Jong-Youn Rha

The Internet and the Consumer: Countervailing Power Revisited

The Internet is a tool with the potential to enable consumers to effectively participate in collective bargaining in the marketplace. The purpose of this paper is to address the viability of the concept of countervailing power in the Internet era. First, some theoretical perspectives on how on-line consumer networks have the potential to be a new source of countervailing power are introduced. Next, the potential for consumer countervailing power in the Internet era is discussed. A case study that illustrates the viability of the propositions is then presented. Finally, implications and limitations of the paper are briefly discussed: if the potential for countervailing power can be established, then the circumstances under which collective bargaining would occur and the determinants of its outcome would be of vital interest to consumer economists and policy makers.

Sharing Topics in Pinterest: Understanding Content Creation and Diffusion Behaviors

Pinterest provides a social curation service where people can collect, organize, and share content (pins in Pinterest) that reflect their interests. This paper investigates (1) the differences in pinning (i.e., the act of posting a pin) and repinning (i.e., the act of sharing other users pin) behaviors by topics and user gender, and (2) the relations among topics in Pinterest. We conduct a measurement study using a large-scale dataset (1.6 M pins shared by 1.1 M users) in Pinterest. We show that there is a notable discrepancy between pinning and repinning behaviors on different topics. We also show that male and female users show different behaviors on different topics in terms of dedication, responsiveness, and sentiment. By introducing the notion of a Topic Network (TN) whose nodes are topics and are linked if they share common users, we analyze how topics are related to one another, which can give a valuable implication on topic demand forecasting or cross-topic advertisement. Lastly, we explore the implications of our findings for predicting a users interests and behavioral patterns in Pinterest.

From a Literature Review to a Conceptual Framework, Issues and Challenges for Smart Campus

Abstract With the development of information and communication technologies, a new paradigm in higher education is required. Accordingly, establishing a smart campus has emerged as an important issue in universities worldwide. This study aims to discuss key issues and to provide useful academical and practical implications on smart campus by reviewing related literatures. For this purpose, this study examined recent literatures on smart campus by four research perspectives; 1) learning/knowledge-centric approach, 2) technology-centric approach, 3) integrated approach, and 4) user-centric approach, then developed smart campus framework. Smart campus user criteria contained members of university as well as local community and business stockholders. Smart campus framework presented specific service areas each belongs to smart education, smart life and smart administration domains and motivating factors of using smart campus. Moreover, by considering key issues and problems raised in previous studies, this study suggested practical implications for successful development of smart campus.

Which Factors Could Affect Financial Consumer Problems Experience? - Convergence Approach of both Technical Information and Subjective Competency

Abstract In the modern society, as development innovative technology consumers could access various information. It make consumers empower in the market, and information asymmetry problem were solving more and more. In the technical information, however, there are still information asymmetry because technical information is very difficult to understand , and those are related with professional knowledge such as financial information. This study used the dataset which was collected to track Korean consumers consumption index by KCA(Korea Consumer Agency) which included consumer’s problem experience at financial field. The results are followings. Firstly, consumers want to get exact and important information to decide purchase or not and comparative information in technical information area. Secondly, age is the influence variable to experience more problems in technical information section. Thirdly, consumer’s subjective financial competency is major influence factor to reduce problem experience.

The Effects of Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Enjoyment on Smartwatch Adoption and the Moderating Role of Consumer Inertia

웹기반 교육방식의 e-learning은 초등학교 교육, 고등학교 교육, 대학교육, 기업교육, 평생교육 분야로 급속히 확산되고 있다. 특히, 초등학생, 중등학생, 고등학생을 대상으로 e-learning 교육 서비스를 제공하는 기업들도 늘어나고 있는 실정이다. 본 연구는 효과적인 교육수단으로써 각광 받고 있는 웹 기반 원격교육에서 국내 고등학생을 대상으로 e-러닝교육 특성이 지각된 사용용이성과 지각된 유용성을 중심으로 학습 성과에 유의한 영향을 주는지를 구조방정식을 이용하여 실증적으로 분석하였다. 본 연구를 위하여 기존의 문헌연구를 통해 가설을 도출하고 국내 웹 기반 원격교육업체에 등록된 고등학생 이용자를 대상으로 설문을 실시하였으며, 293개의 표본을 대상으로 SPSS/AMOS 구조방정식모형을 이용하여 실증적 분석을 실시하였다. 실증 분석의 결과 웹 기반 원격교육의 전문성과 오락성 모두 지각된 사용용이성과 지각된 유용성에 모두 유의한 결과를 보여주고 학업성취도에 유의한 결과를 가져왔다. 웹 기반 원격교육의 접근성은 지각된 사용용이성과 지각된 유용성에 모두 유의하지 않은 결과를 보여주고 있다. 콘텐츠의 오락성은 지각된 유용성과 지각된 사용용이성 모두에게 긍정적 영향을 보여주고 있어, 콘텐츠 제작자들이 학습에 흥미를 일으킬 수 있는 콘텐츠 제작이 더욱 필요하리라 판단된다. 또한 고등학생들에도 지각된 사용용이성과 지각된 유용성 모두 웹 기반 원격교육의 학업성취도에 긍정적 영향을 보이고 있음을 알 수 있다. 본 연구의 효과는 기술수용모델(TAM)에서 지각된 사용용이성 및 지각된 유용성이 태도와 사용의도, 실제사용에 유의한 영향을 미치는 많은 연구결과를 기초로 하여 국내 고등학생의 웹 기반 원격교육에서도 응용적용이 될 수 있음을 알 수 있다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 국내 고등학생을 대상으로 하는 웹 기반 원격교육 서비스 정책수립과 교수학습 모델의 개발을 위한 실증적인 자료를 제공하고 있다. 특히 청소년 대상 지식서비스 산업 성장을 위하여 웹 기반 학습시스템의 활성화 및 다양한 정책지원과 이를 제공하는 기업의 전문적이고 질 높고 오락성이 풍부한 학습콘텐츠가 개발되어야 국내 고등학교 학습자들의 학업성취도가 더욱 증가 할 것으로 보인다. 이에 대한 정부지원과 기업들의 적극적인 참여와 활동이 필요하다고 사료된다.

Privacy Leakage in Event-based Social Networks: A Meetup Case Study

Event-based social networks (EBSNs) are increasingly popular since they provide platforms on which online and offline activities are combined. Despite the increasing interest in EBSNs, little research has paid attention to the privacy issues coming from the unique features of EBSNs; the on-site information of users is highly relevant to real lives. In this paper, we try to investigate privacy leakages in Meetup, one of the most popular EBSN service. More specifically, we answer what private information can be inferred from the sites publicly available data. To this end, we conduct a measurement study by crawling webpages from Meetup containing 240K groups, 8.9M users, 27M group affiliations and 78M topical interests. By analyzing the dataset, we find that LGBT status of users, which is one of the most sensitive privacy information, can be predicted with 93% accuracy. Finally we discuss the cause of the privacy leakage on EBSNs and its possible ensuing damages.

The Study of Moderated Mediating Model on SEM: Focusing on Expectancy Disconfirmation, Satisfaction and Continuous Usage Intention of LBS Application

This study examined the concept and usage moderated mediating model in structural equation modeling. The theoretical model and hypothesis were developed based on the Location-Based applications Expectancy disconfirmation, Location-Based applications satisfaction, Location-Based applications continuous usage intention, service trust. The statistical results of the two model were compared: one was free model(positive/negative) and the other was the Moderated Mediating Model(positive/negative). A structure equation model analysis was carried out to test the research model. Further studies are necessary to Ssupport the research hypotheses.

How Consumers Perceive Online Behavioral Advertising: Consumer Typology and Determining Factors

This study aims 1) to identify distinctive consumer groups according to their perception of benefits and costs of Online Behavioral Advertising(OBA), 2) to explore differences among them, and 3) to investigate antecedent variables that affect the consumers` perception of OBA. Online survey data collected from 1,000 online users. The findings of this study are as follows. First, the result of cluster analysis identified four distinctive consumer groups according to the levels of perceived benefits and costs of OBA: `Indifferent group`, `cost-centered group`, `benefit-centered group`, and `Benefit-cost balanced group`. Second, four consumer groups showed differences in their demographics, advertising related variables, privacy related variables, and technology related variables. Third, according to multinomial logistic analysis, it was found that there were different factors affecting consumers` perception of benefits and costs of OBA.

The Effect of Privacy Concerns and Consumer Trust on Consumer Response to Online Behavioral Advertising for Travel Products

Abstract Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA) is the practice of tailoring advertising based on an individual’s online activities such as searching keywords and visiting websites. The purpose of this study is to develop a conceptual model for the OBA of travel products and examine the influence of privacy concerns and consumer trust on the acceptance of tourism OBA. Using data from 500 respondents from South Korea, hypothesized relationships were tested by Structural Equation Modeling. The results show that perceived entertainment, perceived informativeness, and perceived personalization had positive effects on attitudes towards OBA, whereas perceived irritation had a negative effect. Also, the results indicate that consumers’ privacy concerns and trust have significant impact on consumers’ intention to click on tourism OBA. Implications for management practice and further research are discussed.