• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.69-98
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• 2009

We investigated what factors motivate gamers to participate in a guild and why they continue to be engaged as members of the guild. We find that, based on the result of focus group interviews with MMORPG gamers, social support and self-esteem factors play important roles. Considering both prior research and the focus group interviews we have conducted, we define social support and character control as independent variables. Character identity, guild identity, and self-esteem are proposed as mediating variables while guild flow and game loyalty as dependent variables. Accordingly, we develop the research model and hypotheses, and verify them empirically. Based on our experiences of playing the WoW game, we proposed a research model and conducted focus-group interviews (FGIs). FGIs involve formulating a hypothesis and then collecting some relevant data. FGIs were conducted face-to-face with students of C University in Korea. We formulated structured interview schedules, and the questions were based on our research variables and personal experiences. The questions for the interviews encompassed the following areas: (a) the demographic characteristics of the focus group; (b) the number of years for which respondents had played online games; (c) the motive for starting a game; (d) the number of game-characters assumed by each gamer; (e) the type of game played; and (f) other issues such as the reasons for involvement in the play, the willingness to reuse the game in case new versions were released, etc. On average, it took two hours to interview each of three groups. A primary set of FGIs was conducted with three groups on the premise that there would be some differences caused by character race (Horde vs. Alliance) or by playable server (Normal vs. Combat). With respect to the manner of playing, we found that guild members shared information, felt a sense of belonging, and played computer games for quite a long time through the guild; however, they did not undergo these experiences when playing alone. Gamers who belonged to a specific guild helped other players without expecting compensation for that, freely shared information about the game, gave away items for free, and more generous with other members who made mistakes. The guild members were aware of the existence other members and experienced a sense of belonging through interactions with, and evaluations from, other players. It was clear that social support was shown within the guild and that it played an important role as a major research variable. Based on the results of the first FGIs, a second set of in-depth FGIs was carried out with a focus on the psychology of the individual within the guild and the social community of the guild. The second set of FGIs also focused on the guild's offline meetings. Gamers, over all, recognize the necessity of joining a community, not only off-line but also online world of the guild. They admit that the guild is important for them to easily and conveniently enjoy playing online computer games. The active behavior and positive attitudes of existing guild members can motivate new members of the guild to adapt themselves to the guild environment. They then adopt the same behaviors and attitudes of established guild members. In this manner, the new members of the guild strengthen the bonds with other gamers while feeling a sense of belonging, and developing social identity, thereby. It was discovered that the interaction among guild members and the social support encouraged new gamers to quickly develop a sense of social identity and increase their self-esteem. The guild seemed to play the role of socializing gamers. Sometimes, even in the real world, the guild members helped one another; therefore, the features of the guild also spilled over to the offline environment. We intend to use self-esteem, which was found through the second set of FGIs, as an important research variable. To collect data, an online survey was designed with a questionnaire to be completed by WoW gamers, who belong to a guild. The survey was registered on the best three domestic game-sites: 'WoW playforum,' 'WoW gamemeca,' and 'Wow invent.' The selected items to be measured in the questionnaire were decided based on prior research and data from FGIs. To verify the content of the questionnaire, we carried out a pilot test with the same participants to point out ambiguous questions as a way to ensure maximum accuracy of the survey result. A total of 244 responses were analyzed from the 250 completed questionnaires. The SEM analysis was used to test goodness-of-fit of the model. As a result, we found important results as follows: First, according to the statistics, social support had statistically significant impacts on character control, character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Second, character control had significant effects on character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Third, character identity shows its clear impact on self-esteem and game loyalty. Fourth, guild identity affected self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Fifth, self-esteem had a positive influence on the guild flow. These days, the number of virtual community is rising along with its significance largely because of the nature of the online games. Accordingly, this study is designed to clarify the psychological relationship between gamers within the guild that has been generally established by gamers to play online games together. This study focuses on the relationships in which social support influences guild flow or game loyalty through character control, character identity, guild identity, and self-esteem, which are present within a guild in the MMORPG game environment. The study results are as follows. First, the effects of social support on character control, character identity, guild identity and self-esteem are proven to be statistically significant. It was found that character control improves character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Among the seven variables, social support, which is derived from FGIs, plays an important role in this study. With the active support of other guild members, gamers can improve their ability to develop good characters and to control them. Second, character identity has a positive effect on self-esteem and game loyalty, while guild identity has a significant effect on self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Self-esteem affects guild flow. It was found that the higher the character and guild identities become, the greater the self-esteem is established. Contrary to the findings of prior research, our study results indicate that the relationship between character identity and guild flow is not significant. Rather, it was found that character identity directly affects game players' loyalty. Even though the character identity had no direct effect on increasing guild flow, it has indirectly affected guild flow through self-esteem. The significant relationship between self-esteem and guild flow indicates that gamers achieve flow, i.e., a feeling of pleasure and excitement through social support. Several important implications of this study should be noted. First, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to conduct this study. Through FGIs, it was observed that both social support and self-esteem are important variables. Second, because guilds had been rarely studied, this research is expected to play an important role in the online community. Third, according to the result, six hypotheses (H1, H5, H6, H7, H8, and H11) setup based on FGIs, were statistically significant; thus, we can suggest the corresponding relationships among the variables as a guideline for follow-up research. Our research is significant as it has following implications: first, the social support of the guild members is important when establishing character control, character identity, guildidentity and self-esteem. It is also a major variable that affects guild flow and game loyalty. Second, character control when improved by social support shows notable influence on the development of character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Third, character identity and guild identity are major factors to help establish gamers' own self-esteem. Fourth, character identity affects guild flow through self-esteem and game loyalty. The gamers usually express themselves through characters; the higher character identity is, the more loyalty a gamer has. Fifth, guild identity, established within the guild, has clear effects on self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Sixth, qualitative and quantitative methods are employed to conduct this study. Based on the results of focus group interviews and SEM analysis, we find that the social support by guild members and psychological factors are significant in strengthening the flow of guild and loyalty to the game. As such, game developers should provide some extra functions for guild community, through which gamers can play online games in collaboration with one another. Also, we suggest that positive self-esteem which is built up through social support can help gamers achieve higher level of flow and satisfaction, which will consequently contribute to minimizing the possibility for the players to develop negative attitude toward the guild they belong to.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.24-42
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• 1983

To develop Ilex cornuta which grow naturally in the southwest seaside district as new ornamental tree, the author chose I. cornuta growing in the four natural communities and those cultivated in Kwangju city as a sample, and investigated its ecology, morphology and characteristics. The results obtained was summarized as follows; 1) The natural distribution of I. cornuta marks $35^{\circ}$43'N and $126^{\circ}$44'E in the southwestern part of Korea and $33^{\circ}$20'N and $126^{\circ}$15'E in Jejoo island. This area has the following necessary conditions for Ilex cornuta: the annual average temperature is above $12^{\circ}C$, the coldness index below $-12.7^{\circ}C$, annual average relative humidity 75-80%, and the number of snow-covering days is 20-25 days, situated within 20km of from coastline and within, 100m above sea level and mainly at the foot of the mountain facing the southeast. 2) The vegetation in I. cornuta community can be divided that upper layer is composed of Pinus thunbergii and P. densiflora, middle layer of Eurya japonica var. montana, Ilex cornuta and Vaccinium bracteatum, and the ground vegetation is composed of Carex lanceolata and Arundinella hirta var. ciliare. The community has high species diversity which indicates it is at the stage of development. Although I. cornuta is a species of the southern type of temperate zone where coniferous tree or broad leaved, evergreen trees grow together, it occasionally grows in the subtropical zone. 3) Parent rock is gneiss or rhyolite etc., and soil is acidic (about pH 4.5-5.0) and the content of available phosphorus is low. 4) At maturity, the height growth averaged $10.48{\pm}0.23cm$ a year and the diameter growth 0.43 cm a year, and the annual ring was not clear. Mean leaf-number was 11.34. There are a significant positive correlation between twig-elongation and leaf-number. 5) One-year-old seedling grows up to 10.66 cm (max. 18.2 cm, min. 4.0 cm) in shoot-height, with its leaf number 12.1 (max. 18, min), its basal diameter 2.24 mm (max. 4.0 mm, min. 1.0 mm) and shows rhythmical growth in high temperature period. There were significant positive correlations between stalk-height and leaf-number, between stalk-height and basal-diameter, and between number and basal diameter. 6) The flowering time ranged from the end of April to the beginning of May, and the flower has tetra-merouscorella and corymb of yellowish green. It has a bisexual flower and dioecism with a sexual ratio 1:1. 7) The fruit, after fertilization, grows 0.87 cm long (0.61-1.31 cm) and 0.8 cm wide (0.62-1.05 cm) by the beginning of May. Fruits begin to turn red and continue to ripen until the end of October or the beginning of November and remain unfading until the end of following May. With the partial change in color of dark-brown at the beginning of the June fruits begin to fall, bur some remain even after three years. 8) The seed acquision ratio is 24.7% by weight, and the number of grains per fruit averages 3.9 and the seed weight per liter is 114.2 gram, while the average weight of 1,000 seeds is 24.56 grams. 9) Seeds after complete removal of sarcocarp, were buried under ground in a fixed temperature and humidity and they began to develop root in October, a year later and germinated in the next April. Under sunlight or drought, however, the dormant state may be continued.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.97-104
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• 1979

According to Soil Taxonomy which has been developed over the past 20 years in the soil conservation service of the U. S. D. A, Soils in Korea are classified. This system is well suited for the classification of the most of soils. But paddy field soils have some difficulties in classification because Soil Taxonomy states no proposals have yet been developed for classifying artificially irrigated soils. This paper discusses some problems in the application of Taxonomy and suggestes the classification of paddy field soils in Korea. Following is the summary of the paper. 1. Anthro aquic, Aquic Udipsamments : The top soils of these soils are saturated with irrigated water at some time of year and have mottles of low chroma(2 or less) more than 50cm of the soil surface. (Ex. Sadu, Geumcheon series) 2. Anthroaquic Udipsamments : These sails are like Anthroaquic, Aquic Udipsamments except for the mottles of low chroma within 50cm of the soil surface. (Ex. Baegsu series) 3. Halic Psammaquents : These soils contain enough salts as distributed in the profile that they interfere with the growth of most crop plants and located on the coastal dunes. The water table fluctuates with the tides. (Ex. Nagcheon series) 4. Anthroaquic, Aquic Udifluvents : They have some mottles that have chroma of 2 or less in more than 50cm of the surface. The upper horizon is saturated with irrigated water at sometime. (Ex. Maryeong series) 5. Anthro aquic Udifluvents : These soils are saturated with irrigated water at some time of year and have mottles of low chroma(2 or less) within 50cm of the surface soils. (Ex. Haenggog series) 6. Fluventic Haplaquepts : These soils have a content of organic carbon that decreases irregularly with depth and do not have an argillic horizon in any part of the pedon. Since ground water occur on the surface or near the surface, they are dominantly gray soils in a thick mineral regolith. (Ex Baeggu, Hagseong series) 7. Fluventic Thapto-Histic Haplaquepts : These soils have a buried organic matter layer and the upper boundary is within 1m of the surface. Other properties are same as Fluventic Haplaquepts. (Ex. Gongdeog, Seotan series) 8. Fluventic Aeric Haplaquepts : These soils have a horizon that has chroma too high for Fluventic Haplaquepts. The higher chroma is thought to indicate either a shorter period of saturation of the whole soils with water or some what deeper ground water than in the Fluventic Haplaquepts. The correlation of color with soil drainage classes is imperfect. (Ex. Mangyeong, Jeonbug series) 9. Fluventic Thapto-Histic Aeric Haplaquepts : These soils are similar to Fluventic Thapto Histic Haplaquepts except for the deeper ground water. (Ex. Bongnam series) 10. Fluventic Aeric Sulfic Haplaquepts : These soils are similar to Fluventic Aeric Haplaquepts except for the yellow mottles and low pH (<4.0) in some part between 50 and 150cm of the surface. (Ex. Deunggu series) 11. Fluventic Sulfaquepts : These soils are extremely acid and toxic to most plant. Their horizons are mostly dark gray and have yellow mottles of iron sulfate with in 50cm of the soil surface. They occur mainly in coastal marshes near the mouth of rivers. (Ex. Bongrim, Haecheog series) 12. Fluventic Aeric Sulfaquepts : They have a horizon that has chroma too high for Fluventic Sulfaquepts. Other properties are same as Fluventic Sulfaquepts. (Ex. Gimhae series) 13. Anthroaquic Fluvaquentic Eutrochrepts : These soils have mottles of low chroma in more than 50cm of the surface due to irrigated water. The base saturation is 60 percent or more in some subhroizon that is between depth of 25 and 75cm below the surface. (Ex. Jangyu, Chilgog series) 14. Anthroaquic Dystric Fluventic Eutrochrepts : These soils are similar to Anthroaquic Fluvaquentic Eutrochrepts except for the low chroma within 50cm of the surface. (Ex. Weolgog, Gyeongsan series) 15. Anthroaquic Fluventic Dystrochrepts : These soils have mottles that have chroma of 2 or less within 50cm of the soil surface due to artificial irrigation. They have lower base saturation (<60 percert) in all subhorizons between depths of 25 and 75cm below the soil surface. (Ex. Gocheon, Bigog series) 16. Anthro aquic Eutrandepts : These soils are similar to Anthroaquic Dystric Fluventic Eutrochrepts except for lower bulk density in the horizon. (Ex. Daejeong series) 17. Anthroaquic Hapludalfs : These soils' have a surface that is saturated with irrigated water at some time and have chroma of 2 or less in the matrix and higher chroma of mottles within 50cm of the surface. (Ex. Hwadong, Yongsu series) 18. Anthro aquic, Aquic Hapludalfs : These soils are similar to Anthro aquic Hapludalfs except for the matrix that has chroma 2 or less and higher chroma of mottles in more than 50cm of the surface. (Ex. Geugrag, Deogpyeong se ries)

• 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.