• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.284-309
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• 2007

Technology transfer (TT) consortium is an affiliation of two or more public research institutions (PRIs) that participate in a common technology transfer activity or pool their resources together, with the objective of facilitating technology transfer. Based on empirical analysis of five regional TT consortia (2002-2006) operating in Korea, this paper suggests their effectiveness by employing a TT performance index (TTPI) and identifies possible characteristics involved, such as motivations, facilitators, barriers, and challenges. TTPI devised in the paper is a new composite TT performance index to measure how much the TT performance of a PH changed in a designated year compared to a base year. All the performance indicators of TTPI are well-structured based on the unique TT process that is prevalent in Korea. Further, TTPI can bring different size and focus of PRIs to the same scale for comparison by double-normalizing. The paper tests the effectiveness of TT consortium for the escalation of TT performances in member PRIs by highlighting the differences of TTPI's between 2005 and 2001. As a result, the paper found that the escalation of TTPI for member PRIs was greater than that for non-member PRIs. As for the characteristics of TT consortia, their respective factors obtained by TT expert survey were computed with proportion tests of differences (Z tests) to compare two perspectives between intramural and extramural groups. One of key findings is that there is general homogeneity in stakeholder perspectives regarding motivations, facilitators, barriers, and challenges. Some notable responses are as follow; the most probable motivation to join TT consortium is to share or exchange TT competences for enhanced performance. Second, the most probable facilitator is professional capability of consortium-hired personnel. Third, the foremost probable barriers to effective TT consortium are frequent change of consortium director and passive participation of member PRIs. Lastly, both publicizing TT consortia and developing performance metrics are the most important for the improvement of TT consortia. The understanding of the characteristics of TT consortia increases the likelihood of accelerated success, because TT consortia path from formation to termination encompasses many concepts, processes, principles, and factors. Finally, an analysis of the survey data combined with expert interview and observation data led the authors to derive five conditions as being critical to viable TT consortia in Korea at early stage of technology transfer systems. These conditions include policy infrastructure, proactive participation, excellent professionals, personal motivation, and teaming mechanisms. It is expected that the Korean evidence is a starting point to develop and refine the theory of TT consortia and for additional studies in other countries.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.1-14
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• 2008

According to technology acceptance model(TAN) which is one of the most important research models for explaining IT users' behavior, on intention of using IT is determined by usefulness and ease of use of it. However, TAM wouldn't explain the performance of using IT while it has been considered as a very good model for prediction of the intention. Many people would not be confirmed in the performance of using IT until they can control it at their will, although they think it useful and easy to use. In other words, in addition to usefulness and ease of use as in TAM, controllability is also should be a factor to determine acceptance of IT. Especially, there is a very close relationship between controllability and ease of use, both of which explain the other sides of control over the performance of using IT, so called perceived behavioral control(PBC) in social psychology. The objective of this study is to identify the relationship between ease of use and controllability, and analyse the effects of both two beliefs over performance and intention in using IT. For this purpose, we review the issues related with PBC in information systems studies as well as social psychology, Based on a review of PBC, we suggest a research model which includes the relationship between control and performance in using IT, and prove its validity empirically. Since it was introduced as qa variable for explaining volitional control for actions in theory of planned behavior(TPB), there have been confusion about concept of PBC in spite of its important role in predicting so many kinds of actions. Some studies define PBC as self-efficacy that means actor's perception of difficulty or ease of actions, while others as controllability. However, this confusion dose not imply conceptual contradiction but a double-faced feature of PBC since the performance of actions is related with both self-efficacy and controllability. In other words, these two concepts are discriminated and correlated with each other. Therefore, PBC should be considered as a composite concept consisting of self-efficacy and controllability, Use of IT has been also one of important areas for predictions by PBC. Most of them have been studied by analysis of comparison in prediction power between TAM and TPB or modification of TAM by inclusion of PBC as another belief as like usefulness and ease of use. Interestingly, unlike the other applications in social psychology, it is hard to find such confusion in the concept of PBC in the studies for use of IT. In most of studies, controllability is adapted as PBC since the concept of self-efficacy is included in ease of use explicitly. Based on these discussions, we can suggest perceived use control(PUC) which is defined as perception of control over the performance of using IT and composed of controllability and ease of use as sub-concepts. We suggest a research model explaining acceptance of IT which includes the relationships of PUC with attitude and performance of using IT. For empirical test of our research model, two user groups are selected for surveying questionnaires. In the first group, there are freshmen who take a basic course for Microsoft Excel, and the second group consists of senior students who take a course for analysis of management information by Excel. Most of measurements are adapted ones that have been validated in the other studies, while performance is real score of mid-term in each class. In result, four hypotheses related with PUC are supported statistically with very low significance level. Main contribution of this study is suggestion of PUC through theoretical review of PBC. Specifically, a hierarchical model of PUC are derived from very rigorous studies in the relationship between self-efficacy and controllability with a view of PBC in social psychology. The relationship between PUC and performance is another main contribution.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.557-561
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• 1994

Q estimates are made by direct measurements of energy loss per cycle from primary P and S waves, as a function of frequency. Assuming that intrinsic Q is frequency independent and scattering Q is frequency dependent over the frequencies of interest, the relative contributions of each, to a total observed Q, may be estimated. Test examples are produced by computing viscoelastic synthetic seismograms using a pseudo spectral solution with inclusion of relaxation mechanisms (for intrinsic Q) and a fractal distribution of scatterers (for scattering Q). The composite theory implies that when the total Q for S-waves is smaller than that for P-waves (the usual situation), intrinsic Q is dominating; when it is larger, scattering Q is dominating. In the inverse problem, performed by a global least squares search, intrinsic $Q_p$ and $Q_s$ estimates are reliable and unique when their absolute values are sufficiently low that their effects are measurable in the data. Large $Q_p$ and $Q_s$ have no measurable effect and hence are not resolvable. Standard deviation of velocity $({\sigma})$ and scatterer size (A) are less unique as they exhibit a tradeoff as predicted by Blair's equation. For the P-waves, intrinsic and scattering contributions are of approximately the same importance, for S-waves, the intrinsic contributions dominate.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.25-57
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• 2012

This study identified motives for writing apparel product reviews in online stores, and determined what motives increase the behavior of writing reviews. It also classified store customers based on the type of writing motives, and clarified the characteristics of internet purchase behavior and of a demographic profile. Data were collected from 252 females aged 20s' and 30s' who have experience of reading and writing reviews on online shopping. The five types of writing motives were altruistic information sharing, remedying of a grievance and vengeance, economic incentives, helping new product development, and the expression of satisfaction feelings. Among five motives, altruistic information sharing, economic incentives, and helping new product development stimulate writing reviews. Store customers who write reviews were classified into three groups based on their writing motive types: Other consumer advocates(29.8%), self-interested shoppers(40.5%) and shoppers with moderate motives(29.8%). There were significant differences among three groups in writing behavior (the frequency of writing reviews, writing intent of reviews, duration of writing reviews, and frequency of online shopping) and age. Based on results, managerial implications were suggested. Long Abstract : The purpose of present study is to identify the types of writing motives on online shopping, and to clarify the motives affecting the behavior of writing reviews. This study also classifies online shoppers based on the motive types, and identifies the characteristics of the classified groups in terms of writing behavior, frequency of online shopping, and demographics. Use and Gratification Theory was adopted in this study. Qualitative research (focus group interview) and quantitative research were used. Korean women(20 to 39 years old) who reported experience with purchasing clothing online, and reading and writing reviews were selected as samples(n=252). Most of the respondents were relatively young (20-34yrs., 86.1%,), single (61.1%), employed(61.1%) and residents living in big cities(50.9%). About 69.8% of respondents read and 40.5% write apparel reviews frequently or very frequently. 24.6% of the respondents indicated an "average" in their writing frequency. Based on the qualitative result of focus group interviews and previous studies on motives for online community activities, measurement items of motives for writing after-purchase reviews were developed. All items were used a five-point Likert scale with endpoints 1 (strongly disagree) and 5 (strongly agree). The degree of writing behavior was measured by items concerning experience of writing reviews, frequency of writing reviews, amount of writing reviews, and intention of writing reviews. A five-point scale(strongly disagree-strongly agree) was employed. SPSS 18.0 was used for exploratory factor analysis, K-means cluster analysis, one-way ANOVA(Scheffe test) and ${\chi}^2$-test. Confirmatory factor analysis and path model analysis were conducted by AMOS 18.0. By conducting principal components factor analysis (varimax rotation, extracting factors with eigenvalues above 1.0) on the measurement items, five factors were identified: Altruistic information sharing, remedying of a grievance and vengeance, economic incentives, helping new product development, and expression of satisfaction feelings(see Table 1). The measurement model including these final items was analyzed by confirmatory factor analysis. The measurement model had good fit indices(GFI=.918, AGFI=.884, RMR=.070, RMSEA=.054, TLI=.941) except for the probability value associated with the ${\chi}^2$ test(${\chi}^2$=189.078, df=109, p=.00). Convergent validities of all variables were confirmed using composite reliability. All SMC values were found to be lower than AVEs confirming discriminant validity. The path model's goodness-of-fit was greater than the recommended limits based on several indices(GFI=.905, AGFI=.872, RMR=.070, RMSEA=.052, TLI=.935; ${\chi}^2$=260.433, df=155, p=.00). Table 2 shows that motives of altruistic information sharing, economic incentives and helping new product development significantly increased the degree of writing product reviews of online shopping. In particular, the effect of altruistic information sharing and pursuit of economic incentives on the behavior of writing reviews were larger than the effect of helping new product development. As shown in table 3, online store shoppers were classified into three groups: Other consumer advocates (29.8%), self-interested shoppers (40.5%), and moderate shoppers (29.8%). There were significant differences among the three groups in the degree of writing reviews (experience of writing reviews, frequency of writing reviews, amount of writing reviews, intention of writing reviews, and duration of writing reviews, frequency of online shopping) and age. For five aspects of writing behavior, the group of other consumer advocates who is mainly comprised of 20s had higher scores than the other two groups. There were not any significant differences between self-interested group and moderate group regarding writing behavior and demographics.