• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.29-52
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• 2012

Consumers differ in the way they make a purchase. An audio mania would willingly make a bold, yet serious, decision to buy a top-of-the-line home theater system, while he is not interested in replacing his two-decade-old shabby car. On the contrary, an automobile enthusiast wouldn't mind spending forty thousand dollars to buy a new Jaguar convertible, yet cares little about his junky component system. It is product involvement that helps us explain such differences among individuals in the purchase style. Product involvement refers to the extent to which a product is perceived to be important to a consumer (Zaichkowsky, 2001). Product involvement is an important factor that strongly influences consumer's purchase decision-making process, and thus has been of prime interest to consumer behavior researchers. Furthermore, researchers found that involvement is closely related to perceived risk (Dholakia, 2001). While abundant research exists addressing how product involvement relates to overall perceived risk, little attention has been paid to the relationship between involvement and different types of perceived risk in an electronic commerce setting. Given that perceived risk can be a substantial barrier to the online purchase (Jarvenpaa, 2000), research addressing such an issue will offer useful implications on what specific types of perceived risk an online firm should focus on mitigating if it is to increase sales to a fullest potential. Meanwhile, past research has focused on such consumer responses as information search and dissemination as a consequence of involvement, neglecting other behavioral responses like online merchant selection. For one example, will a consumer seriously considering the purchase of a pricey Guzzi bag perceive a great degree of risk associated with online buying and therefore choose to buy it from a digital storefront rather than from an online marketplace to mitigate risk? Will a consumer require greater trust on the part of the online merchant when the perceived risk of online buying is rather high? We intend to find answers to these research questions through an empirical study. This paper explores the impact of enduring product involvement and perceived risks on required trust level, and further on online merchant choice. For the purpose of the research, five types or components of perceived risk are taken into consideration, including financial, performance, delivery, psychological, and social risks. A research model has been built around the constructs under consideration, and 12 hypotheses have been developed based on the research model to examine the relationships between enduring involvement and five components of perceived risk, between five components of perceived risk and required trust level, between enduring involvement and required trust level, and finally between required trust level and preference toward an e-tailer. To attain our research objectives, we conducted an empirical analysis consisting of two phases of data collection: a pilot test and main survey. The pilot test was conducted using 25 college students to ensure that the questionnaire items are clear and straightforward. Then the main survey was conducted using 295 college students at a major university for nine days between December 13, 2010 and December 21, 2010. The measures employed to test the model included eight constructs: (1) enduring involvement, (2) financial risk, (3) performance risk, (4) delivery risk, (5) psychological risk, (6) social risk, (7) required trust level, (8) preference toward an e-tailer. The statistical package, SPSS 17.0, was used to test the internal consistency among the items within the individual measures. Based on the Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ coefficients of the individual measure, the reliability of all the variables is supported. Meanwhile, the Amos 18.0 package was employed to perform a confirmatory factor analysis designed to assess the unidimensionality of the measures. The goodness of fit for the measurement model was satisfied. Unidimensionality was tested using convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity. The statistical evidences proved that the three types of validity were all satisfied. Now the structured equation modeling technique was used to analyze the individual paths along the relationships among the research constructs. The results indicated that enduring involvement has significant positive relationships with all the five components of perceived risk, while only performance risk is significantly related to trust level required by consumers for purchase. It can be inferred from the findings that product performance problems are mostly likely to occur when a merchant behaves in an opportunistic manner. Positive relationships were also found between involvement and required trust level and between required trust level and online merchant choice. Enduring involvement is concerned with the pleasure a consumer derives from a product class and/or with the desire for knowledge for the product class, and thus is likely to motivate the consumer to look for ways of mitigating perceived risk by requiring a higher level of trust on the part of the online merchant. Likewise, a consumer requiring a high level of trust on the merchant will choose a digital storefront rather than an e-marketplace, since a digital storefront is believed to be trustworthier than an e-marketplace, as it fulfills orders by itself rather than acting as an intermediary. The findings of the present research provide both academic and practical implications. The first academic implication is that enduring product involvement is a strong motivator of consumer responses, especially the selection of a merchant, in the context of electronic shopping. Secondly, academicians are advised to pay attention to the finding that an individual component or type of perceived risk can be used as an important research construct, since it would allow one to pinpoint the specific types of risk that are influenced by antecedents or that influence consequents. Meanwhile, our research provides implications useful for online merchants (both online storefronts and e-marketplaces). Merchants may develop strategies to attract consumers by managing perceived performance risk involved in purchase decisions, since it was found to have significant positive relationship with the level of trust required by a consumer on the part of the merchant. One way to manage performance risk would be to thoroughly examine the product before shipping to ensure that it has no deficiencies or flaws. Secondly, digital storefronts are advised to focus on symbolic goods (e.g., cars, cell phones, fashion outfits, and handbags) in which consumers are relatively more involved than others, whereas e- marketplaces should put their emphasis on non-symbolic goods (e.g., drinks, books, MP3 players, and bike accessories).

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.166-182
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• 1994

Kyonggi Province in the late Chosun dynasty was a center of superior government offices including 'Han' River water-road transportation and was located in the middle of an 'X'-shaped arterial road network. Because of these reasons, Kyonggi Province had a faster inflow of commodities, informations and technics compared with the other province. At this period of time, every local 'Eup' (name of administrative district) had not been affected by their above administrative districts and had their own autonomy. For this reason, every 'Eup' could be developed as a town, even if its size was small when it had sufficient internal growing conditions. Moreover, the markets ('Si-Jon') in big towns and periodical markets which were spread over the Kyonggi Province played role of commercial functions of town. And because military bases for the defence of the royal capital in Kyonggi Province also took parts of a non-agricultural city role, Xyonggi Provinc had much more possibilities of growing as a town rather than the other provinces. The towns of the late Chosun Dynasty were, except the capital and superior administrative districts which were governed by the 'You-Su', small towns which had only about 3, 000-5, 000 people. Most of the town dewellers were local officials, nobles, merchants, craftmen and slaves. And the farmers who lived near town became a pseudo-towner through suburb agriculture. Among these people, the merchants were leaders of townization. The downtowns were affected by the landform and traffic roads. The most fundamental function of towns were administrative. The opcial's grade, which was dispatched to the local administrative district ('Kun' or 'Hyun'), was decided by the size of population and agricultural land of each county. Large county which was governed by a high ranking opcial had more possibilities to develop as a large town. Because they supervised other opcials of lower rank and obtained more land and population for the town. The phonomena of farm abandonment after the Japanese Invasion of Korea in 1592-1598 stimulated the development of towns for commercial function. The commercial functions of towns were evident in the Si-Jon or Nan-Jon (names of markets) in the big cities such as Hansung and Kaesung, meanffwhile in the local areas it was emerged in the shape of periodical market networks as allied with near markets (which were called as Jang-Si) or permanent markets which were grown up from periodical markets. These facts of commercial development induced the birth of commercial town. Kyonggi Province showed the weak points of its defense system during both wars (Japanese Invasion in 1592 and Manchu's Invasion in 1636). The government reinforced its defense system by adding 4 'You-Su-Bus' and several military bases. Each local districts ('Eup'), where Geo-Jins were established, were stimulated to be a town while Jin-Kwan system were, adjusted and enforced. Among Dok-Jins(name of solitary military bases), Youngjongjin was grown up as a large garrison town which only played a role of defense. The number of towns that took roles of non-agricultural functions in Kyonggi Province was 52. Among these towns, 29 were developed as big towns which had above 3, 000 people and most of these towns were located on the northwest-southeast axes of 'X'-shaped arterial trafic network in the Chosn Dynasty, This fact points out that the traffic road is one of the important causes of the development of towns. When we make hierarchy of the towns of Kyonggi Province according to its population and how many functions it had, we can make it as 6 grades. The virst grade town 'Hansung' was the biggest central town of administration, commerce and defdnse. The 2nd grade town includes 'Kaesung' which had historical inertia that it had been the capital of the Koryo Dynesty. The 3rd grade towns include some 'You- Su-Bus' such as Soowon, Kanghwa, Kwangju and also include Mapo, Yongsan and from this we can imagine that the commercial development in the late Chosun Dynasty extremely affected the townization. The 4th-6th grade towns had smiliar population but it can be discriminated by how many town functions it had. So the 4th grade towns were the core of administration, commerce and defense function. 5th grade towns had administrative functions and one of commercial and defense functions. 6th grade towns had only one of these functions. When we research and town conditions of each grades as the ratio of non-agricultural population, we can find out that the towns from the 1st grade to 4th grade show difference by degree of townization but from the 4th grade to 6th grade towns do not show big difference in general.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.89-110
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• 2013

Affiliate marketing is classified as a type of online advertising, where merchants share a percentage of sales revenue generated by each customer, who visited the company's website via a content provider. Content provider, referred to as an affiliate, usually places an online advertisement at its website. For the past few years, there have been a lot of companies or individuals who participate in affiliate marketing. Generally speaking, most of them have websites and post the merchant's ads on their own websites. However, building and maintaining websites have some technology requirements. The widespread use of Social Network Service (SNS), especially microblog-based SNS such as Twitter and Sina Weibo, provides opportunities for individuals who want to be content providers of affiliate marketing. Since information spreads quickly on microblog-based SNS and the easy in targeting customers, it is both an effective and an efficient tool to do affiliate marketing. The relationship between a content provider and the potential customer, which is referred as "tie strength", is quite an important issue in such situation. This paper proved that service characteristics of the microblog-based SNS (security, community drivenness and navigability) and content quality all had positive influence on click-through intention, while tie strength played a moderating role. For the group with strong tie, tie strength is crucial in influencing click-through intention. While for the weak tie group, content quality was very important. Finally, we proposed some implications for both academics and practitioners.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.237-260
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• 2000

According to the study of Jik-Ryoung(直領) consulting chronicles of the Chosun Era, Jik-Ryoung had been worn for various uses as official outfit, ordinary attire or clothes for the celebration of their coming of age, wedding ceremonies, funeral rites, and religious ceremonies, etc. from the beginning to the end of the Chosun Era. The conclusions are shown briefly as follows. 1. There are several terms of Po(袍) related to Jik-Ryoung in the chronicles under the name of Jik-Ryoung Ui(直領衣), Ui-Sal Jik-Ryoung(衣撒直領), and Jik-shin(直身). Jik-Ryoung Ui is the other name of Jik-Ryoung that they called it when it was used for funeral rites and religious ceremonies. The chinese Ye-Sal(曳撒) was called the Ui-Sal Jik-Ryoung in Korea, but this is different with Jik-Ryoung regarding its divided up and bottom style. Jik-Shin is almost same as Jik-Ryoung. 2. During the latter period of the Chosun Era, we can find diferent frequency in use of the Jik-Ryoung. Jik-Ryoung was shown constantly in the cases of that ding, Chinese Prince and lower-level constantly in the cases of that king, Crown Prince and lower-level officials wore it for funeral rites and lower-level officials, artisans, merchants, humbles and slaves wore it for official outfit. Uses of the Jik-Ryoung increased for military officers'outfits, in contrast to decreasing of uses for ordinary attires of king, Crown Prince, and the commons, and official outfits of civil officials. 3. These different aspects mean the change of estate and role. For the basic four ceremonial occasions the ceremonies of coming of age, marriage, funeral, and ancestor memorial-, it appeared constantly. Therefore the social role had been maintained also by then. As an official garb, the role for official uniform of petty official maintained by the end of the Dynasty. But from the latter 1600's to the former 1700's, the roles for official garbs of civil officials and military officers decreased and increased respectively. Before the Hideyoshi's Invasion of Korea in 1592, ordinary social clothes had orders by people's social status who wore them ; those were Dan Ryoung(團領), Hong Jik Ryoung(紅直領), Jik Ryoung(直領), Cho'l Rick(철릭) in the order named. After the war, various Po(袍), Shim Ui(深衣), Jung Chi Mak(中致莫), Chang Ui(　衣), Jang Ui(長衣), Ju Ui(周衣) and so on had been worn until the King Young Jo(英祖)·Jung Jo(正祖) period. In result, the social role of Jik-Ryoung was reduced as the uses decreased more and more. For a mourning dress, it had a same aspect as the case of ordinary social wear. 4. Considering the color, they used blue for the clothes for doing-up-the-hair ceremony, white for mourning clothes, and white, black for ancestor memorial ceremony clothes. On the official outfits of officials, dark blue and black were used mostly. And lower-level officials'clothes had white, red, and green on them. They used red and green for the plain dresses. 5. Examining the materials, clothes for the celebration of one's coming of age were made of high quality silks, Kwang Hwa Dan(廣禾緞). Also, they made clothes for funeral rites of rough and thick linen, and made clothes for religious ceremonies of linen and hemp. The official outfits were made of practical materials like cotton, hemp and ramie. Cotton, pongee and satin were used to make ordinary attire.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.273-284
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• 2004

This study is on the changing pattern of fish-and-shellfish uses during the last two thirds of Chosun period on the premise that they are influenced by development of fishing technology. With a literary approach, this paper researches how fish-and-shellfish production and consumption pattern changed, especially in relation to technological development of fisheries. First, we examine into the changes of fishery production. And next, we analyze the kind and cooking method of fish-and-shellfish in [Eum-sik-di-mi-bang](1670) and [Gyu-hap-chong-seo](1815). The analysis of two books revealed that there were significant differences in fish-and-shellfish uses. Because the two books were written with a gap of 145 years and the development of fishing technology and remarkable changes of fishery production affected on the fish-and-shellfish uses. Due to primitive fishing tools and skills, fresh-water and reverse-river-fish and shellfish had been caught in substantial amount until the middle ages of Chosun period. As a result, the availability of seafood were limited extremely even in the upper classes. These situations are evidenced by the analysis of [Eum-sik-di-mi-bang]. Only 12 kinds of fish-and-shellfish are described in [Eum-sik-di-mi-bang]. Most of the sesfoods is mollusc which is easy to catch. As for the salt-water fish, dried cod and dried herring were mentioned. Mullet, the reverse-water-fish, is used most frequently. Only one kind of 'Hoe', which needs extreme freshness, is described. This means that the use of fresh fish-and-shellfish was very limited to some kinds which could be caught near the village. As the netting fishery began to be developed in the 18th century, the production of some salt-water fishes, such as anchovy, shrimp, yellow corvina, pollack, and herring, had increased remarkably to make marine resources more available. Small fish, such as anchovy and shrimp were preserved as 'Jeot-gal' and sold nationwide. Therefore, 'Jeot-gal' and seafood could be used in Kimchi around this time and had a deep influence on the change of Kimchi in taste and nutrition. In [Gyu-hap-chong-seo], 33 kinds of fish-and-shellfish are described. Including cod and herring, 17 kinds of sea water fish and mollusc are mentioned. Some of these are consumed in fresh state, neither as dried nor as salted. Because the merchants promoted the transport of seafoods to other regions according to the growth of commercial economy. As a result the diet of the people could be enriched by the various seafoods.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.49-73
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• 2010

The lack of customer satisfaction and trust remains a key barrier to electronic commerce. From the standpoint of online merchants, it is critical to build consumer trust by lessening sources of apprehensions and uneasiness associated with online transactions. This paper explores the relationships between customer satisfaction and intermediary's trustworthiness factors in B2C e-marketplaces. It also aims at examining the effects of consumer characteristics, including propensity to trust and Internet shopping self-efficacy, upon trust and purchase intentions. To meet the research objectives, an empirical study has been conducted by surveying 223 active e-marketplace buyers in Korea. The findings of the present research indicate that customer satisfaction positively affects all the three attributes of trustworthiness (i.e., competence, benevolence, and integrity), and more specifically it has a quite strong association with benevolence. In addition, propensity to trust has no significant influence on trust or purchasing intentions, and only affects benevolence and integrity with no direct effect on competence. Finally, Internet shopping self-efficacy was found to affect both trust and purchasing intentions, suggesting that e-marketplaces seek an online strategy designed to strengthen loyalty for customers with high self-efficacy, while they use a strategy to improve the usability and usefulness of their website to attract customers with low self-efficacy. The paper concludes with implications and directions for future research.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.69-94
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• 2010

With the liberalization of distribution services industry since 1996 as well as changes in customers' appetite to spend and consumer behaviors, new forms of distribution services have mushroomed such as superstores and SSM(Super Supermarket), online shopping, TV shopping channels. On the contrary, traditional markets have sunk into a swamp of stagnation. As this stage of stagnation of markets negatively affects tradespeople's employment, livings, and local economy, the Korean government has conducted policies to support improvement of market facilities and management since 2004. However, the government has separated facility improvement from management improvement. As of June 2008, there are 1,550 traditional markets in Korea and among these there are 388 public markets which local governments have established and managed. Public markets have possibilities to be developed as successful models of market revitalization since they can get all-expenses-paid supports for facility improvement, control of merchandise assortment, educational program for merchants. Such successful (strategic hub) markets could become the benchmark for other neighboring markets and tradespeople which could lead other successful cases. In order to produce such effects, the market should have optimized facilities, merchandise and services, co-marketing strategies with nearby markets, group purchase strategies. The hub market could play a critical role in distribution of local goods and developing high value products.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.37-47
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• 2011

Our distribution industry still lacks legal and institutional supplementary frameworks. Therefore, we urgently need systematic supporting schemes for targeting small merchants, including those in traditional markets. In 2004, the scope of and target for traditional markets took shape through the enactment of the 'Special Act for Nurturing the Traditional Markets'. Though restricted to a single market, it expanded the target and scope to include markets and stores, market improvement districts, and business improvement districts. However, the Special Act for Nurturing the Traditional Markets, the criterion for the revitalization of and support for the traditional market, applies a uniform standard. Accordingly, the Special Act for Nurturing the Traditional Markets has revealed problems, such as the deficit of legitimate ideas about unregistered markets. This study identifies the problems with the Special Act for Nurturing the Traditional Markets. We take the Moranjang case as an example. This study offers the problems new insight. We discuss the problems in terms of their empirical reality. We focus on unregistered markets, which are not protected by law. Most previous studies have applied empirical methods, but this study also provides legal and institutional perspectives on the prospect for efficient outcomes by applying the normative study methods applicable in the field.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.231-241
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• 1996

The estimation of medical care status and the planning of health service program should be done according to each community resident's socio-medical background and public health service. In this point, it is most necessary to be set the exact and new socio-economic statistics data in Nepal, one of the worst countries in national health status. We surveyed 668 house, 3,425 residents in Dolka area, Nepal from January 25th to February 1st, 1995. 1. In personal characteristics, the ratio of men and women was similar, the person who were below 19 years old were 28.1% and the single were 52.4%. The illeterate person were 50.3% and the lower group in economic status which had been estimated by interviewers were 46.9%. 2. In sanitational characteristics, the person who used stream water or rainwater to drink were 42.2% and the person who always boiled water to drink were only 8.3%. The person who had not toilet in their house were 67.3% and the lower group in sanitational status which had been estimated by interviewers were 61.8%. 3. The prevalence rate of illness during the last one month were 8.6% and the chronic were 26.1% and the acute were 72.5%. The distribution of sickness symptom were headache, fever and joint pain in order and the person who took no medical treatment among the sick were 37.0%. The patterns of medical utilization were public health center, hospital and pharmacy in order. 4. Illness prevalence was significantly related to sex, age, merital status and educational experience. The residents who were women, 40 years old or more, married and had not educational experience were apt to take illness. 5. Medical utilization was significantly related to educational experience, job, distance from home to medical facilities and economic status. The person who had educational experience, were officer workers or merchants, lived near by medical facilities and had higher economic status took medical treatment very well.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.2 no.2 s.3
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• pp.73-84
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• 2003

Due to the problems of existing prepaid plastic card issued by Korea Highway Company, the prepaid electronic payment system using a smart card, called HipassPLUS Card, was developed to overcome the Problems. PSAM is one of the main component of the systea which can retrieve the value from HipassPLUS card, transmit the transaction data to CSAM, and store the accumulated account lists. For the safety of the elecoonic payment system, the functions of PSAM should be faultless. This paper developed a test module including the test method, the test checklist, and the test procedure. The test module examines the functionality and security of the payment mechanism to insure that the value stored in HipassPLUS card can be raid to PSAM by the merchants and the standardized SAM. The test module also inspects the transmission mechanism to send and store the transaction data kom PShM to CSAM correctly and safely. Ihe module is designed to test the standard items using the test checklists for PSAM. The test items and the test checklists of PShM was selected under the provision of the specification of Korea Highway Company and ISO standard. Ihe evaluation on PSAM using the test module indicates that PSAM satisfies the evaluation criteria on the quality characteristics of the functionality, security, and compatibility.