• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.33-60
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• 2020

Along with the rapid advance in internet technologies, ubiquitous mobile device usage has enabled consumers to access real-time information and increased interaction with others through various social media. Consumers can now get information more easily when making purchase decisions, and these changes are affecting the brand landscape. In a digitally connected world, brand image is not communicated to the consumers one-sidedly. Rather, with consumers' growing influence, it is a result of co-creation where consumers have an active role in building brand image. This explains a reality where people no longer purchase products just because they know the brand or because it is a famous brand. However, there has been little discussion on the matter, and many practitioners still rely on the traditional measures of brand indicators. The goal of this research is to present the limitations of traditional definition and measurement of brand and brand image, and propose a more direct and adequate measure that reflects the nature of a connected world. Inspired by the proverb, "A man is known by the company he keeps," the proposed measurement offers insight to the position of brand (or brand image) through co-purchased product networks. This paper suggests a framework of network analysis that clusters brands of cosmetics by the frequency of other products purchased together. This is done by analyzing product networks of a brand extracted from actual purchase data on Amazon.com. This is a more direct approach, compared to past measures where consumers' intention or cognitive aspects are examined through survey. The practical implication is that our research attempts to close the gap between brand indicators and actual purchase behavior. From a theoretical standpoint, this paper extends the traditional conceptualization of brand image to a network perspective that reflects the nature of a digitally connected society.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.59-77
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• 2015

Social networking sites (SNS), such as Facebook, provide abundant social comparison opportunities. Given the widespread use of SNSs, the purpose of the present study was to examine the impact of exposure to social media-based social comparison on user's negative emotions and discontinuous use intention on SNS. We present evidence that under the use of SNS, social comparison activities diverge into three patterns, with explicit self-evaluation desire made against similar target (lateral comparison), self-defense desire made against less fortunate target (downward comparison), and self-enhancement desire made with more fortunate target (upward comparison). Such social comparison processes frequently arise, as people are increasingly using on SNSs, the downward contacts ameliorating self-esteem with positive emotions, but the upward contacts and standard contacts with lateral status enabling a person to compare his or her situation with others and simultaneously increase negative emotions due to its differences with others. In other words, as people increasingly relying on SNSs for a variety of everyday tasks, they risk overexposure to upward or standard social comparison information that may have a cumulative detrimental impact on future intention on SNS use. This study with survey with 209 SNS users found that these negative emotions lead to negative fatigue (attitude) and then discontinuous use intention (behavior) on SNS. Our findings are among the first to explicitly examine discontinuous use intention on SNS using social comparison theory and our results are consistent with those of past research showing that upward social comparisons can be detrimental.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.67-88
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• 2019

Webtoon is a Korean-style digital comics platform that distributes comics content produced using the characteristic elements of the Internet in a form that can be consumed online. With the recent rapid growth of the webtoon industry and the exponential increase in the supply of webtoon content, the need for effective webtoon content recommendation measures is growing. Webtoons are digital content products that combine pictorial, literary and digital elements. Therefore, webtoons stimulate consumer sentiment by making readers have fun and engaging and empathizing with the situations in which webtoons are produced. In this context, it can be expected that the sentiment that webtoons evoke to consumers will serve as an important criterion for consumers' choice of webtoons. However, there is a lack of research to improve webtoons' recommendation performance by utilizing consumer sentiment. This study is aimed at developing consumer sentiment pattern maps that can support effective recommendations of webtoon content, focusing on consumer sentiments that have not been fully discussed previously. Metadata and consumer sentiments data were collected for 200 works serviced on the Korean webtoon platform 'Naver Webtoon' to conduct this study. 488 sentiment terms were collected for 127 works, excluding those that did not meet the purpose of the analysis. Next, similar or duplicate terms were combined or abstracted in accordance with the bottom-up approach. As a result, we have built webtoons specialized sentiment-index, which are reduced to a total of 63 emotive adjectives. By performing exploratory factor analysis on the constructed sentiment-index, we have derived three important dimensions for classifying webtoon types. The exploratory factor analysis was performed through the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) using varimax factor rotation. The three dimensions were named 'Immersion', 'Touch' and 'Irritant' respectively. Based on this, K-Means clustering was performed and the entire webtoons were classified into four types. Each type was named 'Snack', 'Drama', 'Irritant', and 'Romance'. For each type of webtoon, we wrote webtoon-sentiment 2-Mode network graphs and looked at the characteristics of the sentiment pattern appearing for each type. In addition, through profiling analysis, we were able to derive meaningful strategic implications for each type of webtoon. First, The 'Snack' cluster is a collection of webtoons that are fast-paced and highly entertaining. Many consumers are interested in these webtoons, but they don't rate them well. Also, consumers mostly use simple expressions of sentiment when talking about these webtoons. Webtoons belonging to 'Snack' are expected to appeal to modern people who want to consume content easily and quickly during short travel time, such as commuting time. Secondly, webtoons belonging to 'Drama' are expected to evoke realistic and everyday sentiments rather than exaggerated and light comic ones. When consumers talk about webtoons belonging to a 'Drama' cluster in online, they are found to express a variety of sentiments. It is appropriate to establish an OSMU(One source multi-use) strategy to extend these webtoons to other content such as movies and TV series. Third, the sentiment pattern map of 'Irritant' shows the sentiments that discourage customer interest by stimulating discomfort. Webtoons that evoke these sentiments are hard to get public attention. Artists should pay attention to these sentiments that cause inconvenience to consumers in creating webtoons. Finally, Webtoons belonging to 'Romance' do not evoke a variety of consumer sentiments, but they are interpreted as touching consumers. They are expected to be consumed as 'healing content' targeted at consumers with high levels of stress or mental fatigue in their lives. The results of this study are meaningful in that it identifies the applicability of consumer sentiment in the areas of recommendation and classification of webtoons, and provides guidelines to help members of webtoons' ecosystem better understand consumers and formulate strategies.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.493-513
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• 2014

With the development of related technologies, Location-Based Services (LBS) are growing fast and being used in many ways. Past LBS studies have focused on adoption of LBS because of the fact that LBS users have privacy concerns regarding revealing their location information. Meanwhile, the number of LBS users and revenues from LBS are growing rapidly because users can get some benefits by revealing their location information. Little research has been done on how LBS affects consumers' information search behavior in product purchase. The purpose of this paper is examining the effect of LBS information filtering on buyers' uncertainty and their information search behavior. When consumers purchase a product, they try to reduce uncertainty by searching information. Generally, there are two types of uncertainties - knowledge uncertainty and choice uncertainty. Knowledge uncertainty refers to the lack of information on what kinds of alternatives are available in the market and/or their important attributes. Therefore, consumers having knowledge uncertainty will have difficulties in identifying what alternatives exist in the market to fulfil their needs. Choice uncertainty refers to the lack of information about consumers' own preferences and which alternative will fit in their needs. Therefore, consumers with choice uncertainty have difficulties selecting best product among available alternatives.. According to economics of information theory, consumers narrow the scope of information search when knowledge uncertainty is high. It is because consumers' information search cost is high when their knowledge uncertainty is high. If people do not know available alternatives and their attributes, it takes time and cognitive efforts for them to acquire information about available alternatives. Therefore, they will reduce search breadth. For people with high knowledge uncertainty, the information about products and their attributes is new and of high value for them. Therefore, they will conduct searches more in-depth because they have incentive to acquire more information. When people have high choice uncertainty, people tend to search information about more alternatives. It is because increased search breadth will improve their chances to find better alternative for them. On the other hand, since human's cognitive capacity is limited, the increased search breadth (more alternatives) will reduce the depth of information search for each alternative. Consumers with high choice uncertainty will spend less time and effort for each alternative because considering more alternatives will increase their utility. LBS provides users with the capability to screen alternatives based on the distance from them, which reduces information search costs. Therefore, it is expected that LBS will help users consider more alternatives even when they have high knowledge uncertainty. LBS provides distance information, which helps users choose alternatives appropriate for them. Therefore, users will perceive lower choice uncertainty when they use LBS. In order to test the hypotheses, we selected 80 students and assigned them to one of the two experiment groups. One group was asked to use LBS to search surrounding restaurants and the other group was asked to not use LBS to search nearby restaurants. The experimental tasks and measures items were validated in a pilot experiment. The final measurement items are shown in Appendix A. Each subject was asked to read one of the two scenarios - with or without LBS - and use a smartphone application to pick a restaurant. All behaviors on smartphone were recorded using a recording application. Search breadth was measured by the number of restaurants clicked by each subject. Search depths was measured by two metrics - the average number of sub-level pages each subject visited and the average time spent on each restaurant. The hypotheses were tested using SPSS and PLS. The results show that knowledge uncertainty reduces search breadth (H1a). However, there was no significant correlation between knowledge uncertainty and search depth (H1b). Choice uncertainty significantly reduces search depth (H2b), but no significant relationship was found between choice uncertainty and search breadth (H2a). LBS information filtering significantly reduces the buyers' choice uncertainty (H4) and reduces the negative relationship between knowledge uncertainty and search breadth (H3). This research provides some important implications for service providers. Service providers should use different strategies based on their service properties. For those service providers who are not well-known to consumers (high knowledge uncertainty) should encourage their customers to use LBS. This is because LBS would increase buyers' consideration sets when the knowledge uncertainty is high. Therefore, less known services have chances to be included in consumers' consideration sets with LBS. On the other hand, LBS information filtering decrease choice uncertainty and the near service providers are more likely to be selected than without LBS. Hence, service providers should analyze geographically approximate competitors' strength and try to reduce the gap so that they can have chances to be included in the consideration set.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.113-137
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• 2021

According to the clear potential of mobile banking growth, many studies related to this are being conducted, but in Korea, it is concentrated on the analysis of technical factors or consumers' intentions, behaviors, and satisfaction. In addition, even though it has a strong customer base of 20s, there are few studies that have been conducted specifically for this customer group. In order for mobile banking to take a leap forward, a strategy to secure various perspectives is needed not only through research on itself but also through research on external factors affecting mobile banking. Therefore, this study analyzes impulsiveness, credit card use, and SNS addiction among various external factors that can significantly affect mobile banking in their 20s. This study examines whether the relationship between impulsiveness and mobile banking usage depends on whether or not a credit card is used, and checks whether a customer's impulsiveness is possible by examining whether a credit card is used. Based on this, it is possible to establish new standards for classification of marketing target groups of mobile banking. After finding out the static or unsuitable relationship between whether to use a credit card and impulsiveness, we want to indirectly predict the customer's impulsiveness through whether to use a credit card or not to use a credit card. It also verifies the mediating effect of SNS addiction in the relationship between impulsiveness and mobile banking usage. For this analysis, the collected data were conducted according to research problems using the SPSS Statistics 25 program. The findings are as follows. First, positive urgency has been shown to have a significant static effect on mobile banking usage. Second, whether to use credit cards has shown moderating effects in the relationship between fraudulent urgency and mobile banking usage. Third, it has been shown that all subfactors of impulsiveness have significant static relationships with subfactors of SNS addiction. Fourth, it has been confirmed that the relationship between positive urgency, SNS addiction, and mobile banking usage has total effect and direct effect. The first result means that mobile banking usage may be high if positive urgency is measured relatively high, even if the multi-dimensional impulsiveness scale is low. The second result indicates that mobile banking usage rates were not affected by the independent variable, negative urgency, but were found to have a significant static relationship with negative urgency when using credit cards. The third result means that SNS is likely to become addictive if lack of premeditation or lack of perseverance is high because it provides instant enjoyment and satisfaction as a mobile-based service. This also means that SNS can be used as an avoidance space for those with negative urgency, and as an emotional expression space for those with high positive urgency.

• Journal of vocational education research
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.131-153
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to derive evaluator's role and capability for institution accreditation evaluation of NCS-based vocational competency development training. This study attempted to explore in various ways evaluator's minute roles using Delphi method, and to derive knowledge, skill, attitude and integrity needed to verify the validity. To the end, this study conducted the Delphi research for over three rounds by selecting education training professionals and review evaluation professions as professional panels. From the results, roles of evaluators were defined as the total eight items including operator, moderator-mediator, cooperator, analyzer, verifier, institution evaluator, institution consultant, and learner, and the derived capabilities with respect to each role were 25 items in total. The area of knowledge included four items of capabilities such as HRD knowledge, NCS knowledge, knowledge of vocational competency development training, and knowledge of training institution accreditation evaluation, and the area of skill comprised fourteen items of capabilities such as conflict management ability, interpersonal relation ability, word processing ability, problem-solving ability, analysis ability, pre-preparation ability, time management ability, decision making ability, information comprehension and utilization ability, comprehensive thinking ability, understanding ability of vocational competency development training institutions, communication ability, feedback ability, and core understanding ability. The area of attitude was summarized with the seven items in total including subjectivity and fairness, service mind, sense of calling, ethics, self-development, responsibility, and teamwork. The knowledge, skill and attitude derived from the results of this study may be utilized to design and provide education programs conducive to qualitative and systematic accreditation and assessment to evaluators equipped with essential prerequisites. It is finally expected that this study will be helpful for designing module education programs by ability and for managing evaluator's quality in order to perform pre-service education and in-service education according to evaluator's experience and role.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.197-211
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• 2018

This is an exploratory study on the status of the social work field practicum at a cyber university. The purpose is to investigate the current situation and improvement plan of the social work field practicum. A qualitative analysis was conducted with 11 professors who have instructed the social work field practicum at cyber universities. The social work field practicum based on the experiences of the professors is investigated, and this paper analyzes the status according to students, schools, practitioners, and institutions. In order to improve the quality of the social work field practicum, factors for improvement were analyzed through the efforts of students, schools, the Korean social workers' association, institutional improvements, and social welfare instructors. The results of the study are as follows. Students, schools, and training organizations should recognize the importance of the social work field practicum and must strive for systematic and consistent education. It is also important to remember that a social worker is not a professional with simple qualifications, but an expert with a philosophy, values, and ideologies. The direction for improvement in the social work field practicum is as follows. When constructing a social welfare curriculum, the school should have a realistic curriculum and teaching method that can enhance the sense of the field. The student should not be qualified as a social worker only as a vague investment for the future, but should have the professional ability to serve clients as a social worker and to give professional help to clients, considering the best welfare service for human beings. Institutions should provide a place for students to integrate theory and practice in vital social welfare experiences as social workers. The Republic of Korea is now facing an age with one million social workers. In order to open the future of social welfare in Korea, we need united endeavors with government that can develop students as pre-social workers and establish universities, institutions, and their systems for a substantial social work field practicum.

• 한국노년학
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.1037-1058
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• 2016

This study aims to investigate the female caregivers'experiences of aggression by nursing home residents, and to identify the policy strategies for violence prevention referred by the female caregivers. A total of 121 female caregivers with more than 6 months of working experiences had participated in this study. Of these, 56.2% had experienced verbal aggression, 51.2% physical aggression, and 27.3% sexual aggression, which reveals that client violence toward caregivers in nursing homes was at an alarming level. Although, physical and verbal violences were mostly caused unintentionally, about a half of the sexual aggression were caused deliberately. Aggression occurred the most when caregivers were providing the following services: changing the diapers or clothes, giving a bath, and serving meals. It was found that 'hitting' was the most common form of physical aggression and it was 'swearing' and 'touching or physical contacting' in the case of verbal and sexual aggression, respectively. Though there was a difference depending on the type of aggression, the most frequent reactions against client violence were to start a conversation or calm down the nursing home residents, and to leave the scene or ignore the incident. This means that the caregivers are coping very passively through resolving the aggressions by themselves, or overlooking the situation. The most frequently recommended strategy to prevent resident aggression was to provide educational programs on violence prevention to nursing home residents and caregivers(42.7%). Compared to the previous studies, this study indicates some differentiated strategies to prevent violence in nursing homes, which include hiring male caregivers, assuring directors to pay closer attention toward caregivers, using refined language between caregivers and residents, and keeping caregivers to wear appropriate clothes. Based on the study results, some policy recommendations on the prevention of client violence in nursing homes were suggested.

• Korean Journal of School Psychology
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.165-180
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• 2020

As a tiered system of supports, School-Wide Positive Behavior Support (SWPBS) is an evidence-based practice in the educational system of Korea. An important aspect of SWPBS is the ongoing progress monitoring and evaluation of implementation fidelity. This study aimed to develop and validate the Korean Tier 3 School-Wide Positive Behavior Support Implementation Fidelity Checklist (KT3-FC). The preliminary KT3-FC consisted of a 37-item, 6-factor checklist. In the first phase of the study, 10 experts reported that the range of content validity of the KT3-FC was adequate. In the second phase of the study, 185 teachers (52 men and 133 women) who implemented SWPBS completed the KT3-FC, Individualized Supports Questionnaire, School Climate Questionnaire, School Discipline Practice Scale, and PBS Effectiveness Scale. An exploratory factor analysis resulted in a 5-factor structure, with 20 items, instead of 37 items, consisting of: (a) progress monitoring and evaluation of the individualized supports, (b) provision of supports by aligning and integrating mental health and SWPBS, (c) crisis management planning, (d) problem behavior assessment, and (e) establishment of individualized support team. The internal consistency of the KT3-FC was good (full scale α = .950, sub-factor α = .888 ~ .954). In addition, the KT3-FC showed good convergent validity, having statistically significant correlations with the Individualized Support Questionnaire, School Climate Questionnaire, School Discipline Practice Scale, and the PBS Effectiveness Scale. Finally, the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the 5-factor model of the KT3-FC had some good model fits, indicating that the newly developed fidelity measure could be a reliable and valid tool to assess the implementation of Tier 3 supports in Korean schools. Accordingly, the KT3-FC could contribute to implement SWPBS as an evidence-based behavioral intervention for Korean students.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.203-223
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• 2023

Recently, the platform industry is rapidly growing in the global market, and competition is intensifying at the same time. Therefore, in order for domestic platform companies to have global competitiveness in the platform market, it is necessary to study the platform business ecosystem and success factors. However, most of the recent platform-related studies have been theoretical studies on the characteristics of platform business status analysis, platform economy, and indirect network externalities of platforms. Therefore, this study comprehensively analyzed the success factors of Silicon Valley's business ecosystem proposed in previous studies, and at the same time analyzed the success factors extracted from stakeholders in the actual Silicon Valley platform business ecosystem. And based on these factors, an IPA analysis was conducted as a way to propose a success plan to stakeholders in the platform business ecosystem. As a result of the analysis, among the success factors collected through previous studies, manpower, capital, and challenge culture were identified as factors that are relatively well maintained in both importance and satisfaction in Silicon Valley. In the end, it can be seen that the creation of an environment and culture in which Silicon Valley can use it to challenge itself based on excellent human resources and abundant capital contributes the most to the success of Silicon Valley's platform business. On the other hand, although it is of high importance to Silicon Valley's platform corporate ecosystem, the factors that show relatively low satisfaction among stakeholders are 'learning and benchmarking among active companies' and 'strong ties and cooperation between members', and it is analyzed that interest and effort are needed to strengthen these factors in the future. Finally, the systems and policies necessary for market autonomous competition, 'business support service industry', 'name value', and 'spin-off start-up' were important factors in literature research, but the importance and satisfaction of these factors were lowered due to changes in the times and environment. This study has academic implications in that it comprehensively analyzes the success factors of Silicon Valley's business ecosystem proposed in previous studies, and at the same time analyzes the success factors extracted from stakeholders in the actual Silicon Valley platform business ecosystem. In addition, there is another academic implications that importance and satisfaction were simultaneously examined through IPA analysis based on these various extracted factors. As for academic implications, it is meaningful in that it contributed to the formation of the domestic platform ecosystem by providing the government and companies with concrete information on the success factors of the platform business ecosystem and the theoretical grounds for the growth of domestic platform businesses.