Earticle

Blog have become very popular with Internet users as one of the latest forms of online communication as well as knowledge sharing tools. However, blogs generate growing concerns regarding information privacy issues. This study, based on social exchange theory, presents results about bloggers’ information sharing behavior. The 157 surveys are collected from a large university in the eastern U.S. The survey results indicate that trust which has four second order factors: economy based trust, trust in reciprocity, trust in other bloggers and trust in social interaction positively affects bloggers’information sharing behavior. However, online information privacy concerns have a negative impact on the relationship between trust and bloggers’ information sharing behavior.

The multifarious array of benefits to the e-Government systems research, from evaluative frameworks and conceptual models to guidelines for initiatives, adoption, and assimilation, evidences the requirement, both from the researcher's and the practitioner's standpoint, of sound theoretical foundations that can be applied directly in practice. Grounded upon structuration theory, this paper proposes a framework for e-Government systems assimilation through the structuration of its organizational factors. Upon this proposition, we map the factors of e-Government systems assimilation with the organizational meta-structures of signification, domination and legitimization. The framework is then tested for the case of one particular e-Government systems of Korean government. The juxtaposition of the theoretical position and the practical findings leads us to isolate the organizational, technological, and inter-organizational factors that shape the meta-structures for the assimilation of e-Government systems. This framework offers interesting possibilities to researchers in exploring the relationships and insights into the complex interactions that shape the relationships among government, people and technology. Thus, the paper's contribution lies on three axes: first, the furthering of a theoretical perspective of e-Government systems assimilation; second, a detailed exposition of the structuration theory and an illustration of its application to the issues of e-Government systems assimilation in the organizational context; and finally, developed framework through the isolation of a usable set of theoretically grounded factors affecting e-Government systems assimilation that can be applied in future research and practice.

Security has been considered one of the most critical issues for managing IT resources in many organizations. Despite a growing interest and extensive research on security at various levels, little research has focused on the comparison of security knowledge levels between different cultures. The current study investigates and compares the security knowledge level between Korea and the U.S. Based on the literature review of spyware, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, and security knowledge, this study identifies three constructs (i.e., security familiarity, spyware awareness, and spyware knowledge) to examine the difference of security knowledge levels between Korea and the U.S. Six hundred ninety-six respondents from Korea and the U.S. participated in the survey, and an in-depth analysis based on analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was carried out. The results show that the levels of security familiarity, spyware awareness, and spyware knowledge are significantly lower in Korea than in the U.S., as expected. These findings present a significant association between national culture and security knowledge, and the degree of individualism (or collectivism) plays an especially critical role in the perception of security. A number of implications for academia and practitioners emerge. Limitations and future research directions are discussed in the conclusion.

Within the traditional medical delivery system, patients residing in medically vulnerable areas, those with body movement difficulties, and nursing facility residents have had limited access to good healthcare services. However, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) provides us with a convenient and useful means of overcoming distance and time constraints. ICT is integrated with biomedical science and technology in a way that offers a new high-quality medical service. As a result, rapid technological advancement is expected to play a pivotal role bringing about innovation in a wide range of medical service areas, such as medical management, testing, diagnosis, and treatment; offering new and improved healthcare services; and effecting dramatic changes in current medical services. The increase in aging population and chronic diseases has caused an increase in medical expenses. In response to the increasing demand for efficient healthcare services, a telehealth service based on ICT is being emphasized on a global level. Telehealth services have been implemented especially in pilot projects and system development and technological research. With the service about to be implemented in earnest, it is necessary to study its overall acceptance by consumers, which is expected to contribute to the development and activation of a variety of services. In this sense, the study aims at positively examining the structural relationship among the acceptance factors for telehealth services based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Data were collected by showing audiovisual material on telehealth services to online panels and requesting them to respond to a structured questionnaire sheet, which is known as the information acceleration method. Among the 1,165 adult respondents, 608 valid samples were finally chosen, while the remaining were excluded because of incomplete answers or allotted time overrun. In order to test the reliability and validity of the assessment scale items, we carried out reliability and factor analyses, and in order to explore the causal relation among potential variables, we conducted a structural equation modeling analysis using AMOS 7.0 and SPSS 17.0. The research outcomes are as follows. First, service quality, innovativeness of medical technology, and social influence were shown to affect perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of the telehealth service, which was statistically significant, and the two factors had a positive impact on willingness to accept the telehealth service. In addition, social influence had a direct, significant effect on intention to use, which is paralleled by the TAM used in previous research on technology acceptance. This shows that the research model proposed in the study effectively explains the acceptance of the telehealth service. Second, the research model reveals that information privacy concerns had a insignificant impact on perceived ease of use of the telehealth service. From this, it can be gathered that the concerns over information protection and security are reduced further due to advancements in information technology compared to the initial period in the information technology industry, and thus the improvement in quality of medical services appeared to ensure that information privacy concerns did not act as a prohibiting factor in the acceptance of the telehealth service. Thus, if other factors have an enormous impact on ease of use and usefulness, concerns over these results in the initial period of technology acceptance may become irrelevant. However, it is clear that users’ information privacy concerns, as other studies have revealed, is a major factor affecting technology acceptance. Thus, caution must be exercised while interpreting the result, and further study is required on the issue. Numerous information technologies with outstanding performance and innovativeness often attract few consumers. A revised bill for those urgently in need of telehealth services is about to be approved in the national assembly. As telemedicine is implemented between doctors and patients, a wide range of systems that will improve the quality of healthcare services will be designed. In this sense, the study on the consumer acceptance of telehealth services is meaningful and offers strong academic evidence. Based on the implications, it can be expected to contribute to the activation of telehealth services. Further study is needed to assess the acceptance factors for telehealth services, such as motivation to remain healthy, health care involvement, knowledge on health, and control of health-related behavior, in order to develop unique services according to the categorization of customers based on health factors. In addition, further study may focus on various theoretical cognitive behavior models other than the TAM, such as the health belief model.