• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.107-135
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• 2017

Purpose Along with the growth of smart phones and social networking service (SNS), social commerce continues to expand. Although online reviews have become an important source of the information that consumers use to make purchasing decisions, theoretical development and empirical testing in this area are still limited. Thus, there is a need to develop further understanding about the influence of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). Drawing upon the heuristic - systematic model (HSM) which is one of the dual-process theories, this study develops a research model that explains key factors influencing consumers' eWOM credibility. Furthermore, this study verifies that consumer's eWOM credibility is a key determinant of eWOM and purchase intentions. Design/methodology/approach The proposed model is empirically tested with 493 users who have experience in WeChat-based social commerce. The structural equation model (SEM) analysis is used to evaluate the research model and hypotheses. Findings The major findings are as follows. First, argument quality of eWOM (a systematic factor) has a positive effect on eWOM credibility. Second, source credibility and recommendation consistency of eWOM (heuristic factors) are positively associated with eWOM credibility. Finally, purchase and eWOM intentions greatly depend on eWOM credibility. These results confirm the effectiveness of HSM in explaining eWOM mechanisms in SNS-based social commerce. The details of findings and implications are presented.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.893-904
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• 1996

The main purpose of this research was to examine the purchase and use behavior of consumers related to washing machines in order to develope strategies to increase competitiveness of washing machines manufactured in Korea. Purchase and use behavior related to washing machines were examined by survey method and detailed information on washing conditions and usage of washing machines were obtained by diary method. 398 questionnaires were analyzed in the survey and 35 housewives participated in keeping the records of their washings for 30 days. The results of the survey showed that price and a tangle of clothes were the most determinant factors for purchase of washing machines and the knowledge related to washing was relatively low The diary method revealed that washing loads and frequencies of washing increase with the household size, and functions of washing machines except water level are infrequently used. Comparisons between the survey and diary results indicated that consistency between the two methods depends on the types of questions.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.165-183
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• 2017

Purpose The purpose of this study is to identify the related factors of cautious purchasing for buyers who have purchased products in online shopping mall. First, we focus on the prevention focus, which is one of the personal characteristics, that affect the cautious purchase, and analyze the satisfaction of purchasing according to cautious purchase. Furthermore, we investigate the influence of emotional intelligence (self-awareness and social-awareness) on the process of cautious purchasing and satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach In order to verify the hypotheses, this study surveyed individuals who purchase products on the Internet for about 2 months from August to September 2016. A total of 250 copies were returned, but 20 questionnaires that were incomplete were excluded. Thus, the final 230 samples were analyzed. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used for hypothesis testing. Findings The result of this study showed that the cautious purchasing is stronger for the buyers with the prevention focus. And consumers who purchase carefully have higher satisfaction after purchasing. In addition, emotional intelligence in the cautious purchasing process has a positive moderating effect. Based on the results of this study, the theoretical and practical implications are suggested.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.24 no.2 s.80
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• pp.93-106
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• 2006

This study investigated the determinants of Tap Water consumption patterns. Socio-demographic variables(gender, family income, education level, residual area) and consumer attitude knowledge(confidence, knowledge, problem experience, risk perception and aesthetic satisfaction)were included in the analysis. Three hundred fifty-nine teachers were participated in this study. ANOVA(Scheffe test), t-test, regression and logistic regression were conducted. The results of this study are as follows: 1. Tap water was consumed by only 1.7%, boiled water prior to drinking by 37.9%, water filtered by 39.8% and bottled water by 19.0%. 2. Consumer attitude knowledge was affected by socio-demographic variables. That is, aesthetic satisfaction was affected by age, risk perception by gender and educational level, confidence by educational level, knowledge by gender and age, and problem experience by age. 3. Logistic regression analysis indicated that age, confidence and aesthetic satisfaction were the determinants of bottled water or filtered water choice. However, risk perception was not a significant determinant. This suggests alternatives to tap water is related to non-risk, or non-safety factors.

• Current Research on Agriculture and Life Sciences
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.182-192
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• 2013

Since the Korean apple industry needs to expand its export market in Southeast Asia, this study investigates the attributes of Korean apples affecting consumer preference in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. Based on an Importance-Preference analysis, the results are summarized as follows. First, price is the most important determinant for purchasing Korean apples by Southeast Asian consumers, except in Malaysia. Second, managing the intrinsic(sweetness and chewing texture) and extrinsic(surface and color) factors needs to be well maintained. Third, the priority of the marketing factor(wrapping) should be lowered. Fourth, while the importance of extrinsic factors(shape and size) is low, satisfaction is high, so these factors need to be managed to avoid overkill. Overall, Korean apples should have their own merits with an appropriate proper price, while maintaining a high quality. The results of this paper may provide suitable strategies for promoting apple exports to Southeast Asia.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.31-38
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• 2016

Consumers demand fresh and high-quality eggs. Egg quality may be represented by shell color, shell weight, egg weight, shell thickness, shell density, albumen height, yolk color, albumen pH and viscosity. Various factors such as strain, age of hen, storage temperature, humidity, the presence of $CO_2$ and storage time affect egg quality. Therefore, we investigated the effects of storage time and temperature on egg quality to define the freshness of Korean market eggs. A total of 1,800 eggs were used for this experiment and were separated into 45 treatments with 40 eggs in each. The treatments were consisted of 15 storage periods (2 d to 30 d) and 3 storage temperatures ($2^{\circ}C$, $12^{\circ}C$, $25^{\circ}C$). Each egg was weighed and broken, and the height of the thick albumen, Haugh units (HU), egg shell color and yolk color were measured by a QCM+system. We also observed the physiochemical properties of eggs such as yolk pH, albumen pH and albumen viscosity. The egg weight, shell weight, albumen height, HU and albumen viscosity significantly decreased with increasing storage time and temperature. However, the albumen and yolk pH significantly increased with increasing storage period and temperature. The interaction effects between the storage period and temperature were significant for shell weight, shell density, egg weight, albumen height, HU, yolk color, yolk pH, albumen pH and albumen viscosity. In the analysis of the correlation with egg quality, the storage temperature exhibited a higher correlation coefficient than the storage period. In conclusion, storage time and temperature are the major factors affecting egg quality, but the storage temperature is a more sensitive determinant of egg quality deterioration compared with the storage period.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.67-74
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• 2018

Purpose - Most of the amendments to the law on the improvement of the distribution structure of mobile communication terminal equipment, the fully self-sufficient system of terminals, and the separated disclosure system on the terminals are aimed at securing transparency of the distribution structure by eliminating or reducing handset subsidies. This study investigates what items are important for the purchase of mobile phones in various and rapidly changing mobile phone markets from the consumer's point of view and tries to make a strategic suggestion for future mobile distribution strategies. Research design, data, and methodology - The procedure of this study takes place in four steps. In step 1, only the SF type respondents selected for this study were extracted through MBTI analysis. In step 2, they were divided into three hierarchies for the AHP analysis and each element was arranged. In step 3, the AHP analysis was converted to a Fuzzy-AHP number using the trigonometric centroid method. This was to eliminate the ambiguity of the response by converting into a fuzzy number even if data consistency was maintained with CI value below 0.1. In step 4, the number of converted 2-layer and 3-layer was combined to derive the priority when the final handset is selected. Results - First, the highest importance among the four items in the second tier was the terminal function item, followed by brand, price, and design item. Second, in the third tier, the highest importance was level of after-sales service, followed by device price, processing speed, ease of use, usefulness, and rate system. Third, the arithmetic average of the determinant of the fuzzy function showed that processing speed, ease of use and usefulness in the function item, level of after-sales service in the brand item, and device price in the price item were the five most important factors among 16 choice factors. Conclusions - First, there will be a change in the consumption patterns of consumers who have compared distributors and dealers to purchase handsets with more subsidies. Second, it is highly likely that people will purchase new handsets only when they need to change their devices because they can not receive subsidies by switching phone brands any more.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.10
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• pp.211-222
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• 2014

This study investigates the antecedents of continuance intention of mobile SNS. In addition, it also explores the mediating role of perceived value in the relationship between the antecedent and continuance intention. This study posits that a social influence, perceived usefulness, privacy concern, and a perceived effort of use are major factors to influence continuance intention of SNS. By using a PLS analysis, this finding suggests that consumers' perception of the value of SNS which is previously overlooked, is a primary determinant of continuance intention, and the other exploratory factors are mediated through perceived value in cognitive aspect. This research aims to examine consumer's SNS continuance intention in terms of consumer's perspective, not just from the technology user perspective. Therefore, this research provides a useful guideline for marketing managers on how to manage Mobile SNS properly.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.119-126
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to understand the important factor of internet travel product purchase according to the characteristics of SNS tourism information. The characteristics of SNS tourism information perceived by travel product consumers are investigated as four major dimensions; reliability, interest, interaction, and usefulness. 17 items of online travel product purchase are adopted and produced four factors namely; safety, price & cost, customer service and convenience. We confirm that consumer have high importance on reliability consider convenience as most important factor of online travel product purchase. Interest of SNS tourism information have significant relation with price & cost, and Usefulness and Interaction of SNS tourism information have significant relation with customer service of online travel product purchase.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.29-44
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• 2017

In Internet commerce, consumers are heavily influenced by product reviews written by other users who have already purchased the product. However, as the product reviews accumulate, it takes a lot of time and effort for consumers to individually check the massive number of product reviews. Moreover, product reviews that are written carelessly actually inconvenience consumers. Thus many online vendors provide mechanisms to identify reviews that customers perceive as most helpful (Cao et al. 2011; Mudambi and Schuff 2010). For example, some online retailers, such as Amazon.com and TripAdvisor, allow users to rate the helpfulness of each review, and use this feedback information to rank and re-order them. However, many reviews have only a few feedbacks or no feedback at all, thus making it hard to identify their helpfulness. Also, it takes time to accumulate feedbacks, thus the newly authored reviews do not have enough ones. For example, only 20% of the reviews in Amazon Review Dataset (Mcauley and Leskovec, 2013) have more than 5 reviews (Yan et al, 2014). The purpose of this study is to analyze the factors affecting the usefulness of online product reviews and to derive a forecasting model that selectively provides product reviews that can be helpful to consumers. In order to do this, we extracted the various linguistic, psychological, and perceptual elements included in product reviews by using text-mining techniques and identifying the determinants among these elements that affect the usability of product reviews. In particular, considering that the characteristics of the product reviews and determinants of usability for apparel products (which are experiential products) and electronic products (which are search goods) can differ, the characteristics of the product reviews were compared within each product group and the determinants were established for each. This study used 7,498 apparel product reviews and 106,962 electronic product reviews from Amazon.com. In order to understand a review text, we first extract linguistic and psychological characteristics from review texts such as a word count, the level of emotional tone and analytical thinking embedded in review text using widely adopted text analysis software LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count). After then, we explore the descriptive statistics of review text for each category and statistically compare their differences using t-test. Lastly, we regression analysis using the data mining software RapidMiner to find out determinant factors. As a result of comparing and analyzing product review characteristics of electronic products and apparel products, it was found that reviewers used more words as well as longer sentences when writing product reviews for electronic products. As for the content characteristics of the product reviews, it was found that these reviews included many analytic words, carried more clout, and related to the cognitive processes (CogProc) more so than the apparel product reviews, in addition to including many words expressing negative emotions (NegEmo). On the other hand, the apparel product reviews included more personal, authentic, positive emotions (PosEmo) and perceptual processes (Percept) compared to the electronic product reviews. Next, we analyzed the determinants toward the usefulness of the product reviews between the two product groups. As a result, it was found that product reviews with high product ratings from reviewers in both product groups that were perceived as being useful contained a larger number of total words, many expressions involving perceptual processes, and fewer negative emotions. In addition, apparel product reviews with a large number of comparative expressions, a low expertise index, and concise content with fewer words in each sentence were perceived to be useful. In the case of electronic product reviews, those that were analytical with a high expertise index, along with containing many authentic expressions, cognitive processes, and positive emotions (PosEmo) were perceived to be useful. These findings are expected to help consumers effectively identify useful product reviews in the future.