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Differential Effects of Recovery Efforts on Products Attitudes (제품태도에 대한 회복노력의 차별적 효과)

  • Kim, Cheon-GIl;Choi, Jung-Mi
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.18 no.1
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    • pp.33-58
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    • 2008
  • Previous research has presupposed that the evaluation of consumer who received any recovery after experiencing product failure should be better than the evaluation of consumer who did not receive any recovery. The major purposes of this article are to examine impacts of product defect failures rather than service failures, and to explore effects of recovery on postrecovery product attitudes. First, this article deals with the occurrence of severe and unsevere failure and corresponding service recovery toward tangible products rather than intangible services. Contrary to intangible services, purchase and usage are separable for tangible products. This difference makes it clear that executing an recovery strategy toward tangible products is not plausible right after consumers find out product failures. The consumers may think about backgrounds and causes for the unpleasant events during the time gap between product failure and recovery. The deliberation may dilutes positive effects of recovery efforts. The recovery strategies which are provided to consumers experiencing product failures can be classified into three types. A recovery strategy can be implemented to provide consumers with a new product replacing the old defective product, a complimentary product for free, a discount at the time of the failure incident, or a coupon that can be used on the next visit. This strategy is defined as "a rewarding effort." Meanwhile a product failure may arise in exchange for its benefit. Then the product provider can suggest a detail explanation that the defect is hard to escape since it relates highly to the specific advantage to the product. The strategy may be called as "a strengthening effort." Another possible strategy is to recover negative attitude toward own brand by giving prominence to the disadvantages of a competing brand rather than the advantages of its own brand. The strategy is reflected as "a weakening effort." This paper emphasizes that, in order to confirm its effectiveness, a recovery strategy should be compared to being nothing done in response to the product failure. So the three types of recovery efforts is discussed in comparison to the situation involving no recovery effort. The strengthening strategy is to claim high relatedness of the product failure with another advantage, and expects the two-sidedness to ease consumers' complaints. The weakening strategy is to emphasize non-aversiveness of product failure, even if consumers choose another competitive brand. The two strategies can be effective in restoring to the original state, by providing plausible motives to accept the condition of product failure or by informing consumers of non-responsibility in the failure case. However the two may be less effective strategies than the rewarding strategy, since it tries to take care of the rehabilitation needs of consumers. Especially, the relative effect between the strengthening effort and the weakening effort may differ in terms of the severity of the product failure. A consumer who realizes a highly severe failure is likely to attach importance to the property which caused the failure. This implies that the strengthening effort would be less effective under the condition of high product severity. Meanwhile, the failing property is not diagnostic information in the condition of low failure severity. Consumers would not pay attention to non-diagnostic information, and with which they are not likely to change their attitudes. This implies that the strengthening effort would be more effective under the condition of low product severity. A 2 (product failure severity: high or low) X 4 (recovery strategies: rewarding, strengthening, weakening, or doing nothing) between-subjects design was employed. The particular levels of product failure severity and the types of recovery strategies were determined after a series of expert interviews. The dependent variable was product attitude after the recovery effort was provided. Subjects were 284 consumers who had an experience of cosmetics. Subjects were first given a product failure scenario and were asked to rate the comprehensibility of the failure scenario, the probability of raising complaints against the failure, and the subjective severity of the failure. After a recovery scenario was presented, its comprehensibility and overall evaluation were measured. The subjects assigned to the condition of no recovery effort were exposed to a short news article on the cosmetic industry. Next, subjects answered filler questions: 42 items of the need for cognitive closure and 16 items of need-to-evaluate. In the succeeding page a subject's product attitude was measured on an five-item, six-point scale, and a subject's repurchase intention on an three-item, six-point scale. After demographic variables of age and sex were asked, ten items of the subject's objective knowledge was checked. The results showed that the subjects formed more favorable evaluations after receiving rewarding efforts than after receiving either strengthening or weakening efforts. This is consistent with Hoffman, Kelley, and Rotalsky (1995) in that a tangible service recovery could be more effective that intangible efforts. Strengthening and weakening efforts also were effective compared to no recovery effort. So we found that generally any recovery increased products attitudes. The results hint us that a recovery strategy such as strengthening or weakening efforts, although it does not contain a specific reward, may have an effect on consumers experiencing severe unsatisfaction and strong complaint. Meanwhile, strengthening and weakening efforts were not expected to increase product attitudes under the condition of low severity of product failure. We can conclude that only a physical recovery effort may be recognized favorably as a firm's willingness to recover its fault by consumers experiencing low involvements. Results of the present experiment are explained in terms of the attribution theory. This article has a limitation that it utilized fictitious scenarios. Future research deserves to test a realistic effect of recovery for actual consumers. Recovery involves a direct, firsthand experience of ex-users. Recovery does not apply to non-users. The experience of receiving recovery efforts can be relatively more salient and accessible for the ex-users than for non-users. A recovery effort might be more likely to improve product attitude for the ex-users than for non-users. Also the present experiment did not include consumers who did not have an experience of the products and who did not perceive the occurrence of product failure. For the non-users and the ignorant consumers, the recovery efforts might lead to decreased product attitude and purchase intention. This is because the recovery trials may give an opportunity for them to notice the product failure.

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Self-Regulatory Mode Effects on Emotion and Customer's Response in Failed Services - Focusing on the moderate effect of attribution processing - (고객의 자기조절성향이 서비스 실패에 따른 부정적 감정과 고객반응에 미치는 영향 - 귀인과정에 따른 조정적 역할을 중심으로 -)

  • Sung, Hyung-Suk;Han, Sang-Lin
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.12 no.2
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    • pp.83-110
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    • 2010
  • Dissatisfied customers may express their dissatisfaction behaviorally. These behavioral responses may impact the firms' profitability. How do we model the impact of self regulatory orientation on emotions and subsequent customer behaviors? Obviously, the positive and negative emotions experienced in these situations will influence the overall degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the service(Zeelenberg and Pieters 1999). Most likely, these specific emotions will also partly determine the subsequent behavior in relation to the service and service provider, such as the likelihood of complaining, the degree to which customers will switch or repurchase, and the extent of word of mouth communication they will engage in(Zeelenberg and Pieters 2004). This study investigates the antecedents, consequences of negative consumption emotion and the moderate effect of attribution processing in an integrated model(self regulatory mode → specific emotions → behavioral responses). We focused on the fact that regret and disappointment have effects on consumer behavior. Especially, There are essentially two approaches in this research: the valence based approach and the specific emotions approach. The authors indicate theoretically and show empirically that it matters to distinguish these approaches in services research. and The present studies examined the influence of two regulatory mode concerns(Locomotion orientation and Assessment orientation) with making comparisons on experiencing post decisional regret and disappointment(Pierro, Kruglanski, and Higgins 2006; Pierro et al. 2008). When contemplating a decision with a negative outcome, it was predicted that high (vs low) locomotion would induce more disappointment than regret, whereas high (vs low) assessment would induce more regret than disappointment. The validity of the measurement scales was also confirmed by evaluations provided by the participating respondents and an independent advisory panel; samples provided recommendations throughout the primary, exploratory phases of the study. The resulting goodness of fit statistics were RMR or RMSEA of 0.05, GFI and AGFI greater than 0.9, and a chi-square with a 175.11. The indicators of the each constructs were very good measures of variables and had high convergent validity as evidenced by the reliability with a more than 0.9. Some items were deleted leaving those that reflected the cognitive dimension of importance rather than the dimension. The indicators were very good measures and had convergent validity as evidenced by the reliability of 0.9. These results for all constructs indicate the measurement fits the sample data well and is adequate for use. The scale for each factor was set by fixing the factor loading to one of its indicator variables and then applying the maximum likelihood estimation method. The results of the analysis showed that directions of the effects in the model are ultimately supported by the theory underpinning the causal linkages of the model. This research proposed 6 hypotheses on 6 latent variables and tested through structural equation modeling. 6 alternative measurements were compared through statistical significance test of the paths of research model and the overall fitting level of structural equation model and the result was successful. Also, Locomotion orientation more positively influences disappointment when internal attribution is high than low and Assessment orientation more positively influences regret when external attribution is high than low. In sum, The results of our studies suggest that assessment and locomotion concerns, both as chronic individual predispositions and as situationally induced states, influence the amount of people's experienced regret and disappointment. These findings contribute to our understanding of regulatory mode, regret, and disappointment. In previous studies of regulatory mode, relatively little attention has been paid to the post actional evaluative phase of self regulation. The present findings indicate that assessment concerns and locomotion concerns are clearly distinct in this phase, with individuals higher in assessment delving more into possible alternatives to past actions and individuals higher in locomotion engaging less in such reflective thought. What this suggests is that, separate from decreasing the amount of counterfactual thinking per se, individuals with locomotion concerns want to move on, to get on with it. Regret is about the past and not the future. Thus, individuals with locomotion concerns are less likely to experience regret. The results supported our predictions. We discuss the implications of these findings for the nature of regret and disappointment from the perspective of their relation to regulatory mode. Also, self regulatory mode and the specific emotions(disappointment and regret) were assessed and their influence on customers' behavioral responses(inaction, word of mouth) was examined, using a sample of 275 customers. It was found that emotions have a direct impact on behavior over and above the effects of negative emotions and customer behavior. Hence, We argue against incorporating emotions such as regret and disappointment into a specific response measure and in favor of a specific emotions approach on self regulation. Implications for services marketing practice and theory are discussed.

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Behavioural Analysis of Password Authentication and Countermeasure to Phishing Attacks - from User Experience and HCI Perspectives (사용자의 패스워드 인증 행위 분석 및 피싱 공격시 대응방안 - 사용자 경험 및 HCI의 관점에서)

  • Ryu, Hong Ryeol;Hong, Moses;Kwon, Taekyoung
    • Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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    • v.15 no.3
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    • pp.79-90
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    • 2014
  • User authentication based on ID and PW has been widely used. As the Internet has become a growing part of people' lives, input times of ID/PW have been increased for a variety of services. People have already learned enough to perform the authentication procedure and have entered ID/PW while ones are unconscious. This is referred to as the adaptive unconscious, a set of mental processes incoming information and producing judgements and behaviors without our conscious awareness and within a second. Most people have joined up for various websites with a small number of IDs/PWs, because they relied on their memory for managing IDs/PWs. Human memory decays with the passing of time and knowledges in human memory tend to interfere with each other. For that reason, there is the potential for people to enter an invalid ID/PW. Therefore, these characteristics above mentioned regarding of user authentication with ID/PW can lead to human vulnerabilities: people use a few PWs for various websites, manage IDs/PWs depending on their memory, and enter ID/PW unconsciously. Based on the vulnerability of human factors, a variety of information leakage attacks such as phishing and pharming attacks have been increasing exponentially. In the past, information leakage attacks exploited vulnerabilities of hardware, operating system, software and so on. However, most of current attacks tend to exploit the vulnerabilities of the human factors. These attacks based on the vulnerability of the human factor are called social-engineering attacks. Recently, malicious social-engineering technique such as phishing and pharming attacks is one of the biggest security problems. Phishing is an attack of attempting to obtain valuable information such as ID/PW and pharming is an attack intended to steal personal data by redirecting a website's traffic to a fraudulent copy of a legitimate website. Screens of fraudulent copies used for both phishing and pharming attacks are almost identical to those of legitimate websites, and even the pharming can include the deceptive URL address. Therefore, without the supports of prevention and detection techniques such as vaccines and reputation system, it is difficult for users to determine intuitively whether the site is the phishing and pharming sites or legitimate site. The previous researches in terms of phishing and pharming attacks have mainly studied on technical solutions. In this paper, we focus on human behaviour when users are confronted by phishing and pharming attacks without knowing them. We conducted an attack experiment in order to find out how many IDs/PWs are leaked from pharming and phishing attack. We firstly configured the experimental settings in the same condition of phishing and pharming attacks and build a phishing site for the experiment. We then recruited 64 voluntary participants and asked them to log in our experimental site. For each participant, we conducted a questionnaire survey with regard to the experiment. Through the attack experiment and survey, we observed whether their password are leaked out when logging in the experimental phishing site, and how many different passwords are leaked among the total number of passwords of each participant. Consequently, we found out that most participants unconsciously logged in the site and the ID/PW management dependent on human memory caused the leakage of multiple passwords. The user should actively utilize repudiation systems and the service provider with online site should support prevention techniques that the user can intuitively determined whether the site is phishing.

Dynamic Decision Making using Social Context based on Ontology (상황 온톨로지를 이용한 동적 의사결정시스템)

  • Kim, Hyun-Woo;Sohn, M.-Ye;Lee, Hyun-Jung
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.17 no.3
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    • pp.43-61
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    • 2011
  • In this research, we propose a dynamic decision making using social context based on ontology. Dynamic adaptation is adopted for the high qualified decision making, which is defined as creation of proper information using contexts depending on decision maker's state of affairs in ubiquitous computing environment. Thereby, the context for the dynamic adaptation is classified as a static, dynamic and social context. Static context contains personal explicit information like demographic data. Dynamic context like weather or traffic information is provided by external information service provider. Finally, social context implies much more implicit knowledge such as social relationship than the other two-type context, but it is not easy to extract any implied tacit knowledge as well as generalized rules from the information. So, it was not easy for the social context to apply into dynamic adaptation. In this light, we tried the social context into the dynamic adaptation to generate context-appropriate personalized information. It is necessary to build modeling methodology to adopt dynamic adaptation using the context. The proposed context modeling used ontology and cases which are best to represent tacit and unstructured knowledge such as social context. Case-based reasoning and constraint satisfaction problem is applied into the dynamic decision making system for the dynamic adaption. Case-based reasoning is used case to represent the context including social, dynamic and static and to extract personalized knowledge from the personalized case-base. Constraint satisfaction problem is used when the selected case through the case-based reasoning needs dynamic adaptation, since it is usual to adapt the selected case because context can be changed timely according to environment status. The case-base reasoning adopts problem context for effective representation of static, dynamic and social context, which use a case structure with index and solution and problem ontology of decision maker. The case is stored in case-base as a repository of a decision maker's personal experience and knowledge. The constraint satisfaction problem use solution ontology which is extracted from collective intelligence which is generalized from solutions of decision makers. The solution ontology is retrieved to find proper solution depending on the decision maker's context when it is necessary. At the same time, dynamic adaptation is applied to adapt the selected case using solution ontology. The decision making process is comprised of following steps. First, whenever the system aware new context, the system converses the context into problem context ontology with case structure. Any context is defined by a case with a formal knowledge representation structure. Thereby, social context as implicit knowledge is also represented a formal form like a case. In addition, for the context modeling, ontology is also adopted. Second, we select a proper case as a decision making solution from decision maker's personal case-base. We convince that the selected case should be the best case depending on context related to decision maker's current status as well as decision maker's requirements. However, it is possible to change the environment and context around the decision maker and it is necessary to adapt the selected case. Third, if the selected case is not available or the decision maker doesn't satisfy according to the newly arrived context, then constraint satisfaction problem and solution ontology is applied to derive new solution for the decision maker. The constraint satisfaction problem uses to the previously selected case to adopt and solution ontology. The verification of the proposed methodology is processed by searching a meeting place according to the decision maker's requirements and context, the extracted solution shows the satisfaction depending on meeting purpose.

International Success the Second Time Around: A Case Study (제이륜국제성공(第二轮国际成功): 일개안례연구(一个案例研究))

  • Colley, Mary Catherine;Gatlin, Brandie
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.20 no.2
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    • pp.173-178
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    • 2010
  • A privately held, third generation family owned company, Boom Technologies, Inc. (BTI), a provider of products and services to the electric utility, telecommunications and contractor markets, continues to make progress in exporting. Although export sales only equaled 5% of total revenue in 2008, BTI has an entire export division. Their export division's Managing Director reveals the trial and errors of a privately held company and their quest for success overseas. From its inception, BTI has always believed its greatest asset is its employees. When export sales struggled due to lack of strategy and direction, BTI hired a Managing Director for its export division. With leadership and guidance from BTI's president and from the Managing Director, they utilized the department's skills and knowledge. Structural changes were made to expand their market presence abroad and increase export sales. As a result, export sales increased four-fold, area managers in new countries were added and distribution networks were successfully cultivated. At times, revenue generation was difficult to determine due to the structure of the company. Therefore, in 1996, the export division was restructured as a limited liability company. This allowed the company to improve the tracking of revenue and expenses. Originally, 80% of BTI's export sales came from two countries; therefore, the initial approach to selling overseas was not reaching their anticipated goals of expanding their foreign market presence. However, changes were made and now the company manages the details of selling to over 80 countries. There were three major export expansion challenges noted by the Managing Director: 1. Product and Shipping - The major obstacle for BTI was product assembly. Originally, the majority of the product was assembled in the United States, which increased shipping and packaging costs. With so many parts specified in the order, many times the order would arrive with parts missing. The missing parts could equate to tens of thousands of dollars. Shipping these missing parts separately in another shipment also cost tens of thousands of dollar, plus a delivery delay time of six to eight weeks; all of which came out of the BTI's pockets. 2. Product Adaptation - Safety and product standards varied widely for each of the 80 countries to which BTI exported. Weights, special licenses, product specification requirements, measurement systems, and truck stability can all differ from country to country and can serve as a type of barrier to entry, making it difficult to adapt products accordingly. Technical and safety standards are barriers that serve as a type of protection for the local industry and can stand in the way of successfully pursuing foreign markets. 3. Marketing Challenges - The importance of distribution creates many challenges for BTI as they attempt to determine how each country prefers to operate with regard to their distribution systems. Some countries have competition from a small competitor that only produces one competing product; whereas BTI manufactures over 100 products. Marketing material is another concern for BTI as they attempt to push marketing costs to the distributors. Adapting the marketing material can be costly in terms of translation and cultural differences. In addition, the size of paper in the United States differs from those in some countries, causing many problems when attempting to copy the same layout and With distribution being one of several challenges for BTI, the company claims their distribution network is one of their competitive advantages, as the location and names of their distributors are not revealed. In addition, BTI rotates two offerings yearly: training to their distributors one year and then the next is a distributor's meeting. With a focus on product and shipping, product adaptation, and marketing challenges, the intricacies of selling overseas takes time and patience. Another competitive advantage noted is BTI's cradle to grave strategy, where they follow the product from sale to its final resting place, whether the truck is leased or purchased new or used. They also offer service and maintenance plans with a detailed cost analysis provided to the company prior to purchasing or leasing the product. Expanding abroad will always create challenges for a company. As the Managing Director stated, "If you don't have patience (in the export business), you better do something else." Knowing how to adapt quickly provides BTI with the skills necessary to adjust to the changing needs of each country and its own unique challenges, allowing them to remain competitive.

A Study of Family Caregiver's Burden for the Terminally III Patients (지역사회 말기질환자 가족 부담감에 관한 연구)

  • Han, Sung-Suk;Ro, You-Ja;Yang, Soo;Yoo, Yang-Sook;Kim, Sek-Il;Hwang, Hee-Hyung
    • Journal of Korean Academic Society of Home Health Care Nursing
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    • v.10 no.1
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    • pp.58-72
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    • 2003
  • The purpose of this study was to describe the perceived burden of the terminally III patients's caregiver and to analyze relationship between the perceived burden and the various demographics, illness characteristics, family relationships, and economic factor of the family & patients. The sample of 132 caregivers who care for the terminally III patients Kyung-Gi province, Seoul, Korea. The period of this study was from August to September, 2002. The perceived burden of the family caregiver was measured by the burden scale(20 items, 4 point scale) developed by Montgomery et al. (1985). The Data was analyzed using SAS-program by t-test and ANOVA. The results were as follows; 1. The mean of the family caregiver's burden score was 3.02. The score showed that caregivers perceive severe the level of burden. The hight items of the family caregiver's burden were' I feel it is painful to watch patient's diseases'(3.77). 'I feel afraid for what the future holds for my patients'(3.66), 'I feel it reduced to amount of privacy time'(3.64). 2. The caregiver's burden was significantly related to patient's gender(F=3.17, p= 0.0020), patient's job(F=2.49, p=0.0476), caregiver's age(F=4.29, p=0.0030), and caregiver's job(F=2.49, p=0.0476). 3. The caregiver's burden according to illness characteristics showed no significant difference. 4. The caregiver's burden was significantly associated with patient's family relationship (F=4.05, p=0.0041), patient's care mean period in a day(F=47.18,

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Market versus non-market normative replies: Why are non-market normative replies more influential? (시장 대 비시장규범 댓글: 왜 비시장규범 댓글이 더 영향력 있는가?)

  • Lee, Guk-Hee
    • Journal of the HCI Society of Korea
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    • v.13 no.3
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    • pp.55-63
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    • 2018
  • Most people today search for information on the Internet about the goods or services they want to purchase and then assess the replies posted by other people who have experience with those goods or services. These replies serve as an important reference point that can affect purchase decisions. Replies are divided broadly into two types: first, market normative replies about whether a person experiences satisfaction with (or more than) the price paid for goods or services (positive) or not (negative); and the second is non-market normative replies about whether the goods or service provider morally deserves the profits gained from providing them (positive) or not (negative). Previous studies on replies have focused on market normative replies (whether the food is delicious), and there have only been some studies on the effect of non-market normative replies (the owner is morally good). This research was undertaken to re-examine the effect of market normative replies identified by previous studies in a restaurant visit intention evaluation (Experiment 1), to examine the effect of non-market normative replies not investigated in previous studies (Experiment 2), and to compare the effect of market normative replies and non-market normative replies (the meta-analysis) In conclusion, restaurant visit intention was stronger when market normative replies were positive (delicious) than when they were negative (not delicious) (Experiment 1). Furthermore, restaurant visit intention was stronger when non-market normative replies were positive (the owner is moral) than when they were negative (the owner is immoral) (Experiment 2). On the other hand, it was found that restaurant visit intention was stronger when non-market normative replies were positive than when market normative replies were positive, and restaurant visit intention was weaker when non-market normative replies were negative than when market normative replies were negative. This implies that people are more likely to be affected by non-market normative replies than market normative replies. In addition, this study suggested that the mood changed more before and after checking non-market normative replies than before and after checking market normative replies, and due to this difference, people could be affected more by non-market normative replies than market normative replies.

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Research on Factors Affecting Smartphone App Market Selection: App Market Platform Provider's Perspective (스마트폰 앱 마켓 선택에 영향을 미치는 요인에 관한 연구: 앱 마켓 플랫폼 사업자 관점으로)

  • Lee, Ho;Kim, Jae Sung;Kim, Kyung Kyu;Lee, Youngin
    • Journal of the Korea Knowledge Information Technology Society
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    • v.13 no.1
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    • pp.11-23
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    • 2018
  • This paper empirically investigates the factors that influence the consumer choice of an app market based on the rational choice theory. The app market is the only channel where a consumer can buy smartphone apps, which give various functional convenience and are considered to be a major contributor to the proliferation of smartphones. Analyses of 281 questionnaires show that usability and structural guarantees as benefit factors significantly influence the app market choice. From the cost perspectives, both monetary and non-monetary conversion costs are found to significantly influence the app market choice. On the other hand, customer trust, information quality, and market image were found to have no significant effect on app market selection. In particular, Korean app market platform providers (KT, LG U +) seem to be superior in terms of structural guarantees, such as customer center operation and damage compensation regulations, compared to overseas app market platform operators (Google). However, in the case of the Google App Market, it is pre-installed on all Android phones, so it is not inconvenient to install additional apps to use other app market. This is disadvantageous to domestic app market platform operators, and it is necessary to establish a policy solution point. In terms of operator costs, both monetary and non-monetary conversion costs have a significant impact on app market choice. In particular, non-monetary conversion costs have a negative impact on Korean app market platform operators. It can be explained that the service expectation level of the domestic app market is low and it is recognized that the time cost factor such as membership is large for new users to use. It seems to be necessary to improve the domestic app market business. Meanwhile, extant research on smartphone apps focuses on the purchase of apps themselves, but not on the selection of the app market itself. In order to fill in this gap, this study focuses on the determinants of app market selection, including the characteristics of an app market and the switching costs.

A Study on the Consumers' Inherent Characteristics Influencing on the Relationship Building Intention with the Salesperson: Relational Benefits as Mediating Variables (영업사원과의 관계구축 의도에 영향을 미치는 소비자의 내재적 특성에 관한 연구: 관계적 혜택을 매개변수로)

  • Park, Chanwook
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.11 no.3
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    • pp.31-56
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    • 2009
  • As the competition intensifies and the market matures, marketers are more and more concerned with the relationship marketing. Many of the previous researches have pointed out that not all of the consumers are relationship-oriented. But none of the previous research has systematically investigated this issue. This research investigated the relationship among the three concepts: consumers' intrinsic characteristics, perceived importance of relational benefits, and relationship building intention with the salesperson. In this research the perceived importance of relational benefits is treated as mediating variable in the relationship between consumers' intrinsic characteristics and relationship building intention with the salesperson. The conceptual model in this study can be depicted as follows. From the consumers' perspective relational benefits can be defined as "the additional benefits consumers can receive in addition to core services through the long-term relationship with the service provider." And in this study two kinds of relational benefits are adopted by reviewing the previous research: confidence benefits and social benefits. Relational benefit received from the salesperson is very important to predict consumers' relationship building intention with the salesperson. The more relational benefits consumer wants from the salesperson, the more relationship building intention he/she has. From this point two hypotheses are derived as follows. Hypothesis 1: As the perceived importance of confidence benefit from the salesperson increases, the relationship building intention with the salesperson increases. Hypothesis 2: As the perceived importance of social benefit from the salesperson increases, the relationship building intention with the salesperson increases. In this study four individual characteristics(risk taking tendency, variety-seeking tendency, product knowledge, trust orientation) are hypothesized to influence the perceived importance of confidence benefits from the salesperson. And three individual characteristics(interpersonal orientation, price consciousness, trust orientation) are hypothesized to influence the perceived importance of social benefits from the salesperson. These 7 hypotheses are as follows. Hypothesis 3: As the risk taking tendency increases, the perceived importance of confidence benefits from the salesperson decreases. Hypothesis 4: As the variety-seeking tendency increases, the perceived importance of confidence benefits from the salesperson decreases. Hypothesis 5: As the product knowledge increases, the perceived importance of confidence benefits from the salesperson decreases. Hypothesis 6: As the trust orientation increases, the perceived importance of confidence benefits from the salesperson increases. Hypothesis 7: As the interpersonal orientation increases, the perceived importance of social benefits from the salesperson increases. Hypothesis 8: As the price consciousness increases, the perceived importance of social benefits from the salesperson decreases. Hypothesis 9: As the trust orientation increases, the perceived importance of social benefits from the salesperson increases. The whole model in this study can be depicted as follows: Data were collected from the 396 consumers who actually trade stocks through the salesperson and were analyzed using structural equation model. The analysis results show that consumers' perceived importance of relational benefits(confidence benefit and social benefit) play the roles of mediating variables in the causal relationship between consumers' inherent characteristics and their relationship building intention with the salesperson. As for the individual characteristics, the influences of variety-seeking tendency, trust orientation, and price consciousness are statistically significant. It was found that variety-seeking tendency has a significant negative effect on the perceived importance of confidence benefit, and that trust orientation has a significant positive effect on the perceived importance of both of confidence and social benefit. Finally it was also found that, on the contrary to the influence direction suggested in the hypothesis, price consciousness has a significant positive effect on the perceived importance of social benefit.

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A Study on the Differences of Information Diffusion Based on the Type of Media and Information (매체와 정보유형에 따른 정보확산 차이에 대한 연구)

  • Lee, Sang-Gun;Kim, Jin-Hwa;Baek, Heon;Lee, Eui-Bang
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.19 no.4
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    • pp.133-146
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    • 2013
  • While the use of internet is routine nowadays, users receive and share information through a variety of media. Through the use of internet, information delivery media is diversifying from traditional media of one-way communication, such as newspaper, TV, and radio, into media of two-way communication. In contrast of traditional media, blogs enable individuals to directly upload and share news, which can be considered to have a differential speed of information diffusion than news media that convey information unilaterally. Therefore this Study focused on the difference between online news and social media blogs. Moreover, there are variations in the speed of information diffusion because that information closely related to one person boosts communications between individuals. We believe that users' standard of evaluation would change based on the types of information. As well, the speed of information diffusion would change based on the level of proximity. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the differences in information diffusion based on the types of media. And then information is segmentalized and an examination is done to see how information diffusion differentiates based on the types of information. This study used the Bass diffusion model, which has been frequently used because this model has higher explanatory power than other models by explaining diffusion of market through innovation effect and imitation effect. Also this model has been applied a lot in other information diffusion related studies. The Bass diffusion model includes an innovation effect and an imitation effect. Innovation effect measures the early-stage impact, while the imitation effect measures the impact of word of mouth at the later stage. According to Mahajan et al. (2000), Innovation effect is emphasized by usefulness and ease-of-use, as well Imitation effect is emphasized by subjective norm and word-of-mouth. Also, according to Lee et al. (2011), Innovation effect is emphasized by mass communication. According to Moore and Benbasat (1996), Innovation effect is emphasized by relative advantage. Because Imitation effect is adopted by within-group influences and Innovation effects is adopted by product's or service's innovation. Therefore, ours study compared online news and social media blogs to examine the differences between media. We also choose different types of information including entertainment related information "Psy Gentelman", Current affair news "Earthquake in Sichuan, China", and product related information "Galaxy S4" in order to examine the variations on information diffusion. We considered that users' information proximity alters based on the types of information. Hence, we chose the three types of information mentioned above, which have different level of proximity from users' standpoint, in order to examine the flow of information diffusion. The first conclusion of this study is that different media has similar effect on information diffusion, even the types of media of information provider are different. Information diffusion has only been distinguished by a disparity between proximity of information. Second, information diffusions differ based on types of information. From the standpoint of users, product and entertainment related information has high imitation effect because of word of mouth. On the other hand, imitation effect dominates innovation effect on Current affair news. From the results of this study, the flow changes of information diffusion is examined and be applied to practical use. This study has some limitations, and those limitations would be able to provide opportunities and suggestions for future research. Presenting the difference of Information diffusion according to media and proximity has difficulties for generalization of theory due to small sample size. Therefore, if further studies adopt to a request for an increase of sample size and media diversity, difference of the information diffusion according to media type and information proximity could be understood more detailed.