• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.141-177
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• 2011

I. Research Objectives: Most of the previous studies on diffusion have concentrated on efficacy of WOM communication with the use of variables at individual level (Iacobucci 1996; Midgley et al. 1992). However, there is a paucity of studies which investigated network's structural properties as antecedents of WOM from the perspective of consumers' sociocultural propensities. Against this research backbone, this study attempted to link the network's structural properties and consumer' WOM behavior on cross-national basis. The major research objective of this study was to examine the relationship between network properties and WOM by comparing Korean and Chinese consumers. Specific objectives of this research are threefold; firstly, it sought to examine whether network properties (i.e., tie strength, centrality, range) affect WOM (WOM intention and quality of WOM). Secondly, it aimed to explore the moderating effects of cutural orientation (uncertainty avoidance and individuality) on the relationship between network properties and WOM. Thirdly, it substantiates the role of innovativeness as antecedents to both network properties and WOM. II. Research Hypotheses: Based on the above research objectives, the study put forth the following research hypotheses to validate. ${\cdot}$ H 1-1 : The Strength of tie between two counterparts within network will positively influence WOM effectivenes ${\cdot}$ H 1-2 : The network centrality will positively influence the WOM effectiveness ${\cdot}$ H 1-3 : The network range will positively influence the WOM effectiveness ${\cdot}$ H 2-1 : The consumer's uncertainty avoidance tendency will moderate the relationship between network properties and WOM effectiveness ${\cdot}$ H 2-2 : The consumer's individualism tendency will moderate the relationship between network properties and WOM effectiveness ${\cdot}$ H 3-1 : The consumer's innovativeness will positively influence the social network properties ${\cdot}$ H 3-2 : The consumer's innovativeness will positively influence WOM effectiveness III. Methodology: Through a pilot study and back-translation, two versions of questionnaire were prepared, one in Korean and the other in Chinese. The chinese data were collected from the chinese students enrolled in language schools in Suwon city in Korea, while Korean data were collected from students taking classes in a major university in Seoul. A total of 277 questionnaire were used for analysis of Korean data and 212 for Chinese data. The reason why Chinese students living in Korea rather than in China were selected was based on two factors: one was to neutralize the differences (ie, retail channel availability) that may arise from living in separate countries and the second was to minimize the difference in communication venues such as internet accessibility and cell phone usability. SPSS 12.0 and AMOS 7.0 were used for analysis. IV. Results: Prior to hypothesis verification, mean differences between the two countries in terms of major constructs were performed with the following result; As for network properties (tie strength, centrality and range), Koreans showed higher scores in all three constructs. For cultural orientation traits, Koreans scored higher only on uncertainty avoidance trait than Chinese. As a result of verifying the first research objective, confirming the relationship between network properties and WOM effectiveness, on Korean side, tie strength(Beta=.116; t=1.785) and centrality (Beta=.499; t=6.776) significantly influenced on WOM intention, and similar finding was obtained for Chinese side, with tie strength (Beta=.246; t=3.544) and centrality (Beta=.247; t=3.538) being significant. However, with regard to WOM argument quality, Korean data yielded only centrality (Beta=.82; t=7.600) having a significant impact on WOM, whereas China showed both tie strength(Beat=.142; t=2.052) and centrality(Beta=.348; t=5.031) being influential. To answer for the second research objective addressing the moderating role of cultural orientation, moderated regression anaylsis was performed and the result showed that uncertainty avoidance moderated between network range and WOM intention for both Korea and China, But for Korea, the uncertainty avoidance moderated between tie strength and WOM quality, while for China it moderated between network range and WOM intention. And innovativeness moderated between tie strength and WOM intention for Korea but it moderated between network range and WOM intention for China. As a result of analysing for third research objective, we found that for Korea, innovativeness positively influenced centrality only (Beta=.546; t=10.808), while for China it influenced both tie strength (Beta=.203; t=2.998) and centrality(Beta=.518; t=8.782). But for both countries alike, the innovativeness influenced positively on WOM (WOM intention and WOM quality). V. Implications: The study yields the two practical implications. Firstly, the result suggests that companies targeting multinational customers need to identify segments which are susceptible to the positive WOM and WOM information based on individual traits such as uncertainty avoidance and individualism and based on that, develop marketing communication strategy. Secondly, the companies need to divide the market on Roger's five innovation stages and based on this information, enforce marketing strategy which utilizes social networking tools such as public media and WOM. For instance, innovator and early adopters, if provided with new product information, will be able to capitalize upon the network advantages and thus add informational value to network operations using SNS or corporate blog.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.97-106
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• 2004

This study was carried out to offer basic research data to increase rural housewife's clothing management ability and to guide their behaviors clothing- related reasonably. For this purpose, the interview-investigation by the questionnaire was conducted as the samples of 500 housewives under 60 at 8 villages located in Seoul, Gwangju and Daegu and 8 villages located in some rural communities we randomly extracted. This questionnaire was made up the standardized measuring scales of clothing management behaviors and related variables. As a result, in a part of storage and disposal the rural housewife got 3.68 and 3.16, whereas the urban housewife got 3.59 and 3.03, respectively, indicating a significant difference, which meant that the rural housewife managed those of clothing better than the urban housewife. Generally, rural wives were better in doings in the part of management, storage, disposal, than urban wives. They, however, knew the knowledge of clothing less than urban wives, evaluated the importance of clothing lower and applied clothing-related mass media to their life lower. Therefore, the rural wives need educational guides and materials for improving of the clothing behaviors because they are older and lower education lever than urban wives and they have a little information, too.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2012

The need for evidence-based decision making in immunization programs has increased due to the presence of multiple health priorities, limited human resources, expensive vaccines, and limited funds. Countries should establish a group of national experts to advise their Ministries of Health. So far, many nations have formed their own National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs). In the Republic of Korea, the Korea Expert Committee on Immunization Practices (KECIP), established by law in the early 1990s, has made many important technical recommendations to contribute to the decline in vaccine preventable diseases and currently functions as a NITAG. It includes 13 core members and 2 non-core members, including a chairperson. Core members usually come from affiliated organizations in internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics, microbiology, preventive medicine, nursing and a representative from a consumer group, all of whom serve two year terms. Non-core members comprise two government officials belonging to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) and the Korea Food and Drug Administration. Meetings are held as needed, but at least twice a year, and sub-committees are formed as a resource for gathering, analyzing, and preparing information for the KECIP meetings. Once the sub-committees or the KCDC review the available data, the KECIP members discuss each issue in depth and develop recommendations, usually by a consensus in the meeting. The KECIP publishes national guidelines and immunization schedules that are updated regularly. KECIP's role is essentially consultative and the implementation of their recommendations may depend on the budget or current laws.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.79-89
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• 2018

Purpose - This research aims to investigate the factors that influence consumer's overseas online shopping behavior. Consumers adopt overseas online shopping as a new buying way and more and more consumers prefer overseas online shopping than traditional shopping ways. Consumers' behaviors in this shopping experience can be different from other shopping experiences. With the increase of overseas online shopping, we need to find antecedents and results of overseas online shopping. Especially there would be positive or negative factors which influence overseas online shopping motivation. To find the relationship, this study examines self-efficacy and impulsivity as major factors which influence overseas online shopping. We also suggest that several attitude factors increase self-efficacy and it is positively related to customer satisfaction. On the other hand, we assume that overseas online shopping factors influence impulsivity of buying and it will decrease customer satisfaction. Research design, data, and methodology - This empirical study data were collected from Korean people who experience overseas online shopping. The subjects for this study were confined to shoppers who used overseas online shopping within the past six months. A total of 267 responses were gathered. SPSS 23.0, PLS 2.0 software were used in the data analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to show sample characteristics. We examined reliability, validity test for constructs. All measurement items used seven-point scales(1= very strong disagree, 7 = very strongly agree) drawn from previously published papers. Partial Least Square method was applied to find the relationship between antecedent factors and dependent factors and hypotheses were estimated. Results - Results show that perceived superiority, perceived ease of use, perceived transaction safety, perceived behavioral control positively affect self-efficacy. Self-efficacy influences positively to consumer's post purchase satisfaction. Perceived monetary benefit and perceived uniqueness motivated impulse buying. This can make consumer's post purchase dissatisfaction. Conclusions - This paper attempted to confirm the existence of both the positive and negative faces of overseas online shopping. The result reveals that self-efficacy is a major factor which may increase satisfaction in the overseas online shopping. Usually, we can think monetary benefit and uniqueness of products motivate overseas online shopping. But it can also intrigue impulse buying and negatively affect customer relationship. Therefore companies should provide enough products information to their potential customers and they might apply adequate processes such as recommendation, comparing systems to build long term relationship with their customers.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.101-123
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• 2004

User satisfaction has been widely used by information system(IS) researchers as the most appropriate surrogate variable for the systems success since Bailey and Pearson(1983) provided their user satisfaction measurement. Because user satisfaction is a perceived performance measure by users, not a real or objective measure for systems success, however, perceived user satisfaction by users may not be exactly identical with the real systems performance. In this regard, if the user's ultimately perceived satisfaction is different from the real systems performance, we need to investigate why these two measures are different and which factors may cause the difference. From the perspective of disconfirmation of user expecations, this study examined why user satisfaction and real systems performance may not be identical each other. Expectaion-disconfirmation theory which has had a central role in marketing in explaining the effects of expectation and disconfirmation on consumer satisfaction was similarly adopted in this study to explain the role of expectation and disconfirmation in user satisfaction in the IS environment. Based on the expectation-disconfirmation theory, the current study developed a research model to examine the effects of expectation, system performance, and disconfirmation on user satisfaction in particular. Six research hypotheses derived from the research model were empirically tested using the partial least squares(PLS) method. The results of the statistical analysis indicate that the effects of system performance and disconfirmation were fairly strong on user satisfaction, while the user's expectation has shown insignificant influences on user satisfaction.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.67-74
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• 2008

Entering the 21st century, the primary influence leading world economy have been shifting. U.S. economy has seemed to slow down, Japan and EU are also in same situation. But China have started to lead Asia economy and expended to the World. According to Goldman Sachs Group, "The 21st century will be a era of Brics because of their enormous territory, a large population and abundant natural resources." We have to more focus on China because China have directly effect on Korean market and have a great potential market opportunity for our industries. However, this report mentioned above didn't carefully deal with a field of information and technology(from here IT), Digital contents consumption wasn't mentioned at all. Now Digital Contents (from here 'DC') emerge as new value creator and actually Korea has been a dominant in IT industries and is leading Digital contents market in China. This phenomenon is called as 'Korean wave (Han-Ryu)'. Many researchers have studied about 'Korean wave(Han-Ryu)' focusing on the economic effect but Korean DC industries need to build specifical strategies for exporting Korean DC to China market. Therefore, purpose of this study is following : Firstly, to analyze environment of DC in China and competitive advantages of it. Secondly, to compare ICAI (Industrial Comparative Advantage Index) according to a kind of DC. Finally, to make an analysis of China consumer's attitude to DC. This study will give much implication for Korean DC industries to enter China market.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Broadcast Engineers Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.283-288
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• 2006

In the future television broadcasting a flood of information from various sources will not always be welcomed by everyone. The need of accessing specific information as required is becoming a necessity. We are interested to make the life of television consumer easier by providing an intelligent television set which can adaptively proposed certain shows to the viewer based on the user historical consumed shows. The TV watching history data consists of TV program titles with their respective genres, channels, watched times and durations, etc. The method proposed is by utilizing Hidden Markov Model (HMM) to model the user preference of kind of genres the viewer will watch based on recorded genres of several weeks time. We take watching schedule from 6 PM to midnight as boundary. The range thus divided into 3 independent time band of 2 hours each resulting in 3 time bands from 6 PM to 8 PM, 8 PM to 10 PM, and lastly 10 PM to midnight. Each time band will be represented by an HMM. From each HMM we can generate a sequence of predicted genre that the user will probably watch during corresponding time-band. Our approach assumes that the user shows a consistent behavior of watching pattern in week to week basis and during the moment of watching TV. To asses the method performance experiment is conducted using real data collected from December 2002 to May 2003. Some user's data are selected and based on that predictions are made. The resulting predictions are then compared with the actual user's history. The experiment shows satisfactory result for user with middle to high consistent behavior level.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.185-191
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• 2012

The essence of Mutual aid service is looking into the general commerce about its goods and services that is a general viewpoint. Through the contract that the contractor related with the Mutual aid associations and Mutual aid companies. provide the goods and services to future member's demanding point. and members are pay out money, and pay for that on the installment plan. This Mutual aid business had been increased rapidly after 2005, it is expanded huge business, even its scale alone, the cost is estimated at over three trillion won. But because of Mutual aid business's prepayment installment plan, stipulated substance of the Law on hire-purchase systems were more actualized than in the past, but it leave much to be desired. for example, the obligation of explanation to Mutual aid associations and members of Mutual aid company, the consumer protection about the contract of advance received deposit, upward problem of capital, when establish the Mutual aid company etc. in this paper will review these problems and improvement about legal details that for the customers of Mutual aid service and development of Mutual aid industry, and claimed about Mutual aid law's singular legislation.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.1-17
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• 2020

This Study aims to change and expand present traffic regulation from the human driver to Automated Vehicle(AV), we conducted an in-depth interview(IDI) into the traffic regulation service's strategy for an AV-related information consumer group(AVs and service developers) and a manager group (an information service management agency). The IDI results confirmed several important opinions and requirements for an information service by regulatory information manager groups (enough for AV development), such as a systematic need for dynamic regulatory information and a unified information management system. Also, we find out implications about adopting the Internet of Things (IoT) technology in traffic safety facilities to provide dynamic regulation information on the roads.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.142-145
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• 2005

According as marine leisure industry has developed and the demand of leisure culture has increased rapidly, a desire about service which supply marine safety and connect marine information is enlarging. We wish to develop contents of download form that supply geographic information of Electronic Navigational Chart(ENC) in the marine that is digitalized to carrying along terminal of WIPI base and various informations for marine leisure. For this, DB that offer ENC and additional information should be constructed. Also, we need server(CPS; Contents provider Server) that offer required contents. In this paper, we design web retrieval component which store request information to database. When consumer required necessary information through personal mobile device, CPS can inform that. So, we wish to develop web retrieval agent component that parse informations in various World Wide Webs, and store to database.