• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.157-180
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• 2010

Rapid development of information technology has generated a new industry and market. In particular, network technology such as the Internet and other computer networks made transaction activities switched from traditional offline commerce to e-commerce. Among them, digital content is bit-based object which is created and distributed through electronic environment. In particular, many entertainment contents such as the music, the movies, and the computer game softwares are main products. Although digital content commerce has high potential demand, it lacks the consideration about the factor related to maintaining existing customer such as customer loyalty and switching costs. There has been a number of research on customer loyalty and other factors affecting it in the traditional electronic commerce environment, but there is a lack of research which examines the characteristics of digital content. The study about the effect of switching costs on customer loyalty in digital content commerce is necessary because the customers of digital content commerce market are from those of other e-commerce market or traditional offline commerce market. In addition, customer loyalty and switching costs are important factors because they may build up greater customer retention. For that reason, this study focused on examining the relationships among switching costs, antecedents for switching costs, and customer loyalty in online digital music service industry. The study has three major purposes: (1) to find antecedents of switching costs on digital content commerce and examine effect of antecedents for switching costs; (2) to identify effect of switching costs on customer loyalty in digital content commerce and examine moderating effects of alternative attractiveness; (3) to identify the differences of antecedents for switching costs by contents transmission type(streaming service and downloading service). And, the online digital music service industry is selected in this study since there are many users and transactions incurring. To accomplish these purposes, a survey questionnaire was developed and distributed to 256 informants. Survey instrument was developed based on previous research and pre-established survey items. Total of 206 surveys are collected and used in the data analysis. Among the respondents, 56.8% is male and 43.2% is female. Also, 86 responses were streaming service user group and 120 responses were download service user group. These data was analyzed using regression analysis. Major findings of empirical analysis can be summarized as follows. First, switching costs have positive effect on customer loyalty in digital content commerce environment. Second, the influence of switching costs on customer loyalty increases under conditions of high alternative attractiveness. Third, DRM convenience and breadth of use have positive effect on switching costs. The findings imply that the digital content provider should pay more attention to switching costs in addition to customer satisfaction in order to attract customers. Also, increasing the convenience of DRM use by securing the convenience of user interface and expanding the support device and increasing the service use scope by providing diverse value-added service helps to create a switching barrier. The result of the study can become a practical use in marketing strategy for maintaining existing customer. In particular, switching barrier is very important under conditions of high competition in the online music service market. This study can be used as a basis for further studies about customer retention in digital content commerce.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.9 no.12
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• pp.63-72
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• 2018

Purpose - In this study, it is classified the service quality dimension of mobile shopping app using Kano model. In addition, it is evaluated quality factors suitable for strategic management from the viewpoint of service provider through mobile application through binary dimension analysis. Research design, data, and methodology - In this study, seven quality dimensions such as information quality, reliability, immediacy, convenience, design, security and customer service were derived through related studies to make binary shopping quality app quality measurement. 37 sub-variables were set by each quality dimensions. Each questionnaire was composed of positive and negative items like Kano's proposed method, and the satisfaction coefficient suggested by Timko(1993) was examined to understand the influence of each factors on customer satisfaction. Results - As a result of research, shopping app users perceived unity quality factor in most items of service quality dimension such as information quality, reliability, immediacy, convenience and customer service. In addition, the satisfaction coefficient showed a good impression, quick response of the result, fast delivery, and the unsatisfactory coefficient showed more interest in personal information such as payment method safety, and transaction security. As a result of research, shopping app users perceived unity quality factor in most items of service quality dimension such as information quality, reliability, immediacy, convenience and customer service. And, in information quality, the information overload was classified as an apathetic quality component, while the related information provision belonged to an attractive quality component. In reliability quality, customized service provision was classified as an attractive quality component. In instant connectivity, the quality of the connection during transport was classified as an attractive quality component. In convenience quality, access to product information was classified as a one-way quality component. All components of designs quality were classified as attractive quality components, and in security quality, all of their components were all classified as one quality component. Lastly, in customer service, they components were all classified as a single quality component. In addition, the satisfaction coefficient showed a good impression, quick response of the result, fast delivery, and the unsatisfactory coefficient showed more interest in personal information such as payment method safety, and transaction security. Conclusion - In the online service environment, which is difficult to differentiate in terms of upward upgrading only by technological implementation and function, the results of this study can be suggested as a differentiating factor for major channels with customers rather than improve the brand image.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.423-436
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• 2017

This study examines the level of port service quality based on $Gr{\ddot{o}}nroos$(1984)'s Two-Dimensional Model: we investigated service-environment quality and service-delivery quality, and added service-product quality as a process quality. This study focused on a service user like a llner, forwarder, shipper, or a logistics firm using port service in the Port of Busan. We investigated relationships among the following vairables: service quality, customer satisfaction and port image; we also analyzed the path coefficients using Smart-PLS 3.0. The results and suggestions of this study are summarized as follows. First, all of the service quality variables influenced customer satisfaction but service-delivery quality didn't have an impact on port image. Secondly, there is correlation between customer satisfaction and port image; customer satisfaction had a positive effect with port image. Lastly, customer satisfaction and port image influenced the Relation Continuity Intention.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.37-52
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• 2019

Purpose - This study examined the relationship between service quality, perceived value, customer satisfaction and behavioral intention of coffee shop using CoffeeSERV scale. In this model, CoffeeSERV scale consists of fundamental characteristics, physical environment, confidence, beverage characteristics, and representation factors. In particular, this study tried to demonstrate the moderating effect of customer's regulatory focus orientation among in the relationships between service quality, perceived value, customer satisfaction and behavioral intention. Research design, data, and methodology - This study intends to expand the existing service quality research by using the coffee shop service quality measurement tool developed by domestic researchers. I wanted to find some implications for the trend. In particular, this study applied the regulatory focus theory to identify individual differences of customers regulatory focusing motivation. In order to verify several hypotheses, the data were 227 college students and analyzed with SPSS/PC 21.0 and SmartPLS 3 program. The moderating role of customer's regulatory focusing motivation was tested using multi-group analysis with SmartPLS 3 program. Results - The resutls are as follows. First, the fundamental characteristic factors only had a significant influence on the utilitarian value perception, but in the hedonic value perception, all other service factors except for the beverage characteristic had a statistically significant effect. Second, utilitarian and hedonic value had significant effects on customer satisfaction. Third, customer satisfaction had a significant effect on behavioral intention. Finally, the regulatory focus orientation played a moderating role in the relationship between beverage characteristic - utilitarian value, representation - utilitarian value, fundamental characteristic - hedonic value, physical environment - hedonic value, confidence - hedonic value, and utilitarian value - behavioral intention. Conclusions - The results of this study show that the various service quality factors that make up the CoffeeSERV scale have different effects on utilitarian and hedonic value. This means that perceived benefits from product and service experience have different impacts on the customer's experience. Therefore, marketers should identify the impacts of service quality dimension that customers who use coffee shops consider important, understand the impact process of these quality factors on experience value, customer satisfaction, and behavioral intention, and allocate limited marketing budget. The results also show that it is possible to establish differentiatied response strategies using customer's regulatory focus orientation to find ways to enhance utlitarian and hedonic value, customer satisfaction, and behavioral intention using various Coffeeshop service quality factors. At the end of this paper, some limitations and future research directions were suggested.

• 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.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.123-139
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• 2011

This paper researches the value of domestic telecommunication bundle products. Customers evaluate each telecommunication products differently according to their attributes. The attributes affecting the customer value of telecommunication bundling can be categorized in 3 ones as follows; corporate image, service feature, and service price. Also authors analyze the difference of importancy that customers consider when they evaluate each products, and propose the optimal scenario for bundling. In conclusion, other two companies A, C excluding B should invest more resources into the portion that strengthen the attributes of company image, and service feature to upgrade their 'corporate image', and 'service feature'. According to 6-scenarios analysis on the bundle products, the QPS expansion of company A was the most advantageous position, but if companies B, C expand DPS made use of their strengths, they can prevent from decreasing additivity rapidly with sequential scenario. The above results show that one company may have equable power in each area, but if another company having strengths in special areas makes up for its weakness and differentiates gradually it can contribute to strengthen its competitiveness. This contributed much more theoretical and practical than the existing researches. Supposing that additivity index evaluated by consumers can be changed by efforts of companies, this scenario planning is the result of study showing that the investment and publicity of each company have to be considered as its characteristic of each product at the same time.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.131-148
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• 2006

With the rapid penetration of digital technology In recent years, there are growing expectations that many new services will soon become available. One of the new services is 3Dimension(3D) services, because our concern is concentrated on the quality of information that exceeds the digitalization of information. A stereoscopic technique for generating 3D images is contributed to raise the quality of Information and Communication Technology(ICT) service and is extensively applied to various fields. So 3D services, based on that technique, are expected to create a new market for ICT industry and provide significant benefits to consumers. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the consumer preference and evaluate the economic value of the 3D broadcasting service, so it provides propriety of the 3D technology development for market planners and product developers who need to assess the market potential of a product that is not yet available for actual test marketing. And it is useful for decision-makers in considering the provision of 3D services. In this paper, the gang survey was conducted to understand consumer preference of 3D services. And it attempts to apply the contingent valuation method(CVM) to measuring the willingness to Pay(WTP) for the 3D broadcasting service and analyzing the determinants of the WTP.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.131-138
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• 2015

One of the most conspicuous characteristics of a business model that pursues expanding customer relationship is that it tries to lock in customers by encouraging them to repeat purchase in the long-term with the help of "Follow" function in Social Networking Service (SNS), which enables producers to automatically register the customers as potentially important ones and to offer them customized marketing services. In the value chain of the agriculture sector, producers of agricultural products can use SNS functions to provide loyal customers with valuable information and experiences such as the real-time information of their farm and products, hidden stories about the whole process from seeding to harvesting, and the storage and cooking methods of their products. These activities help the producers invoke customers' desire to live in the farm and to grow the products themselves. They also raise the accessibility of the producers' websites as customers are able to share a variety of news and knowledge such as the release of new products. This means that the producers's websites are now functioning to enable the producers to perform sales and promotion related activities. It is a big leap from the traditional e-commerce business model where sales and promotion of a product were separated and could be connected only through outside links. This two-way, viral characteristics of marketing services using SNS facilitate customers to share product information and their purchase experience with each other, which leads to more effective and efficient communication within the customer community.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.75-96
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• 2011

This research uses coolhunting to predict the future trend of e-Commerce industry. Coolhunting is a method to take Cool Trends which are the future trend through social network analysis for discovering the trendsetter and its collective intelligence. Coolhunting is generally carried out by social network analysis while this research uses NodeXL of social network analysis tools. We designed industrial network research model for relation among e-Commerce corporation, product, the types of customer service and customer service employee to discover the Cool Trends of e-Commerce industry. According to the result of this research, e-Commerce industrial network was being changed from chaos to collective intelligence form. As a analysis result for network influences, we found that Cool Trends of e-Commerce industry invigorate social commerce industry through the collective intelligence focusing intelligence VIP, Excellence, grade of Administrating for women customers(trendsetter) and it promotes semantic consumption from customers and purchasing power will be concentrated on cosmetic, beauty, perfume product categories in social commerce. We propose the strategic direction for e-Commerce corporation and hope that domestic e-Commerce corporation continues to grow and high-quality services are provided for customers.

• The Korean Journal of Franchise Management
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.17-27
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• 2017

Purpose - In align with the increasing competition in both online and offline franchise markets caused by the increasing impact of social networking service, entrepreneurial passion(EP) of the franchise owners has crucial impact on the stakeholders. This study proposed the customer among stakeholders has the critical influence firm's success and examined the structural relationship between entrepreneurial passion(EP) and trust, identification, and loyalty from the customer's perspective. Research design, data, and methodology - This study examines the structural relationship between entrepreneurial passion(EP), trust, identification, and loyalty from the customer's perspective. More specifically, the EP were measured using three sub-dimensions such as EP-inventing(Perceived passion for inventing), EP-founding(Perceived passion for foundting), and EP-developing(Perceived passion for developing). In order to verify the research purposes, research model and hypotheses were developed. All constructs were measured with multiple items developed and tested in the previous studies. Each item was measured on a 7 point Likert-scale anchored by '1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree'. The data were collected from 449 franchise consumers through online survey and were analyzed using SPSS 21.0 and Smart PLS 3.0. statistical program. Result - The results of this study are as follows. First, EP-inventing and EP-developing have significant impacts on corporate trust. Second, EP-founding does not have significant impact on corporate trust. Third, EP-inventing and EP-founding have significant impacts on consumer identification. Fourth, EP-developing does not have impact on identification directly, but does indirectly through corporate trust as a mediator. Fifth, corporate trust and identification have significant impacts on loyalty. Conclusions - This indicates that the foodservice franchise CEOs should continuously develop new menus and service to fulfill customer needs. EP-inventing of the food franchise CEOs may enhance customer trust for higher quality of product or service, and EP-developing can also be a driving force for customer trust as it embeds belief in customers that the franchise is sustainably developing. Also, food franchise CEOs should first clarify the support process for the existing brands before developing new ones. Customers tend to lead the trend by using brands that satisfy new trends in the foodservice franchise market, and it could have identification with the trend-setting franchise. Customers do not accept if a company is different from their personal image or norms. So the franchise CEOs must create identification with customers by building corporate trust. Corporate trust influences consumer behavior and emotion, thus the franchises need to secure trust by improving product or service continuously.