• Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.115-131
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• 2020

Through literature research and field investigation, this paper attempts to study the distribution, morphology and the typification of the visual and perceptual stone inscription in Wuyi-Gugok of China. The results are as follows: First, there are 350 stone inscriptions in total from the 1^st Gok to 9^th Gok in Wuyi-Gugok. Second, according to the analysis of the stone inscription distribution, 74(21.2%) stone inscriptions in the 5^th Gok, 67(19.2%) in the 6^th Gok, 65(18.6%) in the 1^st Gok, 60(17.2%) in the 2^nd Gok and 53(15.2%) in the 4^th Gok are confirmed. The above five Goks contain 319(91.1%) stone inscriptions, so they have rich cultural landscape. Third, according to the survey, the number of the stone inscriptions existed in the Sugwangseok of the 1^st Gok are 41(22.6%), in the Homagan of Cheonyubong of the 6^th Gok are 29(8.3%), in the Jesiam of the 4^th Gok are 23(6.6%), in the Nyeongam of the 2^nd Gok are 22(6.3%), in the Hyangseongam of the 6^th Gok are 21(6%), in the Unwa of the 5^th Gok are 19(5.4%), in the Bokhoam of the 5^th Gok are 18(5.1%), in the Eunbyeongbong of the 5^th Gok are 17(4.9%), in the Daejangbong of the 4^th Gok are 14(4%), in the Daewangbong of the 1^st Gok and the Geumgokam of the 4^th Gok are 12(3.4%). Thus, a total of 228 (65.1%) stone inscriptions are concentrated in these 11 sites, which represent the popularity and cultural value of these rocks. Fourth, the stone inscription of Wuyi-Gugok, praising the landform and topographical geological landscape of Mount Wuyi, mainly describe the scenic name of each Gok related to Zhu Xi's Gugok culture, appreciate Zhu Xi's tracks and the stone inscription in the sacred land of Neo-Confucianism culture, and also record the Confucian edification of mencius thoughts, Muigun(武夷君) and the myths and legends related to the site names of Wuyi mountain, which can remind people of the worldview of the celestial paradise where the gods live and the fairyland of the land of peach blossoms. In addition, it indicates that the historical and cultural landscape, which is full of colorful history and myths and legends, including allusions related to Confucian, buddhist and Taoist celebrities and the ancestor ancient things related to traditional culture of China is very diverse. Fifth, the results of the classification, based on the content of the stone inscription in Wuyi-Gugok, are classified as the scenery name inscription, the praise scene inscription, the recording travel inscription, the recording event inscription, the philosophy inscription, the expressing emotion inscription, the religion inscription, the inscription for auspiciousness, the slogan and expressing ambition inscription and the official document notice inscription, among which there are 102(29.1%) praise scene inscriptions, 93(26.6%) scenery name inscriptions and 61(17.4%) recording travel inscriptions. The stone inscriptions of Wuyi-Gugok have the characteristics of the special emphasis on scenery names, landscape praise and commemorative tours. Sixth, the analysis of the intertext between the 「Figure of Wuyi-Gugok」 and Wuyi-Gugok rock letters, in the study found that the method of propagation between media was mostly the method of propagation of quotations and maintained intermedia through extension, repetition, extension, and compression.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.262-268
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• 2010

Virtual communities (VCs) have developed rapidly, with more and more people participating in them to exchange information and opinions. A virtual community is a group of people who may or may not meet one another face to face, and who exchange words and ideas through the mediation of computer bulletin boards and networks. A business-to-consumer virtual community (B2CVC) is a commercial group that creates a trustworthy environment intended to motivate consumers to be more willing to buy from an online store. B2CVCs create a social atmosphere through information contribution such as recommendations, reviews, and ratings of buyers and sellers. Although the importance of B2CVCs has been recognized, few studies have been conducted to examine members' word-of-mouth behavior within these communities. This study proposes a model of involvement, statistics, trust, "stickiness," and word-of-mouth in a B2CVC and explores the relationships among these elements based on empirical data. The objectives are threefold: (i) to empirically test a B2CVC model that integrates measures of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors; (ii) to better understand the nature of these relationships, specifically through word-of-mouth as a measure of revenue generation; and (iii) to better understand the role of stickiness of B2CVC in CRM marketing. The model incorporates three key elements concerning community members: (i) their beliefs, measured in terms of their involvement assessment; (ii) their attitudes, measured in terms of their satisfaction and trust; and, (iii) their behavior, measured in terms of site stickiness and their word-of-mouth. Involvement is considered the motivation for consumers to participate in a virtual community. For B2CVC members, information searching and posting have been proposed as the main purpose for their involvement. Satisfaction has been reviewed as an important indicator of a member's overall community evaluation, and conceptualized by different levels of member interactions with their VC. The formation and expansion of a VC depends on the willingness of members to share information and services. Researchers have found that trust is a core component facilitating the anonymous interaction in VCs and e-commerce, and therefore trust-building in VCs has been a common research topic. It is clear that the success of a B2CVC depends on the stickiness of its members to enhance purchasing potential. Opinions communicated and information exchanged between members may represent a type of written word-of-mouth. Therefore, word-of-mouth is one of the primary factors driving the diffusion of B2CVCs across the Internet. Figure 1 presents the research model and hypotheses. The model was tested through the implementation of an online survey of CTrip Travel VC members. A total of 243 collected questionnaires was reduced to 204 usable questionnaires through an empirical process of data cleaning. The study's hypotheses examined the extent to which involvement, satisfaction, and trust influence B2CVC stickiness and members' word-of-mouth. Structural Equation Modeling tested the hypotheses in the analysis, and the structural model fit indices were within accepted thresholds: ${\chi}^2^$/df was 2.76, NFI was .904, IFI was .931, CFI was .930, and RMSEA was .017. Results indicated that involvement has a significant influence on satisfaction (p<0.001, ${\beta}$=0.809). The proportion of variance in satisfaction explained by members' involvement was over half (adjusted $R^2$=0.654), reflecting a strong association. The effect of involvement on trust was also statistically significant (p<0.001, ${\beta}$=0.751), with 57 percent of the variance in trust explained by involvement (adjusted $R^2$=0.563). When the construct "stickiness" was treated as a dependent variable, the proportion of variance explained by the variables of trust and satisfaction was relatively low (adjusted $R^2$=0.331). Satisfaction did have a significant influence on stickiness, with ${\beta}$=0.514. However, unexpectedly, the influence of trust was not even significant (p=0.231, t=1.197), rejecting that proposed hypothesis. The importance of stickiness in the model was more significant because of its effect on e-WOM with ${\beta}$=0.920 (p<0.001). Here, the measures of Stickiness explain over eighty of the variance in e-WOM (Adjusted $R^2$=0.846). Overall, the results of the study supported the hypothesized relationships between members' involvement in a B2CVC and their satisfaction with and trust of it. However, trust, as a traditional measure in behavioral models, has no significant influence on stickiness in the B2CVC environment. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on B2CVCs, specifically addressing gaps in the academic research by integrating measures of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in one model. The results provide additional insights to behavioral factors in a B2CVC environment, helping to sort out relationships between traditional measures and relatively new measures. For practitioners, the identification of factors, such as member involvement, that strongly influence B2CVC member satisfaction can help focus technological resources in key areas. Global e-marketers can develop marketing strategies directly targeting B2CVC members. In the global tourism business, they can target Chinese members of a B2CVC by providing special discounts for active community members or developing early adopter programs to encourage stickiness in the community. Future studies are called for, and more sophisticated modeling, to expand the measurement of B2CVC member behavior and to conduct experiments across industries, communities, and cultures.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.153-169
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• 2012

Exhibitions have played a key role of effective marketing activity which directly informs services and products to current and potential customers. Through participating in exhibitions, exhibitors have got the opportunity to make face-to-face contact so that they can secure the market share and improve their corporate images. According to this economic importance of exhibitions, show organizers try to adopt a new IT technology for improving their performance, and researchers have also studied services which can improve the satisfaction of visitors through analyzing visit patterns of visitors. Especially, as smart technologies make them monitor activities of visitors in real-time, they have considered booth recommender systems which infer preference of visitors and recommender proper service to them like on-line environment. However, while there are many studies which can improve their performance in the side of new technological development, they have not considered the choice factor of visitors for booth recommender systems. That is, studies for factors which can influence the development direction and effective diffusion of these systems are insufficient. Most of prior studies for the acceptance of new technologies and the continuous intention of use have adopted Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Extended Technology Acceptance Model (ETAM). Booth recommender systems may not be new technology because they are similar with commercial recommender systems such as book recommender systems, in the smart exhibition environment, they can be considered new technology. However, for considering the smart exhibition environment beyond TAM, measurements for the intention of reuse should focus on how booth recommender systems can provide correct information to visitors. In this study, through literature reviews, we draw factors which can influence the satisfaction and reuse intention of visitors for booth recommender systems, and design a model to forecast adaptation of visitors for booth recommendation in the exhibition environment. For these purposes, we conduct a survey for visitors who attended DMC Culture Open in November 2011 and experienced booth recommender systems using own smart phone, and examine hypothesis by regression analysis. As a result, factors which can influence the satisfaction of visitors for booth recommender systems are the effectiveness, perceived ease of use, argument quality, serendipity, and so on. Moreover, the satisfaction for booth recommender systems has a positive relationship with the development of reuse intention. For these results, we have some insights for booth recommender systems in the smart exhibition environment. First, this study gives shape to important factors which are considered when they establish strategies which induce visitors to consistently use booth recommender systems. Recently, although show organizers try to improve their performances using new IT technologies, their visitors have not felt the satisfaction from these efforts. At this point, this study can help them to provide services which can improve the satisfaction of visitors and make them last relationship with visitors. On the other hands, this study suggests that they managers along the using time of booth recommender systems. For example, in the early stage of the adoption, they should focus on the argument quality, perceived ease of use, and serendipity, so that improve the acceptance of booth recommender systems. After these stages, they should bridge the differences between expectation and perception for booth recommender systems, and lead continuous uses of visitors. However, this study has some limitations. We only use four factors which can influence the satisfaction of visitors. Therefore, we should development our model to consider important additional factors. And the exhibition in our experiments has small number of booths so that visitors may not need to booth recommender systems. In the future study, we will conduct experiments in the exhibition environment which has a larger scale.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.61-70
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• 2005

Purpose: Uterine cervix cancer is one of the most prevalent women cancer in Korea. We analysed published papers in Korea with comparing Patterns of Care Study (PCS) articles of United States and Japan for the purpose of developing and processing Korean PCS. Materials and Methods: We searched PCS related foreign-produced papers in the PCS homepage (212 articles and abstracts) and from the Pub Med to find Structure and Process of the PCS. To compare their study with Korean papers, we used the internet site 'Korean Pub Med' to search 99 articles regarding uterine cervix cancer and radiation therapy. We analysed Korean paper by comparing them with selected PCS papers regarding Structure, Process and Outcome and compared their items between the period of before 1980's and 1990's. Results: Evaluable papers were 28 from United States, 10 from the Japan and 73 from the Korea which treated cervix PCS items. PCS papers for United States and Japan commonly stratified into $3\~4$ categories on the bases of the scales characteristics of the facilities, numbers of the patients, doctors, Researchers restricted eligible patients strictly. For the process of the study, they analysed factors regarding pretreatment staging in chronological order, treatment related factors, factors in addition to FIGO staging and treatment machine. Papers in United States dealt with racial characteristics, socioeconomic characteristics of the patients, tumor size (6), and bilaterality of parametrial or pelvic side wail invasion (5), whereas papers from Japan treated of the tumor markers. The common trend in the process of staging work-up was decreased use of lymphangiogram, barium enema and increased use of CT and MRI over the times. The recent subject from the Korean papers dealt with concurrent chemoradiotherapy (9 papers), treatment duration (4), tumor markers (B) and unconventional fractionation. Conclusion: By comparing papers among 3 nations, we collected items for Korean uterine cervix cancer PCS. By consensus meeting and close communication, survey items for cervix cancer PCS were developed to measure structure, process and outcome of the radiation treatment of the cervix cancer. Subsequent future research will focus on the use of brachytherapy and its impact on outcome including complications. These finding and future PCS studies will direct the development of educational programs aimed at correcting identified deficits in care.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.55-78
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• 2021

Tosolve complex and diverse social problems and ensure the quality of life of individuals, social robots that can interact with humans are attracting attention. In the past, robots were recognized as beings that provide labor force as they put into industrial sites on behalf of humans. However, the concept of today's robot has been extended to social robots that coexist with humans and enable social interaction with the advent of Smart technology, which is considered an important driver in most industries. Specifically, there are service robots that respond to customers, the robots that have the purpose of edutainment, and the emotionalrobots that can interact with humans intimately. However, popularization of robots is not felt despite the current information environment in the modern ICT service environment and the 4th industrial revolution. Considering social interaction with users which is an important function of social robots, not only the technology of the robots but also other factors should be considered. The design elements of the robot are more important than other factors tomake consumers purchase essentially a social robot. In fact, existing studies on social robots are at the level of proposing "robot development methodology" or testing the effects provided by social robots to users in pieces. On the other hand, consumer emotions felt from the robot's appearance has an important influence in the process of forming user's perception, reasoning, evaluation and expectation. Furthermore, it can affect attitude toward robots and good feeling and performance reasoning, etc. Therefore, this study aims to verify the effect of appearance of social robot and consumer emotions on consumer's attitude toward social robot. At this time, a social robot design evaluation model is constructed by combining heterogeneous data from different sources. Specifically, the three quantitative indicator data for the appearance of social robots from the ABOT Database is included in the model. The consumer emotions of social robot design has been collected through (1) the existing design evaluation literature and (2) online buzzsuch as product reviews and blogs, (3) qualitative interviews for social robot design. Later, we collected the score of consumer emotions and attitudes toward various social robots through a large-scale consumer survey. First, we have derived the six major dimensions of consumer emotions for 23 pieces of detailed emotions through dimension reduction methodology. Then, statistical analysis was performed to verify the effect of derived consumer emotionson attitude toward social robots. Finally, the moderated regression analysis was performed to verify the effect of quantitatively collected indicators of social robot appearance on the relationship between consumer emotions and attitudes toward social robots. Interestingly, several significant moderation effects were identified, these effects are visualized with two-way interaction effect to interpret them from multidisciplinary perspectives. This study has theoretical contributions from the perspective of empirically verifying all stages from technical properties to consumer's emotion and attitudes toward social robots by linking the data from heterogeneous sources. It has practical significance that the result helps to develop the design guidelines based on consumer emotions in the design stage of social robot development.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.19-31
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• 2021

This study tried to identify the characteristics of college students' entrepreneurial intentions in the entertainment industry, focusing on existing literature studies. Based on this, it was intended to suggest realistic educational alternatives for university student start-ups and implications for start-up management to university start-up officials and those in charge of national start-up support policy. Therefore, the implications of this study are as follows. First, technology(item) for idea creation education, which is an essential element in the entertainment industry, how to connect ideas and products, technology methods that can increase content value, and user characteristics education within the entertainment industry will need to be continued. In addition, along with the idea education, it is necessary to increase the understanding of start-up business management such as financing, human resource management, marketing, and operation management, and furthermore, confidence education should be provided so that the possibility of success in an entertainment start-up and a sense of adventure in a new job can be developed. Second, the space and equipment necessary for start-up (club room, student start-up room, entertainment-related equipment, etc.) should be provided centering on the opinion survey of students who are interested in starting a business, and various regulations of universities and government for student start-up should be relaxed. will have to In addition, education for the formation of entrepreneurial knowledge inside and outside of the school, special lectures and consultations by experts, and on-the-spot education, etc., should be made to create more practical entrepreneurial knowledge. something to do. Third, for students wishing to start a business in the entertainment industry, it is necessary to inform their families about the field situation of the entertainment industry accurately so that their children can develop a positive perception rather than a negative perception when choosing a business field. In addition, by promoting various successful cases of college students to their families after starting a business, families should be encouraged so that their children can develop a challenging spirit about starting a business. Fourth, it should be possible to form continuous clubs or gatherings with friends who wish to start a business in the entertainment industry, and furthermore, an opportunity to listen to the opinions of friends who actually started a business through these meetings should be provided. In addition, the meeting and the formation of friends should create a place for discussion about writing a business plan, how to succeed in starting a business, and management of startups, and psychological stimulation activities should be conducted so that each other's will to start a business arises. Fifth, various knowledge related to start-up (methods for securing funds, management of start-up organizations, grasping information about the market in which they want to start a business, etc.) should be cultivated, and how to write a business plan for the various entertainment industry fields they want to start up. You will also need to train them to be practical. Also, based on this knowledge formation, students themselves should be able to respond to risks and changes that may occur in entrepreneurship. Lastly, it is necessary to increase the understanding of business start-up management, and various psychological stimulation activities are needed to make the confidence and fear of starting a business disappear.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.1-13
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• 2022

This paper examined the history and development of Gyeongbokgung Palace's back garden based on historical materials and drawings such as Joseon Ilgi(Diaries of Joseon Dynasty), Joseon Wangjo Sillok(the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty), Doseongdaejido(the Great Map of Seoul), Bukgwoldohyeong(Drawing Plan of the Northern Palace), the Bukgung Palace Restoration Plan, Restoration Planning of Gyeongbokgung Palace and the following results were derived. First, it was confirmed that the Back Garden of Gyeongbokgung Palace was famous for its great location since the Goryeo Dynasty, and that it was named Namkyeong at that time and was a place where a shrine was built, and that castles and palaces were already built during the Goryeo Dynasty under the influence of Fengshui-Docham(風水圖讖) and Zhouli·Kaogongji(周禮考工記). Although the back garden of Gyeongbokgung Palace in the early Joseon Dynasty stayed out of the limelight as a back garden for the palace, it has a place value as a living space for the head of the state from King Gojong to the present. Second, in order to clearly identify the boundaries of back garden, through literature such as map of Doseongdo (Map of the Capital), La Coree, Gyeongmudae Area, Japanese Geography Custom Compendium, Korean Photo Album, JoseonGeonchukdoJip(The Illustration Book of Joseon Construction), Urban Planning Survey of Gyeongseong, it was confirmed that the current Blue House area outside Sinmumun Gate was built outside the precincts of Gyeongbokgung Palace. It was found that the area devastated through the Japanese Invasion of Korea in 1592, was used as a space where public corporations were combined through the process of reconstruction during the King Gojong period. In Japanese colonial era, the place value as a back garden of the primary palace was damaged, as the palace buildings of the back garden was relocated or destroyed, but after liberation, it was used as the presidential residence and restored the place value of the ruler. Third, in the back garden of Gyeongbokgung Palace, spatial changes proceeded through the Japanese Invasion and Japanese colonial era. The place with the greatest geographical change was Gyeongnongjae area, where the residence of the Japanese Government-General of Korea was built, and there were frequent changes in the use of the land. On the other hand, the current Gyeongmudae area, the forests next to the small garden, and the forests of Baekak were preserved in the form of traditional forests. To clarify this, 1:1200 floor plan of inner Gyeongmudae residence and satellite images were overlapped based on Sinmumun Gate, and as a result, it was confirmed that the water path originating from Baekak still exists today and the forest area did not change. Fourth, in the areas where the traditional forest landscape was inherited, the functional changes in the topography were little, and major old-age colonies are maintained. The old trees identified in this area were indicator tree species with historical value. Representatively, Pinus densiflora for. multicaulis Uyeki, located in Nokjiwon Garden, is presumed to have been preserved as one of Pinus densiflora for. multicaulis Uyeki planted next to Yongmundang, and has a historicality that has been used as a photo zone at dinners for heads of state and important guests. Lastly, in order to continuously preserve and manage the value of Gyeongbokgung Palace in Blue House, it is urgent to clarify the space value through excavation of historical materials in Japanese colonial era and establish a hierarchy of garden archaeology by era. In addition, the basis for preserving the historical landscape from the Joseon Dynasty to the modern era from Gyeongbokgung Palace should not damage the area of the old giant trees, which has been perpetuated since the past, and a follow-up study is needed to investigate all the forests in Blue House.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.175-191
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• 2011

With the MICE(Meeting, Incentive travel, Convention, Exhibition) industry coming into the spotlight, there has been a growing interest in the domestic exhibition industry. Accordingly, in Korea, various studies of the industry are being conducted to enhance exhibition performance as in the United States or Europe. Some studies are focusing particularly on analyzing visiting patterns of exhibition visitors using intelligent information technology in consideration of the variations in effects of watching exhibitions according to the exhibitory environment or technique, thereby understanding visitors and, furthermore, drawing the correlations between exhibiting businesses and improving exhibition performance. However, previous studies related to booth recommendation systems only discussed the accuracy of recommendation in the aspect of a system rather than determining changes in visitors' behavior or perception by recommendation. A booth recommendation system enables visitors to visit unplanned exhibition booths by recommending visitors suitable ones based on information about visitors' visits. Meanwhile, some visitors may be satisfied with their unplanned visits, while others may consider the recommending process to be cumbersome or obstructive to their free observation. In the latter case, the exhibition is likely to produce worse results compared to when visitors are allowed to freely observe the exhibition. Thus, in order to apply a booth recommendation system to exhibition halls, the factors affecting the performance of the system should be generally examined, and the effects of the system on visitors' unplanned visiting behavior should be carefully studied. As such, this study aims to determine the factors that affect the performance of a booth recommendation system by reviewing theories and literature and to examine the effects of visitors' perceived performance of the system on their satisfaction of unplanned behavior and intention to reuse the system. Toward this end, the unplanned behavior theory was adopted as the theoretical framework. Unplanned behavior can be defined as "behavior that is done by consumers without any prearranged plan". Thus far, consumers' unplanned behavior has been studied in various fields. The field of marketing, in particular, has focused on unplanned purchasing among various types of unplanned behavior, which has been often confused with impulsive purchasing. Nevertheless, the two are different from each other; while impulsive purchasing means strong, continuous urges to purchase things, unplanned purchasing is behavior with purchasing decisions that are made inside a store, not before going into one. In other words, all impulsive purchases are unplanned, but not all unplanned purchases are impulsive. Then why do consumers engage in unplanned behavior? Regarding this question, many scholars have made many suggestions, but there has been a consensus that it is because consumers have enough flexibility to change their plans in the middle instead of developing plans thoroughly. In other words, if unplanned behavior costs much, it will be difficult for consumers to change their prearranged plans. In the case of the exhibition hall examined in this study, visitors learn the programs of the hall and plan which booth to visit in advance. This is because it is practically impossible for visitors to visit all of the various booths that an exhibition operates due to their limited time. Therefore, if the booth recommendation system proposed in this study recommends visitors booths that they may like, they can change their plans and visit the recommended booths. Such visiting behavior can be regarded similarly to consumers' visit to a store or tourists' unplanned behavior in a tourist spot and can be understand in the same context as the recent increase in tourism consumers' unplanned behavior influenced by information devices. Thus, the following research model was established. This research model uses visitors' perceived performance of a booth recommendation system as the parameter, and the factors affecting the performance include trust in the system, exhibition visitors' knowledge levels, expected personalization of the system, and the system's threat to freedom. In addition, the causal relation between visitors' satisfaction of their perceived performance of the system and unplanned behavior and their intention to reuse the system was determined. While doing so, trust in the booth recommendation system consisted of 2nd order factors such as competence, benevolence, and integrity, while the other factors consisted of 1st order factors. In order to verify this model, a booth recommendation system was developed to be tested in 2011 DMC Culture Open, and 101 visitors were empirically studied and analyzed. The results are as follows. First, visitors' trust was the most important factor in the booth recommendation system, and the visitors who used the system perceived its performance as a success based on their trust. Second, visitors' knowledge levels also had significant effects on the performance of the system, which indicates that the performance of a recommendation system requires an advance understanding. In other words, visitors with higher levels of understanding of the exhibition hall learned better the usefulness of the booth recommendation system. Third, expected personalization did not have significant effects, which is a different result from previous studies' results. This is presumably because the booth recommendation system used in this study did not provide enough personalized services. Fourth, the recommendation information provided by the booth recommendation system was not considered to threaten or restrict one's freedom, which means it is valuable in terms of usefulness. Lastly, high performance of the booth recommendation system led to visitors' high satisfaction levels of unplanned behavior and intention to reuse the system. To sum up, in order to analyze the effects of a booth recommendation system on visitors' unplanned visits to a booth, empirical data were examined based on the unplanned behavior theory and, accordingly, useful suggestions for the establishment and design of future booth recommendation systems were made. In the future, further examination should be conducted through elaborate survey questions and survey objects.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.19-45
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• 2008

This study is to empirically examine the primary dimensions of visual merchandising (VMD) of internet shopping mall, namely store design, merchandise, and merchandising cues, to be a attractive virtual store to the shoppers. The authors reviewed the literature related to the major components of VMD from the perspective of the AIDA model, which has been mainly applied to the offline store settings. The major purposes of the study are as follows; first, tries to derive the variables related with the components of visual merchandising through reviewing the existing literatures, establish the hypotheses, and test it empirically. Second, examines the relationships between the components of VMD and the attitude toward the VMD, however, putting more emphasis on finding out the component structure of the VMD. VMD needs to be examined with the perspective that an online shopping mall is a virtual self-service or clerkless store, which could reduce the number of employees, help the shoppers search, evaluate and purchase for themselves, and to be explored in terms of the in-store persuasion processes of customers. This study reviewed the literatures related to store design, merchandise, and merchandising cues which might be relevant to the store, product, and promotion respectively. VMD is a total communication tool, and AIDA model could explain the in-store consumer behavior of online shopping. Store design has to do with triggering a consumer attention to the online mall, merchandise with a product related interest, and merchandising cues with promotions such as recommendation and links that induce the desire to pruchase. These three steps might be seen as the processes for purchase actions. The theoretical rationale for the relationship between VMD and AIDA could be found in Tyagi(2005) that the three steps of consumer-oriented merchandising are a store, a product assortment, and placement, in Omar(1999) that three types of interior display are a architectural design display, commodity display, and point-of-sales(POS) display, and in Davies and Ward(2005) that the retail store interior image is related to an atmosphere, merchandise, and in-store promotion. Lee et al(2000) suggested as the web merchandising components a merchandising cues, a shopping metaphor which is an assistant tool for search, a store design, a layout(web design), and a product assortment. The store design which includes differentiation, simplicity and navigation is supposed to be related to the attention to the virtual store. Second, the merchandise dimensions comprising product assortments, visual information and product reputation have to do with the interest in the product offerings. Finally, the merchandising cues that refer to merchandiser(MD)'s recommendation of products and providing the hyperlinks to relevant goods for the shopper is concerned with attempt to induce the desire to purchase. The questionnaire survey was carried out to collect the data about the consumers who would shop at internet shopping malls frequently. To select the subject malls, the mall ranking data announced by a mall rating agency was used to differentiate the most popular and least popular five mall each. The subjects was instructed to answer the questions after navigating the designated mall for five minutes. The 300 questionnaire was distributed to the consumers, 166 samples were used in the final analysis. The empirical testing focused on identifying and confirming the dimensionality of VMD and its subdimensions using a structural equation modeling method. The confirmatory factor analysis for the endogeneous and exogeneous variables was carried out in four parts. The second-order factor analysis was done for a store design, a merchandise, and a merchandising cues, and first-order confirmatory factor analysis for the attitude toward the VMD. The model test results shows that the chi-square value of structural equation is 144.39(d.f 49), significant at 0.01 level which means the proposed model was rejected. But, judging from the ratio of chi-square value vs. degree of freedom, the ratio was 2.94 which smaller than an acceptable level of 3.0, RMR is 0.087 which is higher than a generally acceptable level of 0.08. GFI and AGFI is turned out to be 0.90 and 0.84 respectively. Both NFI and NNFI is 0.94, and CFI 0.95. The major test results are as follows; first, the second-order factor analysis and structural equational modeling reveals that the differentiation, simplicity and ease of identifying current status of the transaction are confirmed to be subdimensions of store design and to be a significant predictors of the dependent variable. This result implies that when designing an online shopping mall, it is necessary to differentiate visually from other malls to improve the effectiveness of the communications of store design. That is, the differentiated store design raise the contrast stimulus to sensory organs to promote the memory of the store and to have a favorable attitude toward the VMD of a store. The results that navigation which means the easiness of identifying current status of shopping affects the attitude to VMD could be interpreted that the navigating processes via the hyperlinks which is characteristics of an internet shopping is a complex and cognitive process and shoppers are likely to lack the sense of overall structure of the store. Consequently, shoppers are likely to be alost amid shopping not knowing where to go. The orientation tool enhance the accessibility of information to raise the perceptive power about the store environment.(Titus & Everett 1995) Second, the primary dimension of merchandise and its subdimensions was confirmed to be unidimensional respectively, have a construct validity, and nomological validity which the VMD dimensions supposed to have a positive correlation with the dependent variable. The subdimensions of product assortment, brand fame and information provision proved to have a positive effect on the attitude toward the VMD. It could be interpreted that the more plentiful the product and brand assortment of the mall is, the more likely the shoppers to favor it. Brand fame and information provision as well affect the VMD attitude, which means that the more famous the brand, the more likely the shoppers would trust and feel familiar with the mall, and the plentifully and visually presented information could have the shopper have a favorable attitude toward the store VMD. Third, it turned out to be that merchandising cue of product recommendation and hyperlinks affect the VMD attitude. This could be interpreted that recommended products could reduce the uncertainty related with the purchase decision, and the hyperlinks to relevant products would help the shopper save the cognitive effort exerted into the information search and gathering, which could lead to a favorable attitude to the VMD. This study tried to sheds some new light on the VMD of online store by reviewing the variables mentioned to be relevant with offline VMD in the existing literatures, and tried to link the VMD components from the perspective of AIDA model. The effect size of the VMD dimensions on the attitude was in the order of the merchandise, the store design and the merchandising cues.It is said that an internet has an unlimited place for display, however, the virtual store is not unlimited since the consumer has a limited amount of cognitive ability to process the external information and internal memory. Particularly, the shoppers are likely to face some difficulties in decision making on account of too many alternative and information overloads. Therefore, the internet shopping mall manager should take into consideration the cost of information search on the part of the consumer, to establish the optimal product placements and search routes. An efficient store composition would be possible by reducing the psychological burdens and cognitive efforts exerted to information search and alternatives evaluation. The store image is in most part determined by the product category and its brand it deals in. The results of this study support this proposition that the merchandise is most important to the VMD attitude than other components, the manager is required to take a strategic approach to VMD. The internet users are getting more accustomed and more knowledgeable about the internet media and more likely to accept the internet as a shopping channel as the period of time during which they use the internet to shop become longer. The web merchandiser should be aware that the product introduction using a moving pictures and a bulletin board become more important in order to present the interactive product information visually and communicate with customers more actively, therefore leading to making the quantity and quality of product information more rich.