention of travel product. The result of this study suggests: (1) Credibility in e-WOM provides positive effect in brand attitude, (2) Brand Attitude gives positive effect on WOM acceptance, WOM activity and purchasing intention of travel product, (3) WOM acceptance gives positive effect on WOM activity, but it is not effective on purchasing intention of travel product. Regarding e-WOM management of travel agencies through its website or online community, authors would like to argue that travel agencies need to build positive brand attitude based on Credibility in brand, which would lead consumers to positively acknowledge its brand and spread words out to other consumers.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.51-61
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• 2023

Background: Mobile applications (apps) on dietary supplements can increase consumers' access to information. However, it can lead to indiscriminate use of dietary supplements. This study aims to systematically review dietary supplement apps released in English and Korean and evaluate the quality of those apps. Methods: Through the app stores, apps on dietary supplements were systemically searched and examined. Two independent evaluators evaluated the apps and presented a mean score using the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS). The correlation between MARS scores, user and evaluator ratings, and the number of secondary features of the apps were analyzed. Results: Of the 2,772 dietary supplement apps identified, 17 apps were included according to the selection criteria. The mean MARS score was 3.28 (standard deviation: 0.29) out of 5. Apps had higher scores in aesthetics and functionality dimensions, while engagement and information dimensions had lower scores. There was a positive correlation between the number of app downloads and information among MARS dimensions. The subjective evaluation also correlated with the information dimension. There was a positive correlation between the secondary features of the apps and MARS total score as well as the engagement dimension. Conclusion: The dietary supplement apps need to be managed at a higher level of quality to provide safe and reliable information to consumers. Especially, quality on information and engagement dimensions can be improved. Involvement of healthcare professionals in the app development, management with adequate referencing of information, and use of secondary features for enhanced user engagement can be helpful.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.129-138
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• 2017

Faced with the era of the IoT (Internet of Things) and smart homes, this study aims to explore the type of information loaded on smart devices that can lead to consumer's efficient energy use. 105 Americans participated in the survey with eight different versions according to two energy consumption levels (Above or Below condition) by four information frames (Finance, security, environment, or health). It was found that frames can make significant differences in consumers' attitudes; (1) Those in the Below condition worried about environments more than those in the Above condition; (2) Finance-framed information in the Above condition was the least effective to increase consumers' energy saving motivation; (3) In the Below condition, those receiving finance and security framed information revealed more environmental concerns than those receiving other types of informations. This study can contribute to the field by providing with basic research findings that smart device developers can refer to in the future. Also, follow-up studies need to be conducted to examine effective messages for Korean energy consumers.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.59-69
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• 2019

The present study explored consumer's perception and preference on providing information of fashion products by using QR code and suggested the possibility for consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-company connection. A survey was conducted on males and females in their 20s-a population among whom the rate of smart phone penetration is higher than in any other age group and who tend to exchange information online. The results showed that consumers are dissatisfied with the amount of information, terms of instructions, and ambiguous washing symbols currently provided. Therefore, the study identified the need for better methods of providing information and found that QR code, which is able to deliver high-quality information on fashion products, can be an efficient alternative. Moreover, respondents felt the need for detailed washing instructions, information on handling, and functionality of material on high-involvement fashion products such as outdoor, padding, suit, and underwear worn next to the skin. They also desire styling tips or purchasing information such as SNS OOTD (Outfit Of The Day) utilizing the product, other products that may go well with the one purchased, and similar products on casual wear and coat used on a daily basis. Therefore, QR code used as a link to information web pages or a social network can help consumers to satisfy information needs and to use the products effectively.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.105-130
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• 2008

Consumers of e-learning market differ from those of other markets in that they are replaced in a specific time scale. For example, e-learning contents aimed at highschool senior students cannot be consumed by a specific consumer over the designated period of time. Hence e-learning service providers need to attract new groups of students every year. Due to lack of information on products designed for continuously emerging consumers, the consumers face difficulties in making rational decisions in a short time period. Increased uncertainty of product purchase leads customers to herding behaviors to obtain information of the product from others and imitate them. Taking into consideration of these features of e-learning market, this study will focus on the online herding behavior in purchasing e-learning contents. There is no definite concept for e-learning. However, it is being discussed in a wide range of perspectives from educational engineering to management to e-business etc. Based upon the existing studies, we identify two main view-points regarding e-learning. The first defines e-learning as a concept that includes existing terminologies, such as CBT (Computer Based Training), WBT (Web Based Training), and IBT (Internet Based Training). In this view, e-learning utilizes IT in order to support professors and a part of or entire education systems. In the second perspective, e-learning is defined as the usage of Internet technology to deliver diverse intelligence and achievement enhancing solutions. In other words, only the educations that are done through the Internet and network can be classified as e-learning. We take the second definition of e-learning for our working definition. The main goal of this study is to investigate what factors affect consumer intention to purchase e-learning contents and to identify the differential impact of the factors between consumers with purchase experience and those without the experience. To accomplish the goal of this study, it focuses on herding behavior and perceived usefulness as antecedents to behavioral intention. The proposed research model in the study extends the Technology Acceptance Model by adding herding behavior and usability to take into account the unique characteristics of e-learning content market and e-learning systems use, respectively. The current study also includes consumer experience with e-learning content purchase because the previous experience is believed to affect purchasing intention when consumers buy experience goods or services. Previous studies on e-learning did not consider the characteristics of e-learning contents market and the differential impact of consumer experience on the relationship between the antecedents and behavioral intention, which is the target of this study. This study employs a survey method to empirically test the proposed research model. A survey questionnaire was developed and distributed to 629 informants. 528 responses were collected, which consist of potential customer group (n = 133) and experienced customer group (n = 395). The data were analyzed using PLS method, a structural equation modeling method. Overall, both herding behavior and perceived usefulness influence consumer intention to purchase e-learning contents. In detail, in the case of potential customer group, herding behavior has stronger effect on purchase intention than does perceived usefulness. However, in the case of shopping-experienced customer group, perceived usefulness has stronger effect than does herding behavior. In sum, the results of the analysis show that with regard to purchasing experience, perceived usefulness and herding behavior had differential effects upon the purchase of e-learning contents. As a follow-up analysis, the interaction effects of the number of purchase transaction and herding behavior/perceived usefulness on purchase intention were investigated. The results show that there are no interaction effects. This study contributes to the literature in a couple of ways. From a theoretical perspective, this study examined and showed evidence that the characteristics of e-learning market such as continuous renewal of consumers and thus high uncertainty and individual experiences are important factors to be considered when the purchase intention of e-learning content is studied. This study can be used as a basis for future studies on e-learning success. From a practical perspective, this study provides several important implications on what types of marketing strategies e-learning companies need to build. The bottom lines of these strategies include target group attraction, word-of-mouth management, enhancement of web site usability quality, etc. The limitations of this study are also discussed for future studies.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.273-293
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• 2021

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the size of the e-commerce has been increased rapidly. This pandemic, which made contact-less communication culture in everyday life made the e-commerce market to be opened even to the consumers who would hesitate to purchase and pay by electronic device without any personal contacts and seeing or touching the real products. Consumers who have experienced the easy access and convenience of the online purchase would continue to take those advantages even after the pandemic. During this time of transformation, however, the size of information source for the consumers has become even shrunk into a flat screen and limited to visual only. To provide differentiated and competitive information on products, companies are adopting AR/VR and steaming technologies but the reviews from the honest users need to be recognized as important in that it is regarded as strong as the well refined product information provided by marketing professionals of the company and companies may obtain useful insight for product development, marketing and sales strategies. Then from the consumer's point of view, if the ratings of reviews are widely diverged how consumers would process the review information before purchase? Are non-converged ratings always unreliable and worthless? In this study, we analyzed how consumer's regulatory focus moderate the attitude to process the diverged information. This experiment was designed as a 2x2 factorial study to see how the variance of product review ratings (high vs. low) for cosmetics affects product attitudes by the consumers' regulatory focus (prevention focus vs. improvement focus). As a result of the study, it was found that prevention-focused consumers showed high product attitude when the review variance was low, whereas promotion-focused consumers showed high product attitude when the review variance was high. With such a study, this thesis can explain that even if a product with exactly the same average rating, the converged or diverged review can be interpreted differently by customer's regulatory focus. This paper has a theoretical contribution to elucidate the mechanism of consumer's information process when the information is not converged. In practice, as reviews and sales records of each product are accumulated, as an one of applied knowledge management types with big data, companies may develop and provide even reinforced customer experience by providing personalized and optimized products and review information.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.1344-1361
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• 2016

ICT contents market is globally considered as an industry of high added value, where sustainability is accomplished through stories that cover wide range of consumers. However, the need for long-term internationalization strategy is growing as countless number of applications and games has pushed the local market to its limit. Thus, this research explored on the industrial characteristics and the internationalization of ICT contents firms through acquisition of competency. Based on Resource Dependence theory, the authors studied how pursuit of legitimacy and autonomy functioned in the expansion process of ICT contents firms. A survey analysis of 212 key decision makers of Korean ICT content firms were performed, to reveal that resource environment and interdependence must undergo a thorough consideration.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.71-82
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• 1998

This study aimed to aimed to obtain some basis data for the housing consultation and information about housing through survey of needs for the housing consultation. Respondents were housewives from 395 households living in Seoul area. Questionnaire was used for survey and the collected data were classified by two items such as types of residence and age of housewives. The survey was performed during two weeks in September 1997 and analyzed by frequency mean and percentage using SAS program The finding are as follows; (1) According to the actual conditions of housing consultation the main source of information related to housing was a newspaper Those who had experience detached house had much more opportunities than those of multi-family house. The most frequent agency for housing consultation was a realty dealer showing 65.8%. However the percentage of visiting permanent housing exhibition centers was high among the people aged 20 to 30, noted 20.4%. (2) Level of understanding housing consultation showed 3.45 points among 5. This result indicated that the service system of housing consultation were required. Architects and interior designers were most preferred as specialists whom the respondents wanted to consult with . As to the contents of consultation the most required item was changing of interior space(22.6%). In case the housing information leaflet is sold the respondents were willing to pay 523 won for each of it. (3) Among leaflets related to various information leaflets about housing purchase were most preferred(21.0%) According to the result of the survey the need for the information about housing purchase indicated higher preference than about housing management. The fact could be thought that consumers' consciousness of housing should be changed. Therefore it is desirable to lead consumers to lengthen the expected life span of their house and value happiness of the house by providing them with consulting systems about housing management throug housing consultation materials and development of its programs.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.97-101
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• 2007

The purpose of DRM is to protect the copyrights of content providers and to enable only designated users to access digital contents. From the consumers' point of view, they have a tendency to go against complex and confusing limitations. Moreover, consumers' rights of use of the content obtained legally were frequently harmed by arbitrary limitations. The concept of Authorized Domain (AD) was presented to remove such problems. However, the previous work on authorized domain has two problems. The first is that it requires a rather expensive revocation mechanism for withdraw process. The second is that the modules still can play contents which are previously obtained even though they are currently out of the authorized domain. On the contrary, our scheme presents the content from being played by modules which are out of the domain for better security. Furthermore our scheme does not need to maintain a revocation list and prevent replay attack.