Earticle

초록

영어

Lots of virtual communities and online businesses presently derive their primary sources of revenues through advertising, but nevertheless are plagued with marginal profitability though they might possess a significant user base. In the light of the need for an efficacious business model, there have been recent insights of an online community in particular reaping profits through an innovative and lucrative revenue generation method that earns by selling digital items.
There have been some obvious evidences (e.g., Cyworld, SecondLife, Habo Hotel, etc.) that online communities can be profitable through their unique business model of selling digital items. However, there is lack of understanding about the motivation of purchasing digital items. This study tries to identify the main motivators of digital item purchases based on social/individual identity theory and self-presentation theory.
”Digital items”, otherwise known as ”virtual assets”, may include online avatars, accessories for the avatars, decorative ornaments like furniture, digital wallpapers, skins, background music and virtual weapons used for Internet games. These digital items are employed by users for representation and articulation in the online space, especially to create and enhance their online profiles in web pages and games. Prices for digital items typically range from a few cents to a few dollars each.
Based on the theoretical framework like social identity theory and self-presentation theory, we developed the research model and proposed seven hypotheses. An analysis of 225 members of Cyworld found that digital item purchase intention in virtual world is affected by both members' need for self-presentation and need for affiliation. We also found that the need for self-presentation is significantly increased by innovativeness of members, community group norm, and community involvement. We concluded that the need for self-presentation could be a key variable for profitable business model in online community service industry.
However, neither individual self-efficacy nor the need for affiliation significantly influenced the need for self-presentation which triggers purchase intention of digital items.
In term of the theoretical and practical contribution, this study can be a pioneering empirical research that investigates the purchase intention of digital items based on social identity theory and self-presentation theory in the online context. Also, the findings of our study are valuable and practical for practitioners in the market who wish to adopt or improve the business model of selling digital items in an online community.
From the findings, it can be seen that innovativeness of users, community group norm, and community involvement are three significant factors that influence need for self-presentation of users which ultimately leads to their intentions to buy digital items. These findings put forth that virtual community providers and online businesses selling digital items should prioritize their efforts and focus on these three factors if they want to increase the sales of these digital items and generate greater revenues.
This study provides important implications for academic researchers and practitioners to understand why the community members pay money for their digital items in virtual world and how the practitioners can increase the sales of digital items in an online community. A couple of limitations of the study and futureresearch directions are also discussed.

목차

Abstract
 Ⅰ. 서론
 Ⅱ. 이론적 배경
  2.1 온라인 커뮤니티
  2.2 이론적 프레임워크
  2.3 온라인 공간에서의 아이덴티티 표출
 Ⅲ. 연구모형 및 가설
  3.1 연구모형
  3.2 가설 제시
 Ⅳ. 연구방법론
  4.1 자료수집 및 표본
  4.2 연구변수의 조작적 정의와 측정방법
  4.3 측정항목의 타당성 및 신뢰성 검토
 Ⅴ. 자료분석 및 가설검정
  5.1 연구모형의 적합도 검증
  5.2 연구가설 검정
 Ⅵ. 토의 및 결론
  6.1 연구결과 토의
  6.2 연구시사점
  6.3 연구한계점 및 향후방향
 참고문헌

저자

• 고준 [ Joon Koh | 전남대학교 경영대학 경영학부 조교수 ]
• 신선진 [ Seon-Jin Shin | 세계한상문화연구소 전임연구원 ]
• 김희웅 [ Hee-Woong Kim | 싱가포르국립대학교 정보시스템학부 조교수 ]

참고문헌