• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.88-98
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• 2024

With the growing preference among Chinese consumers for purchasing beauty products through social media networks (SNS), influencer marketing has recently emerged as a crucial strategy for maximizing word-of-mouth effects. This study aims to ascertain the impact of SNS beauty influencers' characteristics on trustworthiness and consumers' intentions to engage in word-of-mouth promotion. Furthermore, the study seeks to explore the moderating role of consumer involvement in the relationship between SNS beauty influencer characteristics and the trust consumers place in them. As part of an empirical analysis, an online survey was administered to 259 Chinese female consumers who had previously purchased beauty products through influencers on SNS. The data gathered were scrutinized by conducting multiple and hierarchical regression analysis to test the proposed hypotheses. The findings indicated that the attributes of "expertise,"' "intimacy," and "homogeneity" in SNS beauty influencers significantly affect influencer trust, whereas "charm" does not have a significant impact. Moreover, consumer involvement was found to moderate the relationship between SNS beauty influencer characteristics (expertise, intimacy, charm, and homogeneity) and influencer trust. Additionally, influencer trust positively influenced the intention to engage in word-of-mouth activities. These findings signify that leveraging influencers possessing qualities such as expertise, intimacy, and homogeneity can help enhance product exposure, popularity, and sales of the beauty industry. This study contributes valuable insights into the strategic utilization of influencer characteristics in the beauty industry and digital marketing, highlighting their pivotalrole in consumer engagement and the success of marketing strategies.

• Journal of Wellbeing Management and Applied Psychology
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.39-47
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• 2024

This study investigates the impact of mega-influencers and micro-influencers on consumer trust, brand attitude, and purchase intention within the beauty industry. Methods: A survey of 160 adults was conducted in March 2024, analyzing responses to the influence of a beauty mega-influencer ("Isa Bae") and a micro-influencer ("Day Beauty"). Participants were surveyed online over two weeks, and the data were analyzed using statistical tools to compare the influence of both types of influencers. Results: The results indicated that mega-influencers had a more substantial effect on reliability and brand attitude compared to micro-influencers, although both types of influencers significantly influenced purchase intentions. Influencer attractiveness and expertise emerged as critical factors in shaping consumer perceptions and behaviors. Conclusion: This study provides insights into optimizing influencer marketing strategies by leveraging the distinct characteristics and scales of influencers to enhance consumer engagement and brand loyalty. The findings underscore the importance of choosing the appropriate influencer type to maximize marketing effectiveness and consumer trust in the digital marketing landscape.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.159-175
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• 2021

This study attempted to analyze the relationship between influencer's characteristic factors such as professionalism, authenticity, and interactivity and content quality factors consisting of accuracy, completeness, and diversity on brand attitude and purchase attitude through trust and self-consistency. To reveal the structural relationship between main variables, a survey was conducted on 201 users. An EFA, CFA, and reliability analysis were performed to confirm reliability and validity. And structural equation was conducted to verify hypothesis. The main results are as follows. First, it was found that professionalism and interactivity had a significant positive effect on trust. And, accuracy, completeness, and variety were all found to have a significant positive effect on trust. Second, in the relationship between individual characteristic factors and self-consistency, it was found that professionalism and authenticity had a significant positive effect on self-consistency. In addition, in the relationship between content quality and self-consistency, accuracy, completeness, and diversity were found to have a positive effect on self-consistency along with trust. Third, in the relationship between trust and self-consistency on brand attitude and purchase intention, both trust and self-consistency were found to have a statistically significant positive effect on brand attitude. It was found that only self-consistency and brand attitude had a statistically significant positive effect on purchase intention. These findings showed that when users perceive professionalism and interaction with influencer, trust increases, and professionalism and progress increase self-consistency with influencer. In addition, in the case of content quality, it was found that trust and self-consistency responded positively when perceived content quality through content accuracy, completeness, and diversity. Also, trust and self-consistency increased attitudes toward brands and could influence consumption behavior such as purchase intention. Therefore, for effective marketing performance using influencer's influence in the field of influencer marketing, which has a strong information delivery on products and brands, not only personal characteristics such as professionalism, authenticity, and interactivity, but also quality of content should be considered. The above research results are expected to suggest implications for marketing strategies and practices as one available basic data to exert the expected effect of marketing using influencer.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.31-44
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship among SNS users' interpersonal trust, brand image and purchase intention. A total of 335 questionnaires were collected during 6 days by Embrain online research company. Collected data were analyzed by SPSSWIN and AMOS program and frequency analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, validity test, correlation analysis and structural equation model analysis were performed. The results of verifying the relationship among variables are as follows. First, SNS users' interpersonal trust in influencers had positively influenced by brand image. Second, brand image sold by influencers had positively influenced by purchase intention. Third, SNS users' interpersonal trust in influencers had a significant effect on purchase intention.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.75-100
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• 2022

Purpose Recently, hyper-realistic virtual influencers have received much attention in the field of corporate marketing. However, there is a lack of research that suggests specific processes affecting behavioral intentions through trust and attachment between virtual influencers and consumers. In addition, previous studies have failed to consider the characteristics of hyper-realistic virtual influencers. Therefore, this study investigates the effects of trust and attachment to hyper-realistic virtual influencers on consumers' behavioral intentions based on the trust-building model. Design/methodology/approach Based on the previous research, seven antecedent factors for trust-building were derived: Reality, Attractiveness, Awareness, Interactivity, Professionalism, Social Presence, and Predictability. Next, the survey was conducted on Chinese people who had experienced interacting with hyper-realistic virtual influencers on social network services within the last 3 months at the time of data collection. A total of 326 respondents were used for the final analysis and hypotheses were tested using a structural equation model technique. Findings The results of this study are as follows. First, this study confirmed that reality, attractiveness, awareness, social presence, and predictability as antecedent factors for trust-building of hyper-realistic virtual influencers have a positive effect on trust. Second, this study confirmed that trust in hyper-realistic virtual influencers has a significant positive effect on attachment. Lastly, this study confirmed that trust and attachment to the hyper-realistic virtual influencer significantly and positively affect relationship retention and purchase intentions.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.1-16
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• 2019

This study explores the effect of hashtag type on consumer response via evaluations of SNS fashion influencer and information in the context of fashion product communication. The moderating effect of perceived fit between hashtag content and fashion product image on information evaluation was also investigated. An online survey was conducted, and responses from 152 Instagram users were collected. The results indicated that hashtag type (informative vs storytelling) affects the evaluations of influencer and information. First, the informative hashtag has a positive effect on influencer's expertise and usefulness of information. Meanwhile, storytelling type has a positive effect on the familiarity of the influencer. This study also verified the mediated paths from hashtag type to consumer response through the evaluations of SNS fashion influencer and information. The influencer's expertise and familiarity mediated the effect of hashtag type on consumer response. In the information evaluation, only the mediating effect of usefulness was significant. Finally, the high condition of the perceived fit between hashtag content and fashion product image was found to highly evaluate the trust of information. This study extends the scope of fashion communication research from various angles by examining the role of the hashtag as a new type of information source.

• Journal of Venture Innovation
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.23-39
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• 2022

This study was conducted to empirically analyze the factors influencing the intention to continue using live commerce, which was active as digital contacts become more prevailed due to the progress of the 4th industrial revolution and the COVID-19 pandemic. A research model was established by paying attention to the characteristics of influencers among various influencing factors. Influencer characteristics were subdivided into attractiveness, professionality, awareness, and entertainment. In addition, the dual mediating effect of interaction and trust was also tested between influencer's characteristics and the intention to continue using of live commerce. To this end, a survey was conducted targeting people who have experience using live commerce, and 300 valid samples were analyzed. The empirical analysis utilized SPSS 25.0 and Process Macro 4.0. As a result of the empirical analysis, it was found that attractiveness, professionality, awareness, and entertainment derived from the characteristics of influencers all had a significant positive (+) effect on the intention to continue using live commerce. The impact of the influence of variables that directly affect the intention to continue using was in the order of entertainment, awareness, professionality, and attractiveness. On the other hand, as a result of examining the dual mediating effect of interaction and trust, it was found that they all tested a mediating role between attractiveness, professionality, awareness, entertainment, and intention to continue using live commerce. Based on these research results, the academic and practical implications of this study were presented.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.23-51
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• 2023

Purpose: Live commerce is a new type of electronic commerce in combination with live streaming services. It is expected to increase virtual presence in the context of online shopping by overcoming a lack of social interactions between sellers and buyers which have been raised as a limitation in electronic commerce. Drawing on the studies of communication media, this study examines how live commerce contributes to the increase of virtual presence which consists of telepresence and social presence. Telepresence refers to a buyer's perception that he or she is present at the physical shopping mall during live shopping streaming whereas social presence refers to a buyer's perception of social interaction with a seller which is human warm, social, sensitive, and personal. In this study, we verify key determinants of virtual presence and its consequences. More specifically, this study proposes virtual presence contributes to the increase of buyers' trust in products and further purchase intentions. Furthermore, we verify influential factors of virtual presence from the technical and influencer perspectives of live commerce. Design/methodology/approach: To test the proposed hypotheses, the partial least squares (PLS) analysis is conducted with a total of 250 data collected on users with experience in the TaoBao live streaming shopping platform. Findings: The results show that first, telepresence and social presence are increased by visibility, media richness and attractiveness in the context of live shopping streaming. Second, buyers' trust in product trust and purchase intentions are positively influenced by telepresence and social presence. Finally, buyers' trust in product has a direct, positve effect on their purchase intentions. Overall, the findings offer new insights into the studies of electronic commerce by introducting the concepts of virtual presence and media richness from the literature of communication media in the field of live commerce.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.17-31
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• 2023

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to verify the effects of attributes of personal media content and influencers on the cognitive and emotional trust of platform users. In addition, the structural relationships among cognitive trust, emotional trust, viewing commitment, and purchase intention were examined. Design/methodology/approach - For the empirical analysis of the study, a survey was conducted on 192 consumers who have recently experienced using personal media content. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and the Structure Equation Model (SEM) were hired in order to analyze the survey data. Findings - Findings of this study are 1) informativeness and expertise had a significant effect on cognitive and emotional trust. However, entertainment had no significant effect on both cognitive and emotional trust; 2) interactivity had a significant effect on emotional trust, but not on cognitive trust; 3) cognitive and emotional trust had a positive effect on the viewing commitment of the content; 4)content users' viewing commitment had a positive effect on their intention to purchase recommended products. Research implications or Originality - The theoretical and practical implications were discussed through the above empirical research results, and the limitations of the study and the direction of follow-up studies were presented.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.1058-1092
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• 2023

This study investigates the perception and adoption of ChatGPT (a large language model (LLM)-based chatbot created by OpenAI) among Korean users and assesses its potential as the next disruptive innovation. Drawing on previous literature, the study proposes perceived intelligence and perceived anthropomorphism as key differentiating factors of ChatGPT from earlier AI-based chatbots. Four individual motives (i.e., perceived usefulness, ease of use, enjoyment, and trust) and two societal motives (social influence and AI anxiety) were identified as antecedents of ChatGPT acceptance. A survey was conducted within two Korean online communities related to artificial intelligence, the findings of which confirm that ChatGPT is being used for both utilitarian and hedonic purposes, and that perceived usefulness and enjoyment positively impact the behavioral intention to adopt the chatbot. However, unlike prior expectations, perceived ease-of-use was not shown to exert significant influence on behavioral intention. Moreover, trust was not found to be a significant influencer to behavioral intention, and while social influence played a substantial role in adoption intention and perceived usefulness, AI anxiety did not show a significant effect. The study confirmed that perceived intelligence and perceived anthropomorphism are constructs that influence the individual factors that influence behavioral intention to adopt and highlights the need for future research to deconstruct and explore the factors that make ChatGPT "enjoyable" and "easy to use" and to better understand its potential as a disruptive technology. Service developers and LLM providers are advised to design user-centric applications, focus on user-friendliness, acknowledge that building trust takes time, and recognize the role of social influence in adoption.