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

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

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.195-211
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• 2014

Cloud computing services provide IT resources as services on demand. This is considered a key concept, which will lead a shift from an ownership-based paradigm to a new pay-for-use paradigm, which can reduce the fixed cost for IT resources, and improve flexibility and scalability. As IT services, cloud services have evolved from early similar computing concepts such as network computing, utility computing, server-based computing, and grid computing. So research into cloud computing is highly related to and combined with various relevant computing research areas. To seek promising research issues and topics in cloud computing, it is necessary to understand the research trends in cloud computing more comprehensively. In this study, we collect bibliographic information and citation information for cloud computing related research papers published in major international journals from 1994 to 2012, and analyzes macroscopic trends and network changes to citation relationships among papers and the co-occurrence relationships of key words by utilizing social network analysis measures. Through the analysis, we can identify the relationships and connections among research topics in cloud computing related areas, and highlight new potential research topics. In addition, we visualize dynamic changes of research topics relating to cloud computing using a proposed cloud computing "research trend map." A research trend map visualizes positions of research topics in two-dimensional space. Frequencies of key words (X-axis) and the rates of increase in the degree centrality of key words (Y-axis) are used as the two dimensions of the research trend map. Based on the values of the two dimensions, the two dimensional space of a research map is divided into four areas: maturation, growth, promising, and decline. An area with high keyword frequency, but low rates of increase of degree centrality is defined as a mature technology area; the area where both keyword frequency and the increase rate of degree centrality are high is defined as a growth technology area; the area where the keyword frequency is low, but the rate of increase in the degree centrality is high is defined as a promising technology area; and the area where both keyword frequency and the rate of degree centrality are low is defined as a declining technology area. Based on this method, cloud computing research trend maps make it possible to easily grasp the main research trends in cloud computing, and to explain the evolution of research topics. According to the results of an analysis of citation relationships, research papers on security, distributed processing, and optical networking for cloud computing are on the top based on the page-rank measure. From the analysis of key words in research papers, cloud computing and grid computing showed high centrality in 2009, and key words dealing with main elemental technologies such as data outsourcing, error detection methods, and infrastructure construction showed high centrality in 2010~2011. In 2012, security, virtualization, and resource management showed high centrality. Moreover, it was found that the interest in the technical issues of cloud computing increases gradually. From annual cloud computing research trend maps, it was verified that security is located in the promising area, virtualization has moved from the promising area to the growth area, and grid computing and distributed system has moved to the declining area. The study results indicate that distributed systems and grid computing received a lot of attention as similar computing paradigms in the early stage of cloud computing research. The early stage of cloud computing was a period focused on understanding and investigating cloud computing as an emergent technology, linking to relevant established computing concepts. After the early stage, security and virtualization technologies became main issues in cloud computing, which is reflected in the movement of security and virtualization technologies from the promising area to the growth area in the cloud computing research trend maps. Moreover, this study revealed that current research in cloud computing has rapidly transferred from a focus on technical issues to for a focus on application issues, such as SLAs (Service Level Agreements).

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.125-137
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• 2018

Credit unions organized and operated by the members of communities, work-places or groups are co-operative entities where customers act as owners not just transaction partners. The foregoing organizational characteristic of credit unions exerts beneficial effects on their customer relationship, and underscores the need for diversifying their relationship marketing strategies. This study sheds light on the structural relationship of credit unions in terms of principal variables of relationship marketing, i.e. relationship benefits, customer satisfaction and long-term relationship orientation. Specifically, we classify the relationship benefits into three sub-dimensions, i.e. confidence benefits, social benefits and special treatment benefits, and structuralize a causal model involving the customer satisfaction and long-term relationship orientation. From December 26, 2017 to January 26, 2018, A total of 360 questionnaires was collected. Of these, 346 were selected as the final samples, excluding 14, which are difficult to use in statistics. The reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and regression analysis was performed by using the 'SPSS 24.0'. And confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation model analysis was performed by using 'AMOS 24.0'. The findings highlight the following. First, confidence benefits directly impact on the long-term relationship orientation, and indirectly influence the latter by the medium of customer satisfaction. Second, social benefits directly influence the long-term relationship orientation, without exerting any indirect effects on the latter via customer satisfaction. Third, special treatment benefits do not directly impact on the long-term relationship orientation but have indirect effects on the latter by the medium of customer satisfaction. Fourth, customer satisfaction has positive effects on the long-term relationship orientation. The findings suggest credit unions should establish a long-term relationship with their customers by providing them with confidence benefits to earn their trust and confidence, with social benefits to build a relationship of affinity and friendship, and with special treatment benefits to meet their needs in the long, not short and temporary, term.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.51-61
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• 2018

As Korean society becomes more matured, more people consider trust valuable, as a social capital. Researchers introduced trust literatures focusing on public policy, sociology than business. In this paper, it is empirically analyzed how Organizational Justice, Shared Values, Organizational Trust, 3 dimensions of social capital explained by Nahapiet & Ghoshall, together with Job Satisfaction and Innovative Behavior, as a proxy of performance at the organizational level. The results of this study are as below. Firstly Organizational Justice, consisted of 4 sub-variables of Distributional Justice, Procedural Justice, Interpersonal Justice and Informational Justice, classified by Colquitt, affects Job Satisfaction positively. Secondly Shared Values, consisted of 2 sub-variables of CEO's Core Value and Organizational Culture, availing Competing Value Model of Cameron & Quinn, affect Job Satisfaction positively. Thirdly Job Satisfaction, consisted of 2 sub-variables of economical satisfaction and self-efficacy, affects Innovative Behavior positively. Lastly Organizational Trust has mediating effect on the relationship between Job Satisfaction and Innovative Behavior. However, while the direct effect of Job Satisfaction on Innovative Behavior shows 69%, the indirect effect of Organizational Trust on Innovative Behavior shows 31%, which may not be ignorable. Furthermore in case of smaller organization with less than 30 members, the indirect effect of Organizational Trust shows 64%, comparing to 36% of direct effect of Job Satisfaction. This study was able to confirm that organizations need to maintain Organizational Trust as much as they strive to increase Job Satisfaction through securing Organizational Justice and Shared Values in order to effectively increase Innovative Behavior. For small organizations with less than 30 members, they can never achieve Innovative Behavior without Organizational Trust. Conclusively it is acknowledged that Organizational Trust is the most important prior condition for innovation and long-term survival of SME ventures.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.808-834
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• 2007

This study attempts to elucidate manifold dimensions of gendered accessibility experiences. How gender roles(household responsibilities) differentiate accessibility experiences between women and men is explored through the comparison of married dual-earner couples' parental status, using the US Portland activity-travel diary dataset with GIS-based geocomputation results of(time-geography based) space-time accessibility. First, this study shows how gender division of labor within the household still permeates current society, despite the widespread belief of the social change toward a gender-egalitarian society. Then, the study pays special attention to the way gender roles structure individual accessibility experiences of women and men differently, and, in turn, the way such accessibility experiences take a form of gendered spatiality. Gendered spatiality is examined through the analysis of accessibility space as well as activity space in order to ascertain women's home-attached and spatially entrapped characteristics. More household responsibilities throughout a day and, even more, the time constraint of picking up children at the daycare centers after work lead women's possible activity space to be more home-centered. The analysis of the spatio-temporal context of accessibility space makes gendered spatiality visible. However, the findings suggest that behavioral outcomes should be understood with an explicit awareness of constraints individuals face. It is because the revealed activity spaces can be not only an outcome of constraint but also an outcome of choice. Behavioral outcomes should not be treated as a straightforward expression of the level of constraints. It is problematic to expect that behavioral outcomes directly mirror the level of constraints. It is also problematic to suppose that the level of constraints can be straightforwardly elicited from revealed behavioral outcomes.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.177-196
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• 2021

In the era of the 4th industrial revolution, high technology is causing many changes in modern society and economy. Among them, changes in industries and jobs require new competencies of future human resources. As an educational alternative to these changes, maker education and design thinking methods are spreading around the world, and it is necessary to actively apply such education in university curriculum. Therefore, this study examines the effects of the maker education using the design thinking method on the learners' competencies required as future human resources and, relationship between the development of university students' entrepreneurial competencies and learners' competencies. And the purpose of this study is to contribute to the vitalization of entrepreneurship education for university students by suggesting an educational model. For this purpose, this study investigated the prior research on maker education/environment and design thinking methods to examine concepts and characteristics, and analyzed the influences between maker education/environment and design thinking methods and the development of learners' personal, social and technological capabilities. In addition, this study analyzed the relationship between learners' developed capabilities and university students' entrepreneurial capabilities, and based on the results, suggested directions and conceptual models for education that combine maker education/environment and design thinking methods. In conclusion, maker education/environment and design thinking methods in university education have a positive effect on the cognitive, social, and technological development of learners, and this has a significant relationship with the factors of personal, social, and technological dimensions of university students' entrepreneurial competency. It is analyzed that it has a positive effect on the promotion of entrepreneurship activities of university students. Therefore, it is judged that university's interest and support should be given to the vitalization of maker education using the design thinking method for university student entrepreneurship education and future human resources nurturing.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.45-69
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• 2016

Recently, sentiment analysis using open Internet data is actively performed for various purposes. As online Internet communication channels become popular, companies try to capture public sentiment of them from online open information sources. This research is conducted for the purpose of analyzing pulbic sentiment of Korean Top-10 companies using a multi-categorical sentiment lexicon. Whereas existing researches related to public sentiment measurement based on big data approach classify sentiment into dimensions, this research classifies public sentiment into multiple categories. Dimensional sentiment structure has been commonly applied in sentiment analysis of various applications, because it is academically proven, and has a clear advantage of capturing degree of sentiment and interrelation of each dimension. However, the dimensional structure is not effective when measuring public sentiment because human sentiment is too complex to be divided into few dimensions. In addition, special training is needed for ordinary people to express their feeling into dimensional structure. People do not divide their sentiment into dimensions, nor do they need psychological training when they feel. People would not express their feeling in the way of dimensional structure like positive/negative or active/passive; rather they express theirs in the way of categorical sentiment like sadness, rage, happiness and so on. That is, categorial approach of sentiment analysis is more natural than dimensional approach. Accordingly, this research suggests multi-categorical sentiment structure as an alternative way to measure social sentiment from the point of the public. Multi-categorical sentiment structure classifies sentiments following the way that ordinary people do although there are possibility to contain some subjectiveness. In this research, nine categories: 'Sadness', 'Anger', 'Happiness', 'Disgust', 'Surprise', 'Fear', 'Interest', 'Boredom' and 'Pain' are used as multi-categorical sentiment structure. To capture public sentiment of Korean Top-10 companies, Internet news data of the companies are collected over the past 25 months from a representative Korean portal site. Based on the sentiment words extracted from previous researches, we have created a sentiment lexicon, and analyzed the frequency of the words coming up within the news data. The frequency of each sentiment category was calculated as a ratio out of the total sentiment words to make ranks of distributions. Sentiment comparison among top-4 companies, which are 'Samsung', 'Hyundai', 'SK', and 'LG', were separately visualized. As a next step, the research tested hypothesis to prove the usefulness of the multi-categorical sentiment lexicon. It tested how effective categorial sentiment can be used as relative comparison index in cross sectional and time series analysis. To test the effectiveness of the sentiment lexicon as cross sectional comparison index, pair-wise t-test and Duncan test were conducted. Two pairs of companies, 'Samsung' and 'Hanjin', 'SK' and 'Hanjin' were chosen to compare whether each categorical sentiment is significantly different in pair-wise t-test. Since category 'Sadness' has the largest vocabularies, it is chosen to figure out whether the subgroups of the companies are significantly different in Duncan test. It is proved that five sentiment categories of Samsung and Hanjin and four sentiment categories of SK and Hanjin are different significantly. In category 'Sadness', it has been figured out that there were six subgroups that are significantly different. To test the effectiveness of the sentiment lexicon as time series comparison index, 'nut rage' incident of Hanjin is selected as an example case. Term frequency of sentiment words of the month when the incident happened and term frequency of the one month before the event are compared. Sentiment categories was redivided into positive/negative sentiment, and it is tried to figure out whether the event actually has some negative impact on public sentiment of the company. The difference in each category was visualized, moreover the variation of word list of sentiment 'Rage' was shown to be more concrete. As a result, there was huge before-and-after difference of sentiment that ordinary people feel to the company. Both hypotheses have turned out to be statistically significant, and therefore sentiment analysis in business area using multi-categorical sentiment lexicons has persuasive power. This research implies that categorical sentiment analysis can be used as an alternative method to supplement dimensional sentiment analysis when figuring out public sentiment in business environment.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.137-164
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• 2011

In the past, retailers secured customer loyalty by offering convenient locations, unique assortments of goods, better services than competitors, and good credit policy. All this has changed. Goods assortments among stores have become more alike as national-brand manufacturers place their goods in more and more retail stores. Service differentiation also has eroded. Many department stores have trimmed services, and many discount stores have increased theirs. Customers have become smarter shoppers. They don't pay more for identical brands, especially when service differences have diminished. In the face of increased competition from discount storess and specialty stores, department stores are waging a comeback war. Growth of intertype competition, competition between store-based and non-store-based retailing and growing investment in technology are changing the way consumers shop and retailers sell. Different types of stores-discount stores, catalog showrooms, department stores-all compete for the same consumers by carrying the same type of merchandise. The biggest winners are retailers that have helped shoppers to be economically cautious, simplified their increasingly busy and complicated lives, and provided an emotional connection. The growth of e-retailers has forced traditional brick-and-mortar retailers to respond. Basically brick-and-mortar retailers utilize their natural advantages, such as products that shoppers can actually see, touch, and test, real-life customer service, and no delivery lag time for small-sized purchases. They also provide a shopping experience as a strong differentiator. They are adopting practices as calling each shopper a "guest". The store atmosphere should match the basic motivations of the shopper. If target consumers are more likely to be in a task-oriented and functional mindset, then a simpler, more restrained in-store environment may be better. Consistent with this reasoning, some retailers of experiential products are creating in-store entertainment to attract customers who want fun and excitement. The retail experience must deliver value to turn a one-time visitor into a loyal customer. Retailers need a tool that measures the full range of components that define experience-based value. This study uses an experiential value scale(EVS) developed by Mathwick, Malhotra and Rigdon(2001) which reflects the benefits derived from perceptions of playfulness, aesthetics, customer "return on investment" and service excellence. EVS is useful to predict differences in shopping preferences and patronage behavior of customers. EVS consists of items measuring efficiency, economic value, visual appeal, entertainment value, service excellence, escapism, and intrinsic enjoyment, which are subscales of experiencial value. Efficiency, economic value, service excellence are linked to the utilitarian shopping value. And visual appeal, entertainment value, escapism and intrinsic enjoyment are linked to hedonic shopping value. It has been found that consumers value hedonic experiences activated from escapism and attractiveness of shopping environment as much as the product quality, price, and the convenient location. As a result, many department stores, discount stores, and other retailers are introducing differential marketing strategy based on emotional/hedonic values. Many researches suggest that consumers go shopping not only for buying products but also for various shopping experiences. In other words, they seek the practical, rational value as well as social, recreational values in the shopping process(Babin et al, 1994; Bloch et al, 1994). Retailers may enhance buyer's loyalty to store by providing excellent emotional/hedonic value such as the excitement from shopping, not just the practical value of buying good products efficiently. We investigate the effect of perceived shopping values on the emotional experience and store loyalty based on the EVS(Experiential Value Scales) developed by Holbrook(1994), Mathwick, Malhotra and Rigdon(2001). This study assumes that the relative effect of shopping value dimensions on the responses of shoppers will differ according to types of stores and analyzes the moderating effect of store type(department store VS. discount store) on the causal relationship between shopping value dimensions and store loyalty. Emprical results show that utilitarian values of shopping experience and hedonic value of shipping experience give the positive effect on the emotional response of consumers and store loyalty. We also found the moderating effect of store types. The effect of utilitarian shopping values on the attitude toward discount store is higher than the effect of utilitarian shopping values on the attitude toword department store. And the effect of hedonic shopping value on the emotional response to discount store is higher than on the emotional response to department store. The empirical results reflect on the recent trend that discount stores try to fulfill the hedonic needs of consumers as well as utilitarian needs(i.e, low price) that discount stores traditionally have focused on

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.44-56
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• 2009

Impulse purchasing is defined as an immediate purchase with no pre-shopping intentions. Previous studies of impulse buying have focused primarily on factors linked to marketing mix variables, situational factors, and consumer demographics and traits. In previous studies, marketing mix variables such as product category, product type, and atmospheric factors including advertising, coupons, sales events, promotional stimuli at the point of sale, and media format have been used to evaluate product information. Some authors have also focused on situational factors surrounding the consumer. Factors such as the availability of credit card usage, time available, transportability of the products, and the presence and number of shopping companions were found to have a positive impact on impulse buying and/or impulse tendency. Research has also been conducted to evaluate the effects of individual characteristics such as the age, gender, and educational level of the consumer, as well as perceived crowding, stimulation, and the need for touch, on impulse purchasing. In summary, previous studies have found that all products can be purchased impulsively (Vohs and Faber, 2007), that situational factors affect and/or at least facilitate impulse purchasing behavior, and that various individual traits are closely linked to impulse buying. The recent introduction of new distribution channels such as home shopping channels, discount stores, and Internet stores that are open 24 hours a day increases the probability of impulse purchasing. However, previous literature has focused predominantly on situational and marketing variables and thus studies that consider critical consumer characteristics are still lacking. To fill this gap in the literature, the present study builds on this third tradition of research and focuses on individual trait variables, which have rarely been studied. More specifically, the current study investigates whether impulse buying tendency has a positive impact on impulse buying behavior, and evaluates how consumer characteristics such as the need for cognitive closure (NFCC), psychological wellbeing, and susceptibility to interpersonal influences affect the tendency of consumers towards impulse buying. The survey results reveal that while consumer affective impulsivity has a strong positive impact on impulse buying behavior, cognitive impulsivity has no impact on impulse buying behavior. Furthermore, affective impulse buying tendency is driven by sub-components of NFCC such as decisiveness and discomfort with ambiguity, psychological wellbeing constructs such as environmental control and purpose in life, and by normative and informational influences. In addition, cognitive impulse tendency is driven by sub-components of NFCC such as decisiveness, discomfort with ambiguity, and close-mindedness, and the psychological wellbeing constructs of environmental control, as well as normative and informational influences. The present study has significant theoretical implications. First, affective impulsivity has a strong impact on impulse purchase behavior. Previous studies based on affectivity and flow theories proposed that low to moderate levels of impulsivity are driven by reduced self-control or a failure of self-regulatory mechanisms. The present study confirms the above proposition. Second, the present study also contributes to the literature by confirming that impulse buying tendency can be viewed as a two-dimensional concept with both affective and cognitive dimensions, and illustrates that impulse purchase behavior is explained mainly by affective impulsivity, not by cognitive impulsivity. Third, the current study accommodates new constructs such as psychological wellbeing and NFCC as potential influencing factors in the research model, thereby contributing to the existing literature. Fourth, by incorporating multi-dimensional concepts such as psychological wellbeing and NFCC, more diverse aspects of consumer information processing can be evaluated. Fifth, the current study also extends the existing literature by confirming the two competing routes of normative and informational influences. Normative influence occurs when individuals conform to the expectations of others or to enhance his/her self-image. Whereas informational influence occurs when individuals search for information from knowledgeable others or making inferences based upon observations of the behavior of others. The present study shows that these two competing routes of social influence can be attributed to different sources of influence power. The current study also has many practical implications. First, it suggests that people with affective impulsivity may be primary targets to whom companies should pay closer attention. Cultivating a more amenable and mood-elevating shopping environment will appeal to this segment. Second, the present results demonstrate that NFCC is closely related to the cognitive dimension of impulsivity. These people are driven by careless thoughts, not by feelings or excitement. Rational advertising at the point of purchase will attract these customers. Third, people susceptible to normative influences are another potential target market. Retailers and manufacturers could appeal to this segment by advertising their products and/or services as products that can be used to identify with or conform to the expectations of others in the aspiration group. However, retailers should avoid targeting people susceptible to informational influences as a segment market. These people are engaged in an extensive information search relevant to their purchase, and therefore more elaborate, long-term rational advertising messages, which can be internalized into these consumers' thought processes, will appeal to this segment. The current findings should be interpreted with caution for several reasons. The study used a small convenience sample, and only investigated behavior in two dimensions. Accordingly, future studies should incorporate a sample with more diverse characteristics and measure different aspects of behavior. Future studies should also investigate personality traits closely related to affectivity theories. Trait variables such as sensory curiosity, interpersonal curiosity, and atmospheric responsiveness are interesting areas for future investigation.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.141-170
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• 2010

User created content (UCC) is created and shared by common users on line. From the user's perspective, the increase of UCCs has led to an expansion of alternative means of communications, while from the business perspective UCCs have formed an environment in which an abundant amount of new contents can be produced. Despite outward quantitative growth, however, many aspects of UCCs do not meet the expectations of general users in terms of quality, and this can be observed through pirated contents and user-copied contents. The purpose of this research is to investigate effective methods for fostering production of creative user-generated content. This study proposes two core elements, namely, reward and motivation, which are believed to enhance content creativity as well as the mediating factor and users' committement, which will be effective for bridging the increasing motivation and content creativity. Based on this perspective, this research takes an in-depth look at issues related to constructing the dimensions of reward and motivation in UCC services for creative content product, which are identified in three phases. First, three dimensions of rewards have been proposed: task dimension, social dimension, and organizational dimention. The task dimension rewards are related to the inherent characteristics of a task such as writing blog articles and pasting photos. Four concrete ways of providing task-related rewards in UCC environments are suggested in this study, which include skill variety, task significance, task identity, and autonomy. The social dimensioni rewards are related to the connected relationships among users. The organizational dimension consists of monetary payoff and recognition from others. Second, the two types of motivations are suggested to be affected by the diverse rewards schemes: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation occurs when people create new UCC contents for its' own sake, whereas extrinsic motivation occurs when people create new contents for other purposes such as fame and money. Third, commitments are suggested to work as important mediating variables between motivation and content creativity. We believe commitments are especially important in online environments because they have been found to exert stronger impacts on the Internet users than other relevant factors do. Two types of commitments are suggested in this study: emotional commitment and continuity commitment. Finally, content creativity is proposed as the final dependent variable in this study. We provide a systematic method to measure the creativity of UCC content based on the prior studies in creativity measurement. The method includes expert evaluation of blog pages posted by the Internet users. In order to test the theoretical model of our study, 133 active blog users were recruited to participate in a group discussion as well as a survey. They were asked to fill out a questionnaire on their commitment, motivation and rewards of creating UCC contents. At the same time, their creativity was measured by independent experts using Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Finally, two independent users visited the study participants' blog pages and evaluated their content creativity using the Creative Products Semantic Scale. All the data were compiled and analyzed through structural equation modeling. We first conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to validate the measurement model of our research. It was found that measures used in our study satisfied the requirement of reliability, convergent validity as well as discriminant validity. Given the fact that our measurement model is valid and reliable, we proceeded to conduct a structural model analysis. The results indicated that all the variables in our model had higher than necessary explanatory powers in terms of R-square values. The study results identified several important reward shemes. First of all, skill variety, task importance, task identity, and automony were all found to have significant influences on the intrinsic motivation of creating UCC contents. Also, the relationship with other users was found to have strong influences upon both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Finally, the opportunity to get recognition for their UCC work was found to have a significant impact on the extrinsic motivation of UCC users. However, different from our expectation, monetary compensation was found not to have a significant impact on the extrinsic motivation. It was also found that commitment was an important mediating factor in UCC environment between motivation and content creativity. A more fully mediating model was found to have the highest explanation power compared to no-mediation or partially mediated models. This paper ends with implications of the study results. First, from the theoretical perspective this study proposes and empirically validates the commitment as an important mediating factor between motivation and content creativity. This result reflects the characteristics of online environment in which the UCC creation activities occur voluntarily. Second, from the practical perspective this study proposes several concrete reward factors that are germane to the UCC environment, and their effectiveness to the content creativity is estimated. In addition to the quantitive results of relative importance of the reward factrs, this study also proposes concrete ways to provide the rewards in the UCC environment based on the FGI data that are collected after our participants finish asnwering survey questions. Finally, from the methodological perspective, this study suggests and implements a way to measure the UCC content creativity independently from the content generators' creativity, which can be used later by future research on UCC creativity. In sum, this study proposes and validates important reward features and their relations to the motivation, commitment, and the content creativity in UCC environment, which is believed to be one of the most important factors for the success of UCC and Web 2.0. As such, this study can provide significant theoretical as well as practical bases for fostering creativity in UCC contents.