• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.1-26
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• 2017

In the meantime, research on corporate informatization focuses on the completeness of information technology itself and its financial effects, so there is insufficient research on whether information technology can support business strategy. It is necessary to verify whether the management strategy implementation of the company can be led through the informatization of the enterprise and the relation between the main mechanism factors and the informatization performance. In this study, what a mechanism factor is applied in the process of result creation of informatization from three mechanism perspectives such as selecting mechanism, learning mechanism and coordinating mechanism with cases of representative domestic IT company and what an importance mechanism factors have been ascertained. This study results in 8 propositions. For a main agent of companies, securement of information capability of organizations has been selected to realize informatization results and investment of informatization has been selected to solve organizational decentralization problems as the most important factor. Additionally, as competition in the industry gets fierce, investment on informatization has been changed to a utility way of implementation of strategies and decision on investment has been made through the official process and information technology. Differentiated company capability has been made based on acquisition of technical knowledge and company information has been expanded to its whole employees through the information system. Also, informatization change management and outside subcontractor management have been acknowledged as an important adjustment factor of company. The first implication of this study is that since case studies on mechanism factors that preceding studies on informatization results did not empirically cover have directly been dealt with based on experiences of executives in charge of business and in charge of informatization, this study can provide practical views about factors that should be mainly managed for informatization results of IT companies. Secondly, since ser-M framework has been applied for IT companies for the first time, this study can academically contribute to companies in other fields about main mechanism factors for result creation of informatization based on deeper understanding and empirical cases.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.67-101
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• 2014

The use of new technology greatly shapes the marketing strategies used by companies to engage their consumers. Among these new technologies, social media is used to reach out to the organization's audience online. One of the most popular social media channels to date is the microblogging platform Twitter. With 500 million tweets sent on average daily, the microblogging platform is definitely a rich source of data for researchers, and a lucrative marketing medium for companies. Nonetheless, one of the challenges for companies in developing an effective Twitter campaign is the limited theoretical and empirical evidence on the proper organizational usage of Twitter despite its potential advantages for a firm's external communications. The current study aims to provide empirical evidence on how firms can utilize Twitter effectively in their marketing communications using the association between brand personality and brand engagement that several branding researchers propose. The study extends Aaker's previous empirical work on brand personality by applying the Brand Personality Scale to explore whether Twitter brand communities convey distinctive brand personalities online and its influence on the communities' level or intensity of consumer engagement and sentiment quality. Moreover, the moderating effect of the product involvement construct in consumer engagement is also measured. By collecting data for a period of eight weeks using the publicly available Twitter application programming interface (API) from 23 accounts of Twitter-verified business-to-consumer (B2C) brands, we analyze the validity of the paper's hypothesis by using computerized content analysis and opinion mining. The study is the first to compare Twitter marketing across organizations using the brand personality concept. It demonstrates a potential basis for Twitter strategies and discusses the benefits of these strategies, thus providing a framework of analysis for Twitter practice and strategic direction for companies developing their use of Twitter to communicate with their followers on this social media platform. This study has four specific research objectives. The first objective is to examine the applicability of brand personality dimensions used in marketing research to online brand communities on Twitter. The second is to establish a connection between the congruence of offline and online brand personalities in building a successful social media brand community. Third, we test the moderating effect of product involvement in the effect of brand personality on brand community engagement. Lastly, we investigate the sentiment quality of consumer messages to the firms that succeed in communicating their brands' personalities on Twitter.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.43-62
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• 2010

The notion of customer orientation is now importantly considered in the context of banking industries. Despite customer-oriented organizational cultures, there are few studies addressing the relationship between customer orientation and its outcomes. In particular, this study aims at testing the effect of customer orientation as a key marketing effort designed by a bank. This is because interest rate sensitivity is critical for evaluating banking services after raising the base rate. In so doing, first, this study investigates the relationships among customer orientation, interest rate sensitivity, and customer loyalty. Second, this paper examines how the moderating effects of both deposit interest and loan interest rates influence the linkages of customer orientation-interest rate sensitivity and customer orientation-customer loyalty. To test the proposed model, research data are collected from 304 subjects who use banking services(e.g., Shin-Han, Kookmin, the First Bank, Hana, and Woori banks). Each construct was measured by published items and the psychometric properties of the three constructs, excluding two constructs of the moderators, were evaluated by employing the method of confirmatory factor analysis via the use of AMOS. The model fit was also evaluated using the CFI, TLI, and RMSEA fit indices that are recommended based on their relative stability and insensitivity to sample size. The findings show that the relationship between customer orientation and customer loyalty is significant, whereas the relationships between customer orientation and interest rate sensitivity and between interest rate sensitivity and customer loyalty are not supported. Although customer orientation is highly evaluated, customers' interest rate sensitivity that results in the comparison of interest rates plays an important role in reducing the effect of customer orientation. As a consequence, interest rate sensitivity does not influence customer loyalty. First of all, one of interesting results in this study is that the moderating effect of loan interest rate is quite different from deposit interest rate. In the case of deposit interest rate, the linkages both customer orientation-interest rate sensitivity and customer orientation-customer loyalty are insignificant. In the case of loan interest rate, however, the two proposed linkages are supported. As our proposed relationships are still in its infancy in the context of banking industry, our study contributes to enhance scholars' knowledge of bank services and provides insights for practitioners when their marketing strategies, particularly both deposit and interest rates, have to be established. Finally, this research also illuminates the need for further research that considers the influence of customer orientation on consumer's decision-making and bank profits. More specifically, the results are encouraging and will lead us to further investigate this key outcome of the banking deposit/interest rates.

• Korean Security Journal
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• no.18
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• pp.169-190
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• 2009

Today, the rapid advance of scientific technologies has brought about fundamental changes to the types and levels of terrorism while the war against the world more than one thousand small and big terrorists and crime organizations has already begun. A method highly likely to be employed by terrorist groups that are using 21st Century state of the art technology is cyber terrorism. In many instances, things that you could only imagine in reality could be made possible in the cyber space. An easy example would be to randomly alter a letter in the blood type of a terrorism subject in the health care data system, which could inflict harm to subjects and impact the overturning of the opponent's system or regime. The CIH Virus Crisis which occurred on April 26, 1999 had significant implications in various aspects. A virus program made of just a few lines by Taiwanese college students without any specific objective ended up spreading widely throughout the Internet, causing damage to 30,000 PCs in Korea and over 2 billion won in monetary damages in repairs and data recovery. Despite of such risks of cyber terrorism, a great number of Korean sites are employing loose security measures. In fact, there are many cases where a company with millions of subscribers has very slackened security systems. A nationwide preparation for cyber terrorism is called for. In this context, this research will analyze the current status of Korea's cyber security systems and its laws from a policy perspective, and move on to propose improvement strategies. This research suggests the following solutions. First, the National Cyber Security Management Act should be passed to have its effectiveness as the national cyber security management regulation. With the Act's establishment, a more efficient and proactive response to cyber security management will be made possible within a nationwide cyber security framework, and define its relationship with other related laws. The newly passed National Cyber Security Management Act will eliminate inefficiencies that are caused by functional redundancies dispersed across individual sectors in current legislation. Second, to ensure efficient nationwide cyber security management, national cyber security standards and models should be proposed; while at the same time a national cyber security management organizational structure should be established to implement national cyber security policies at each government-agencies and social-components. The National Cyber Security Center must serve as the comprehensive collection, analysis and processing point for national cyber crisis related information, oversee each government agency, and build collaborative relations with the private sector. Also, national and comprehensive response system in which both the private and public sectors participate should be set up, for advance detection and prevention of cyber crisis risks and for a consolidated and timely response using national resources in times of crisis.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.32-43
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• 2009

Trust has been studied extensively in psychology, economics, and sociology, and its importance has been emphasized not only in marketing, but also in business disciplines in general. Unlike past relationships between suppliers and buyers, which take considerable advantage of private networks and may involve unethical business practices, partnerships between suppliers and buyers are at the core of success for industrial marketing amid intense global competition in the 21st century. A high level of mutual cooperation occurs through an exchange relationship based on trust, which brings long-term benefits, competitive enhancements, and transaction cost reductions, among other benefits, for both buyers and suppliers. In spite of the important role of trust, existing studies in buy-supply situations overlook the role of trust and do not systematically analyze the effect of trust on relational performance. Consequently, an in-depth study that determines the relation of trust to the relational performance between buyers and suppliers of business services is absolutely needed. Business services in this study, which include those supporting the manufacturing industry, are drawing attention as the economic growth engine for the next generation. The Korean government has selected business services as a strategic area for the development of manufacturing sectors. Since the demands for opening business services markets are becoming fiercer, the competitiveness of the business service industry must be promoted now more than ever. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the mutual trust between buyers and suppliers on relational performance. Specifically, this study proposed a theoretical model of trust-relational performance in the transactions of business services and empirically tested the hypotheses delineated from the framework. The study suggests strategic implications based on research findings. Empirical data were collected via multiple methods, including via telephone, mail, and in-person interviews. Sample companies were knowledge-based companies supplying and purchasing business services in Korea. The present study collected data on a dyadic basis. Each pair of sample companies includes a buying company and its corresponding supplying company. Mutual trust was traced for each pair of companies. This study proposes a model of trust-relational performance of buying-supplying for business services. The model consists of trust and its antecedents and consequences. The trust of buyers is classified into trust toward the supplying company and trust toward salespersons. Viewing trust both at the individual level and the organizational level is based on the research of Doney and Cannon (1997). Normally, buyers are the subject of trust, but this study supposes that suppliers are the subjects. Hence, it uniquely focused on the bilateral perspective of perceived risk. In other words, suppliers, like buyers, are the subject of trust since transactions are normally bilateral. From this point of view, suppliers' trust in buyers is as important as buyers' trust in suppliers. The suppliers' trust is influenced by the extent to which it trusts the buying companies and the buyers. This classification of trust using an individual level and an organization level is based on the suggestion of Doney and Cannon (1997). Trust affects the process of supplier selection, which works in a bilateral manner. Suppliers are actively involved in the supplier selection process, working very closely with buyers. In addition, the process is affected by the extent to which each party trusts its partners. The selection process consists of certain steps: recognition, information search, supplier selection, and performance evaluation. As a result of the process, both buyers and suppliers evaluate the performance and take corrective actions on the basis of such outcomes as tangible, intangible, and/or side effects. The measurement of trust used for the present study was developed on the basis of the studies of Mayer, Davis and Schoorman (1995) and Mayer and Davis (1999). Based on their recommendations, the three dimensions of trust used for the study include ability, benevolence, and integrity. The original questions were adjusted to the context of the transactions of business services. For example, a question such as "He/she has professional capabilities" has been changed to "The salesperson showed professional capabilities while we talked about our products." The measurement used for this study differs from those used in previous studies (Rotter 1967; Sullivan and Peterson 1982; Dwyer and Oh 1987). The measurements of the antecedents and consequences of trust used for this study were developed on the basis of Doney and Cannon (1997). The original questions were adjusted to the context of transactions in business services. In particular, questions were developed for both buyers and suppliers to address the following factors: reputation (integrity, customer care, good-will), market standing (company size, market share, positioning in the industry), willingness to customize (product, process, delivery), information sharing (proprietary information, private information), willingness to maintain relationships, perceived professionalism, authority empowerment, buyer-seller similarity, and contact frequency. As a consequential variable of trust, relational performance was measured. Relational performance is classified into tangible effects, intangible effects, and side effects. Tangible effects include financial performance; intangible effects include improvements in relations, network developing, and internal employee satisfaction; side effects include those not included either in the tangible or intangible effects. Three hundred fifty pairs of companies were contacted, and one hundred five pairs of companies responded. After deleting five company pairs because of incomplete responses, one hundred five pairs of companies were used for data analysis. The response ratio of the companies used for data analysis is 30% (105/350), which is above the average response ratio in industrial marketing research. As for the characteristics of the respondent companies, the majority of the companies operate service businesses for both buyers (85.4%) and suppliers (81.8%). The majority of buyers (76%) deal with consumer goods, while the majority of suppliers (70%) deal with industrial goods. This may imply that buyers process the incoming material, parts, and components to produce the finished consumer goods. As indicated by their report of the length of acquaintance with their partners, suppliers appear to have longer business relationships than do buyers. Hypothesis 1 tested the effects of buyer-supplier characteristics on trust. The salesperson's professionalism (t=2.070, p<0.05) and authority empowerment (t=2.328, p<0.05) positively affected buyers' trust toward suppliers. On the other hand, authority empowerment (t=2.192, p<0.05) positively affected supplier trust toward buyers. For both buyers and suppliers, the degree of authority empowerment plays a crucial role in the maintenance of their trust in each other. Hypothesis 2 tested the effects of buyerseller relational characteristics on trust. Buyers tend to trust suppliers, as suppliers make every effort to contact buyers (t=2.212, p<0.05). This tendency has also been shown to be much stronger for suppliers (t=2.591, p<0.01). On the other hand suppliers trust buyers because suppliers perceive buyers as being similar to themselves (t=2.702, p<0.01). This finding confirmed the results of Crosby, Evans, and Cowles (1990), which reported that suppliers and buyers build relationships through regular meetings, either for business or personal matters. Hypothesis 3 tested the effects of trust on perceived risk. It has been found that for both suppliers and buyers the lower is the trust, the higher is the perceived risk (t=-6.621, p<0.01 for buyers; t=-2.437, p<0.05). Interestingly, this tendency has been shown to be much stronger for buyers than for suppliers. One possible explanation for this higher level of perceived risk is that buyers normally perceive higher risks than do suppliers in transactions involving business services. For this reason, it is necessary for suppliers to implement risk reduction strategies for buyers. Hypothesis 4 tested the effects of trust on information searching. It has been found that for both suppliers and buyers, contrary to expectation, trust depends on their partner's reputation (t=2.929, p<0.01 for buyers; t=2.711, p<0.05 for suppliers). This finding shows that suppliers with good reputations tend to be trusted. Prior experience did not show any significant relationship with trust for either buyers or suppliers. Hypothesis 5 tested the effects of trust on supplier/buyer selection. Unlike buyers, suppliers tend to trust buyers when they think that previous transactions with buyers were important (t=2.913 p<0.01). However, this study did not show any significant relationship between source loyalty and the trust of buyers in suppliers. Hypothesis 6 tested the effects of trust on relational performances. For buyers and suppliers, financial performance reportedly improved when they trusted their partners (t=2.301, p<0.05 for buyers; t=3.692, p<0.01 for suppliers). It is interesting that this tendency was much stronger for suppliers than it was for buyers. Similarly, competitiveness was reported to improve when buyers and suppliers trusted their partners (t=3.563, p<0.01 for buyers; t=3.042, p<0.01 for suppliers). For suppliers, efficiency and productivity were reportedly improved when they trusted buyers (t=2.673, p<0.01). Other performance indices showed insignificant relationships with trust. The findings of this study have some strategic implications. First and most importantly, trust-based transactions are beneficial for both suppliers and buyers. As verified in the study, financial performance can be improved through efforts to build and maintain mutual trust. Similarly, competitiveness can be increased through the same kinds of effort. Second, trust-based transactions can facilitate the reduction of perceived risks inherent in the purchasing situation. This finding has implications for both suppliers and buyers. It is generally believed that buyers perceive higher risks in a highly involved purchasing situation. To reduce risks, previous studies have recommended that suppliers devise risk-reducing tactics. Moving beyond these recommendations, the present study uniquely focused on the bilateral perspective of perceived risk. In other words, suppliers are also susceptible to perceived risks, especially when they supply services that require very technical and sophisticated manipulations and maintenance. Consequently, buyers and suppliers must solve problems together in close collaboration. Hence, mutual trust plays a crucial role in the problem-solving process. Third, as found in this study, the more authority a salesperson has, the more he or she can be trusted. This finding is very important with regard to tactics. Building trust is a long-term assignment; however, when mutual trust has not been developed, suppliers can overcome the problems they encounter by empowering a salesperson with the authority to make certain decisions. This finding applies to suppliers as well.