• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.151-163
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• 2018

Today, the development of internet brings many changes in formation exploration and acceptance. Not only the customers can come into contact much information about the firm and its product by quick and easy search, but also they produce information by themselves or can spread the information via the internet. Nowadays, customers are progressive information explorer and producer on online. In this sense, this study examined the effects of e-word-of-mouth information characteristics on the consumer's perceived usefulness and perceived acceptance of e-word-of-mouth information in the food service industry in order to suggest directions to enhances marketing strategies for marketer. The research model for this study was designed based on the hypothesis that the characteristics of e-word-of-mouth information and credibility of the information influenced both the user's perceived usefulness and acceptance. Based on total 277 customers obtained from the empirical research, this study reviewed validity, reliability and fitness of research model. The analysis results on these factors are as follow. First, the characteristics of e-word-of-mouth information; vividness, consensus, direction had an influence on the customer's perceived usefulness. Second, the characteristics of e-word-of-mouth information; vividness, consensus, direction had an influence on the customer's perceived acceptance. Third, the reliability of information had an influence on the customer's perceived usefulness and the credibility of e-word-of-mouth information perceived acceptance. Fourth, the customer's perceived usefulness had an influence on the customer's perceived acceptance.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.35-49
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• 2022

Purpose - According to the recently changing consumer smart environment and consumer decision-making process, this study investigates the structural relationship between electronic(online) WOM information characteristics and brand community experience value types on specific brand reliability and brand transformation. In particular, the characteristics of word of mouth information and the experience value of brand community users were divided into detailed fac tors and approached. Methodology - In order to proceed with this study, we review previous studies and setting hypotheses. The hypothesis was verified through a survey that was conducted for the consumers with online consumption activities in less than six months. With reference to previous studies, operational definition was made for the questionnaire design. In order to verify the hypothesis, 282 people were statistically analyzed through the survey This data were used for AMOS for confirm hypothesis established. Results - eWOM information characteristics were classified into usefulness, timeliness and un-bias, and online community experience values were classified into interaction, playfulness, and virtuality. In addition, it is to investigate the relationship between the brand reliability and user's experience value in brad community. The main results are as follows. The first result was that usefulness and un-bias, which are the eWOM information characteristics had a positive effect on forming brand reliability. However, the factor of timeliness did not affect brand reliability. Second, in terms of user experience value and brand reliability in the brand community. It was fo und that experience values such as interaction, playfulness, and vituality all had a positive influence on brand reliability. Third, it was found that brand reliability has a positive influence on the on-line conversion activity of users. Conclusions - Through this study, the field of online consumer behavior research is expanding, and this study suggested that careful management is necessary according to the type or characteristics of eWOM information. Additionally, it presents the importance of the user's empirical value in the brand community influencing brand attitude and reliability. In practice, the implementation of the marketing communication mix in digital marketing has recently been underway to enhance the conversion behavior of users. At this level, it also reveals the preceding factors that increase user conversion behavior.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.809-824
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• 2017

Interest in and use of social media as a communication channel are consistently evolving; in addition therefore, corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities have been often conducted on online channels such as social media due to the advantages offered by the rapid spread of information. Consumers can be persuaded differently and their cognition can be influenced depending on who delivers what message. This study examines the influence of information source characteristics on eWOM acceptance of CSR messages and attitudes toward a company. This study compares cases: when a company sends their CSR message versus when an individual (i.e., consumer's acquaintance) sends the company's CSR message. A total of 320 respondents were presented with online stimuli and responded to the questionnaire to identify this phenomenon. Vegan fashion (which refers to products made from raw materials without animal cruelty) was used as stimuli in this study because it is a representative example of CSR activities. As a result, when consumers are exposed to CSR messages online, perceived expertise, trustworthiness and attractiveness of information source affect consumer's electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) acceptance and attitude toward a company. However, only trustworthiness influences eWOM acceptance in cases of a corporation information source. This study confirms the differences in eWOM acceptance and in attitudes to the company depending on to whom the messages were sent and with what content.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.131-154
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• 2013

New internet technologies have created a revolutionary new platform which allows consumers to make decision about product price and quality quickly and provides information about themselves through the transcript of online reviews. By expressing their feelings toward products or services on virtual opinion platforms, users extend their influence into cyberspace as electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM). Existing research indicates that an impact of eWOM on the consumer decision process is influential. For both academic researchers and practitioners, investigating this phenomenon of information sharing in online website is essential given the increasing number of consumers using them as sources of purchase decisions. It is worthwhile to examine the extent to which opinion seekers are willing to accept and adopt online reviews and which factors encourage adoption. Discerning the most motivating aspects of information adoption in particular, could help electronic marketers better promote their brand and presence on the internet. The objectives of this study are to investigate how online WOM influences a persons' purchase decision by discovering which factors encourage information adoption. Especially focused on the self-efficacy, this research investigates how self-efficacy affects on information usefulness and adoption of online information. Although people are exposed to same review or comment about product or service, some accept the reviews while others do not. We notice that accepting online reviews mainly depends on the person's preference or personal characteristics. This study empirically examines this issue by using cognitive dissonance theory. Specifically, in the movie industry, we address few questions-is always positive WOM generating positive effect? What if the movie isn't the person's favorite genre? What if the person who is very self-assertive so doesn't take other's opinion easily? In these cases of cognitive dissonance, is always WOM generating same result? While many studies have focused on one direct of WOM which indicates positive (or negative) informative reviews or comments generate positive (or negative) results and more (or less) profits, this study investigates not only directional properties of WOM but also how people change their opinion towards product or service positive to negative, negative to positive through the online WOM. An experiment was conducted quantitatively by using a sample of 168 users who have experience within the online movie review site, 'Naver Movie'. Users were required to complete a survey regarding reviews and comments taken from the real movie page. The data reflected user's perceptions of online WOM information that determined users' adoption level. Analysis results provide empirical support for the proposed theoretical perspective. When user can't agree with the opinion of online WOM information, in other words, when cognitive dissonance between online WOM information and users' preference occurs, perceived self-efficacy significantly decreases customers' perception of usefulness. And this perception of usefulness plays an important role in determining users' intention to adopt online WOM information. Most of researches have been concentrated on characteristics of online WOM itself such as quality or vividness of information, credibility of source and direction of online WOM, etc. for describing effect of online WOM, but our results suggest that users' personal character (e.g., self-efficacy) plays decisive role for acceptance of online WOM information. Higher self-efficacy means lower possibility to accept the information that represents counter opinion because of cognitive dissonance, whereas the people that have lower self-efficacy are willing to accept the online WOM information as true and refer to purchase decision. This study suggests a model for understanding role of direction of online WOM information. Also, our result implicates the importance of online review supervision and personalized information service by confirming switching opinion negative to positive is more difficult than positive to negative through the online WOM information. This implication would help marketers to manage online reviews of their products or services.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.805-822
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• 2015

Online communities are an important source of electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM). However, few studies have examined the use of such messages within the Middle Eastern context. This study focuses on Saudi women as members of an online beauty forum. Previous work suggested a mediating effect of gender, with women being more likely to trust word-of-mouth and follow it up with a purchase. A conceptual model with a theoretical underpinning from existing contributions in literature provides the basis of a coding framework for the message characteristics that influence members' e-WOM adoption. A total of 310 threads and 2200 messages coded into 5725 units were content analyzed to demonstrate cases where e-WOM was adopted and indicate further continuance intention with members returning to the forum. A new category of 'community bonding' was created from the content analysis given the prevalence of emotional aspects in messages. Emotion expressed in messages, often expressed in religious terms, is as influential and important as the cognitive aspects of community bonding.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.199-209
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• 2019

With the rapid development of mobile communication tools, customers are using SNS as a major information tool. SNS can provide information to a small number of customers as well as people around them, with information about a product or service that a small number of customers know through experience. With these characteristics, dessert cafes are being used as a major marketing tool for online websites and mobile phones using SNS. Therefore, in this study, theoretical considerations about e-WOM quality, perceived value, and visit intention were performed. The effect of e-WOM quality of dessert cafe on perceived value was analyzed and the effect of perceived value on visit intention was analyzed. Based on these results, I would like to suggest theoretical implications and practical implications for online marketing of dessert cafes. This study was conducted to survey the customers who have visited dessert cafe through oral communication within the last 6 months. The survey was conducted from September 4, 2018 to September 18, 2018, and was used for the analysis of 317 additional items. The research hypotheses between the e-WOM quality of the dessert cafe and the utilitarian value, hedonic value, and visiting intention were used the structural equation model(SEM). First, neutrality and interactivity have a significant effect on utilitarian value, but consensus and vividness have not significant effect. Second, It was found that the consensus, vividness, and neutrality had a significant effect on the hedonic value but interactivity was not found to have a significant effect. Third, hedonic value has a significant effect on visit intention, but utilitarian value has not significant effect. As a result, online e-WOM quality management is important.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.327-341
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• 2018

This study analyzed the influence of social distance and visual information on consumers' fashion style preferences in terms of information characteristics and providers. Data were collected from 521 females in their twenties and thirties who had experience using SNS. The empirical study results were as follows. First, with other factors of exposure under control, the social distance of information characteristics and providers showed a significant impact on fashion style preferences only when social distances were close. Second, the impact of social distance varied depending on the consumer's characteristics. This proved that innovation had significant negative influences, while conformity and informational sensitivity to others showed positive influences on the effects of social distance in terms of information characteristics. Innovation and fashion leadership also showed a negative influence on the social distance effect in terms of information providers. Third, conformity, informational sensitivity to others, and fashion leadership, proved to have a significant impact on the acceptance of eWOM in fashion styles, but innovativeness and normative sensitivity to others did not have a significant influence. This study can be used as baseline data in SNS marketing strategies for vitalizing information spread through eWOM.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.53-74
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• 2018

Since South Korea has an economic structure that has a characteristic which market-dependent on overseas, the tourism industry is considered as a very important industry for the national economy, such as improving the country's balance of payments or providing income and employment increases. Accordingly, the necessity of more accurate forecasting on the demand in the tourism industry has been raised to promote its industry. In the related research, economic variables such as exchange rate and income have been used as variables influencing tourism demand. As information technology has been widely used, some researchers have also analyzed the effect of media on tourism demand. It has shown that the media has a considerable influence on traveler's decision making, such as choosing an outbound destination. Furthermore, with the recent availability of online information searches to obtain the latest information and two-way communication in social media, it is possible to obtain up-to-date information on travel more quickly than before. The information in online media such as blogs can naturally create the Word-of-Mouth effect by sharing useful information, which is called eWOM. Like all other service industries, the tourism industry is characterized by difficulty in evaluating its values before it is experienced directly. And furthermore, most of the travelers tend to search for more information in advance from various sources to reduce the perceived risk to the destination, so they can also be influenced by online media such as online news. In this study, we suggested that the number of online media posting, which causes the effects of Word-of-Mouth, may have an effect on the number of outbound travelers. We divided online media into public media and private media according to their characteristics and selected online news as public media and blog as private media, one of the most popular social media in tourist information. Based on the previous studies about the eWOM effects on online news and blog, we analyzed a relationship between the volume of eWOM and the outbound tourism demand through the panel model. To this end, we collected data on the number of national outbound travelers from 2007 to 2015 provided by the Korea Tourism Organization. According to statistics, the highest number of outbound tourism demand in Korea are China, Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong and the Philippines, which are selected as a dependent variable in this study. In order to measure the volume of eWOM, we collected online news and blog postings for the same period as the number of outbound travelers in Naver, which is the largest portal site in South Korea. In this study, a panel model was established to analyze the effect of online media on the demand of Korean outbound travelers and to identify that there was a significant difference in the influence of online media by each time and countries. The results of this study can be summarized as follows. First, the impact of the online news and blog eWOM on the number of outbound travelers was significant. We found that the number of online news and blog posting have an influence on the number of outbound travelers, especially the experimental result suggests that both the month that includes the departure date and the three months before the departure were found to have an effect. It is shown that online news and blog are online media that have a significant influence on outbound tourism demand. Next, we found that the increased volume of eWOM in online news has a negative effect on departure, while the increase in a blog has a positive effect. The result with the country-specific models would be the same. This paper shows that online media can be used as a new variable in tourism demand by examining the influence of the eWOM effect of the online media. Also, we found that both social media and news media have an important role in predicting and managing the Korean tourism demand and that the influence of those two media appears different depending on the country.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.555-571
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• 2018

This study identified the characteristics of fashion rental service users as well as analyzed their purchase decision-making processes. A qualitative investigation was conducted through in-depth interviews with 13 women in their 20s-30s who have experienced renting fashion items due to a high interest in fashion. The results of the study are summarized as follows. The need recognition stage analyzed ventilation by mass media, SNS impact, curiosity, saving shopping time and money, awareness of situational necessity, and creation of various styles. The information search stage analyzed how users obtained information from 2 different sources of nonmarketer-dominated sources and marketer-dominated sources. The pre-purchase stage analyzed the evaluation of alternatives in which study participants used 2 evaluation criteria for fashion rental services and fashion rental items. The purchase stage analyzed how participants wait and select desired items (when receiving the notification of rentable items) or select alternative products. The consumption stage examined the usage frequency and usage method. The study divided the post-consumption evaluation stage into 2 categories for evaluation: personal feelings and service. The post-consumption behavior stage analyzed how participants displayed WOM, eWOM and purchase rental product behavior. Clothing shopping orientation of study participants is displayed in 5 dimensions of brand-seeking propensity, individuality-seeking propensity, economic efficiency-seeking propensity, rationality-seeking propensity, and pleasure-seeking propensity. This study identified three main characteristics in the study participants: interest in the fashion, favorable attitude toward used fashion items, consciousness of others.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.41-53
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• 2020

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to review the previous studies on the characteristics of the image search service provided by using artificial intelligence, the social impact characteristics, and the moderating effect of perceived anthropomorphism, and conduct empirical analysis to identify the constituent factors affecting purchase intention. To clarify. Through this, I tried to present theoretical and practical implications. Research design, data, and methodology: Research design was that characteristics of image search service (ubiquity and information quality) and social impact characteristics (subjective norms, electronic word of mouth marketing) are affected by mediation of satisfaction and flow, therefore, control of perceived anthropomorphism have an effect on purchase intention to increase. For analysis, research conducted literature review, and developed questionnaires, so that EM firm which is a specialized research institute has collected data. This was conducted on 410 people between the 20s and 50s who have mobile shopping experiences. SPSS Statistics 23 and AMOS 23 had been used to perform necessary analysis such as exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis, feasibility analysis, and structural equation modeling based on this data. Results: first, ubiquity, information quality and subjective norms were found to have a positive effect on purchase intention through satisfaction and flow parameters. Second, satisfaction and flow were found to have a mediating effect between ubiquity, information quality, and subjective norms and purchase intentions. However, there was no mediating effect between eWOM information and purchase intention. Third, perceived anthropomorphism was found to have a moderating effect between information quality and satisfaction, and it was found that there was no moderating effect on the relationship between information quality and flow. Conclusions: The information quality of image search services using artificial intelligence has a positive effect on satisfaction, and it has been found that there is a positive moderate effect of perceived anthropomorphism in this relationship, which may be an academic contribution to the distribution science utilizing artificial intelligence. Therefore, it is possible to propose a distribution strategy that improves purchase intention by utilizing image search service and anthropomorphism in practical business and providing a more enjoyable immersive experience to customers.