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In information systems, “trust” and “risk” have been explored by a few trust-related research studies before, but as two separate issues. The way in which these studies have been designed, however, does not help clarify the relationship between trust and risk since they are studied as unconnected determinants of trusting behavior in electronic commerce. As such, this research attempts to examine and specify the relationships among the core constructs surrounding the issue of trust such as risk and trusting behavior. The context of Internet banking adoption is used to develop a conceptual model that incorporates the direct effects of trust and perceived risk on trusting behavior as well as the mediation of the relationship between trust and trusting behavior by perceived risk.The findings show that perceived risk mediates the relationship between trust and trusting behavior. Specifically, trust in the Internet as a banking medium significantly influences the adoption of Internet banking both directly and indirectly through perceived risk of Internet banking. Trust that the bank will not take advant-age of consumers significantly influences the trusting behavior through perceived risk of Internet banking. This study, thus, extends research on trust in e-commerce by simultaneously examining the influence of trust and perceived risk on e-commerce adoption.

Advances in technology have resulted in the emergence of new information systems. The convergence of IT and manufacturing sectors has blurred the boundaries among industries. Also, such convergence has become established as a paradigm to build a new area. Especially the convergence of broadcasting and telecommunication, notably in the case of IPTV (Internet Protocol Television), is among the most salient exam-ples of its kind in recent years as a major case of disruptive technology innovation. Despite its much fanfare, such convergence, however, has not fulfilled the expectation; it has not produced positive economic effects while negatively affecting the growth of IPTV. Stakeholders in and around IPTV including telecommunication companies, broadcasting corporations, and government bodies wish to gain control of IPTV under their wings. IPTV has drifted in the midst of conflicts among the stakeholders in and around IPTV, particularly tele-communication and broadcasting organizations in a broad sense. Our empirical research intends to deal with how audiences accept IPTV and how firms provide IPTV services to utilize their resources. Three research questions in this paper include, first, whether Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) can sufficiently explain the acceptance of IPTV as an information system. The second question concerns with empirically testing the playful aspect of IPTV to increase its audience acceptance . Last, but not least, this paper deals with how firms can efficiently and effectively allocate their limited resources to increase IPTV viewers.To answer those three main questions of our study, we collect data from 197 current subscribers of high speed internet service and/or cable/satellite television. Empirical results show that 'perceived usefulness (PU) → Intention to use' and 'perceived ease of use (PEU) → Intention to use' are significant. Also, 'perceived ease of use' is significantly related to 'perceived usefulness.' Perceived ease of handling IPTV without much effort can positively influence the perceived value of IPTV. In this regard, engineers and designers of IPTV should pay more attention to the user-friendly interface of IPTV. In addition, 'perceived playfulness (PP)' of IPTV is positively related to 'intention to use'. Flow, fun and entertainment have recently gained greater attention in the research concerned with information systems. Such attention is due to the changing features of information systems in recent years that combine the functional and leisure attributes. These results give practical implications to the design of IPTV that reflects not just leisure but also functional elements. This paper also investigates the relationship between 'perceived ease of use (PEU)' and 'perceived playful-ness (PP)'. PEU is positively related to PP. Audiences without fear can be attracted more easily to the user-friend-ly IPTV, thereby perceiving the fun and entertainment with ease. Practical implications from this finding are that, to attract more interest and involvement from the audience, IPTV needs to be designed with similar or even more user friendly interface. Of the factors related to 'intention to use', 'perceived usefulness (PU)' and 'perceived ease of use (PEU)' have greater impacts than 'perceived playfulness (PP)'. Between PU and PEU, their impacts on 'intention to use' are not significantly different statistically. Managerial implications of this finding are that firms in preparation for the launch of IPTV service should prioritize the functions and interface of IPTV. This empirical paper also provides further insight into the ways in which firms can strategically allocate their limited resources so as to appeal to viewers, both current and potential, of IPTV.

Developing an agile recommender system for nomadic users has been regarded as a promising application in mobile and ubiquitous settings. To increase the quality of personalized recommendation in terms of accuracy and elapsed time, estimating future context of the user in a correct way is highly crucial. Traditionally, time series analysis and Makovian process have been adopted for such forecasting. However, these methods are not adequate in predicting context data, only because most of context data are represented as nominal scale. To resolve these limitations, the alignment-prediction algorithm has been suggested for context pre-diction, especially for future context from the low-level context. Recently, an ontological approach has been proposed for guided context prediction without context history. However, due to variety of context information, acquiring sufficient context prediction knowledge a priori is not easy in most of service domains. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to propose a novel context prediction methodology, which does not require a priori knowledge, and to increase accuracy and decrease elapsed time for service response. To do so, we have newly developed pattern-based context prediction approach. First of all, a set of individual rules is derived from each context attribute using context history. Then a pattern consisted of results from reasoning individual rules, is developed for pattern learning. If at least one context property matches, say R, then regard the pattern as right. If the pattern is new, add right pattern, set the value of mismatched properties = 0, freq = 1 and w(R,1). Otherwise, increase the frequency of the matched right pattern by 1 and then set w(R,freq). After finishing training, if the frequency is greater than a threshold value, then save the right pattern in knowledge base. On the other hand, if at least one context property matches, say W, then regard the pattern as wrong. If the pattern is new, modify the result into wrong answer, add right pattern, and set frequency to 1 and w(W,1). Or, increase the matched wrong pattern’s frequency by 1 and then set w(W,freq). After finishing training, if the frequency value is greater than a threshold level, then save the wrong pattern on the knowledge basis. Then, context prediction is performed with combinatorial rules as follows: first, identify current context. Second, find matched patterns from right patterns. If there is no pattern matched, then find a matching pattern from wrong patterns. If a matching pattern is not found, then choose one context property whose predictability is higher than that of any other properties. To show the feasibility of the methodology proposed in this paper, we collected actual context history from the travelers who had visited the largest amusement park in Korea. As a result, 400 context records were collected in 2009. Then we randomly selected 70% of the records as training data. The rest were selected as testing data.To examine the performance of the methodology, prediction accuracy and elapsed time were chosen as measures. We compared the performance with case-based reasoning and voting methods. Through a simulation test, we conclude that our methodology is clearly better than CBR and voting methods in terms of accuracy and elapsed time. This shows that the methodology is relatively valid and scalable. As a second round of the experiment, we compared a full model to a partial model. A full model indicates that right and wrong patterns are used for reasoning the future context. On the other hand, a partial model means that the reasoning is performed only with right patterns, which is generally adopted in the legacy alignment-prediction method. It turned out that a full model is better than a partial model in terms of the accuracy while partial model is better when considering elapsed time. As a last experiment, we took into our consideration potential privacy problems that might arise among the users. To mediate such concern, we excluded such context properties as date of tour and user profiles such as gender and age. The outcome shows that preserving privacy is endurable. Contributions of this paper are as follows: First, academically, we have improved sequential matching meth-ods to predict accuracy and service time by considering individual rules of each context property and learning from wrong patterns. Second, the proposed method is found to be quite effective for privacy preserving applications, which are frequently required by B2C context-aware services; the privacy preserving system applying the proposed method successfully can also decrease elapsed time. Hence, the method is very practical in establishing privacy preserving context-aware services. Our future research issues taking into account some limitations in this paper can be summarized as follows. First, user acceptance or usability will be tested with actual users in order to prove the value of the prototype system. Second, we will apply the proposed method to more general application domains as this paper focused on tourism in amusement park.

We investigated what factors motivate gamers to participate in a guild and why they continue to be engaged as members of the guild. We find that, based on the result of focus group interviews with MMORPG gamers, social support and self-esteem factors play important roles. Considering both prior research and the focus group interviews we have conducted, we define social support and character control as in-dependent variables. Character identity, guild identity, and self-esteem are proposed as mediating variables while guild flow and game loyalty as dependent variables. Accordingly, we develop the research model and hypotheses, and verify them empirically.Based on our experiences of playing the WoW game, we proposed a research model and conducted focus-group interviews (FGIs). FGIs involve formulating a hypothesis and then collecting some relevant data. FGIs were conducted face-to-face with students of C University in Korea. We formulated structured interview schedules, and the questions were based on our research variables and personal experiences. The questions for the interviews encompassed the following areas: (a) the demographic characteristics of the focus group; (b) the number of years for which respondents had played online games; (c) the motive for starting a game; (d) the number of game-characters assumed by each gamer; (e) the type of game played; and (f) other issues such as the reasons for involvement in the play, the willingness to reuse the game in case new versions were released, etc. On average, it took two hours to interview each of three groups. A primary set of FGIs was conducted with three groups on the premise that there would be some differences caused by character race (Horde vs. Alliance) or by playable server (Normal vs. Combat). With respect to the manner of playing, we found that guild members shared information, felt a sense of belonging, and played computer games for quite a long time through the guild; however, they did not undergo these experiences when playing alone. Gamers who belonged to a specific guild helped other players without expecting compensation for that, freely shared information about the game, gave away items for free, and more generous with other members who made mistakes. The guild members were aware of the existence other members and experi-enced a sense of belonging through interactions with, and evaluations from, other players. It was clear that social support was shown within the guild and that it played an important role as a major research variable. Based on the results of the first FGIs, a second set of in-depth FGIs was carried out with a focus on the psychology of the individual within the guild and the social community of the guild. The second set of FGIs also focused on the guild’s offline meetings. Gamers, over all, recognize the necessity of joining a community, not only off-line but also online world of the guild. They admit that the guild is important for them to easily and conveniently enjoy playing online computer games. The active behavior and positive attitudes of existing guild members can motivate new members of the guild to adapt themselves to the guild environment. They then adopt the same behaviors and attitudes of established guild members. In this manner, the new members of the guild strengthen the bonds with other gamers while feeling a sense of belonging, and developing social identity, thereby. It was discovered that the interaction among guild members and the social support encouraged new gamers to quickly develop a sense of social identity and increase their self-esteem. The guild seemed to play the role of socializing gamers. Sometimes, even in the real world, the guild members helped one another; therefore, the features of the guild also spilled over to the offline environment. We intend to use self-esteem, which was found through the second set of FGIs, as an important research variable.To collect data, an online survey was designed with a questionnaire to be completed by WoW gamers, who belong to a guild. The survey was registered on the best three domestic game-sites: ‘WoW playforum,’ ‘WoW gamemeca,’ and ‘Wow invent.’ The selected items to be measured in the questionnaire were decided based on prior research and data from FGIs. To verify the content of the questionnaire, we carried out a pilot test with the same participants to point out ambiguous questions as a way to ensure maximum accuracy of the survey result. A total of 244 responses were analyzed from the 250 completed questionnaires. The SEM analysis was used to test goodness-of-fit of the model. As a result, we found important results as follows: First, according to the statistics, social support had statisti-cally significant impacts on character control, character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Second, char-acter control had significant effects on character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Third, character identity shows its clear impact on self-esteem and game loyalty. Fourth, guild identity affected self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Fifth, self-esteem had a positive influence on the guild flow. These days, the number of virtual community is rising along with its significance largely because of the nature of the online games. Accordingly, this study is designed to clarify the psychological relationship between gamers within the guild that has been generally established by gamers to play online games together. This study focuses on the relationships in which social support influences guild flow or game loyalty through character control, character identity, guild identity, and self-esteem, which are present within a guild in the MMORPG game environment. The study results are as follows. First, the effects of social support on character control, character identity, guild identity and self-esteem are proven to be statistically significant. It was found that character control improves character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Among the seven variables, social support, which is derived from FGIs, plays an important role in this study. With the active support of other guild members, gamers can improve their ability to develop good characters and to control them. Second, character identity has a positive effect on self-esteem and game loyalty, while guild identity has a significant effect on self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Self-esteem affects guild flow. It was found that the higher the character and guild identities become, the greater the self-esteem is established. Contrary to the findings of prior research, our study results indicate that the relationship between character identity and guild flow is not significant. Rather, it was found that character identity directly affects game players’ loyalty. Even though the character identity had no direct effect on increasing guild flow, it has indirectly affected guild flow through self-esteem. The significant relationship between self-esteem and guild flow in-dicates that gamers achieve flow, i.e., a feeling of pleasure and excitement through social support.Several important implications of this study should be noted. First, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to conduct this study. Through FGIs, it was observed that both social support and self-esteem are important variables. Second, because guilds had been rarely studied, this research is expected to play an important role in the online community. Third, according to the result, six hypotheses (H1, H5, H6, H7, H8, and H11) setup based on FGIs, were statistically significant; thus, we can suggest the corresponding relationships among the variables as a guideline for follow-up research. Our research is significant as it has following implications: first, the social support of the guild members is important when establishing character control, character identity, guildidentity and self-esteem. It is also a major variable that affects guild flow and game loyalty. Second, character control when improved by social support shows notable influence on the development of character identity, guild identity and self-esteem. Third, character identity and guild identity are major factors to help establish gamers' own self-esteem. Fourth, character identity affects guild flow through self-esteem and game loyalty. The gamers usually express them-selves through characters; the higher character identity is, the more loyalty a gamer has. Fifth, guild identity, established within the guild, has clear effects on self-esteem, guild flow and game loyalty. Sixth, qualitative and quantitative methods are employed to conduct this study. Based on the results of focus group interviews and SEM analysis, we find that the social support by guild members and psychological factors are significant in strengthening the flow of guild and loyalty to the game. As such, game developers should provide some extra functions for guild community, through which gamers can play online games in collaboration with one another. Also, we suggest that positive self-esteem which is built up though social support can help gamers achieve higher level of flow and satisfaction, which will consequently contribute to minimizing the possibility for the players to develop negative attitude toward the guild they belong to.

Many firms in Korea have adopted and used advanced information technology in an effort to boost efficiency. The process of adapting to the new technology, at the same time, can vary from one firm to another. As such, this research focuses on several relevant factors, especially the roles of social interaction as a key variable that influences the technology adaptation process and the outcomes. Thus far, how a firm goes through the adaptation process to the new technology has not been yet fully explored. Previous studies on changes undergone by a firm or an organization due to information technology have been pursued from various theoretical points of views, evolved from technological and institutional views to an integrated social technology views. The technology adaptation process has been understood to be something that evolves over time and has been regarded as cycles between misalignments and align-ments, gradually approaching the stable aligned state. The adaptation process of the new technology was defined as “appropriation” process according to Poole and DeSanctis [1994]. They suggested that this process is not automatically determined by the technology design itself. Rather, people actively select how technology structures should be used; accordingly, adoption practices vary. But concepts of the appropriation process in these studies are not accurate while suggested propositions are not clear enough to apply in practice. Furthermore, these studies do not substantially suggest which factors are changed during the appropriation process and what should be done to bring about effective outcomes.Therefore, research objectives of this study lie in finding causes for the difference in ways in which advanced information technology has been used and adopted among organizations. The study also aims to explore how a firm’s interaction with social as well as technological factors affects differently in resulting organizational changes. Detail objectives of this study are as follows. First, this paper primarily focuses on the appropriation process of advanced information technology in the long run, and we look into reasons for the diverse types of the usage. Second, this study is to categorize each phases in the appropriation process and make clear what changes occur and how they are evolved during each phase. Third, this study is to suggest the guidelines to determine which strategies are needed in an individual, group and organizational level. For this, a sub-stantially grounded theory that can be applied to organizational practice has been developed from a longi-tudinal comparative case study.For these objectives, the technology appropriation process was explored based on Structuration Theory by Giddens [1984], Orlikoski and Robey [1991] and Adaptive Structuration Theory by Poole and DeSanctis [1994], which are examples of social technology views on organizational change by technology. Data have been obtained from interviews, observations of medical treatment task, and questionnaires administered to group members who use the technology. Data coding was executed in three steps following the grounded theory approach. First of all, concepts and categories were developed from interviews and observation data in open coding. Next, in axial coding, we related categories to subcategorize along the lines of their properties and dimensions through the paradigm model. Finally, the grounded theory about the appropriation process was developed through the conditional/consequential matrix in selective coding.In this study eight hypotheses about the adaptation process have been clearly articulated. Also, we found that the appropriation process involves through three phases, namely, “direct appropriation,” “cooperate with related structures,” and “interpret and make judgments.” The higher phases of appropriation move, the more users represent various types of instrumental use and attitude. Moreover, the previous structures like “knowledge and experience,” “belief that other members know and accept the use of technology,” “horizontal communication,” and “embodiment of opinion collection process” are evolved to higher degrees in their dimensions of property. Furthermore, users continuously create new spirits and structures, while removing some of the previous ones at the same time. Thus, from longitudinal view, faithful and unfaithful appropriation methods appear recursively, but gradually faithful appropriation takes over the other. In other words, the concept of spirits and structures has been changed in the adaptation process over time for the purpose of alignment between the task and other structures.These findings call for a revised or extended model of structural adaptation in IS (Information Systems) literature now that the vague adaptation process in previous studies has been clarified through the in-depth qualitative study, identifying each phrase with accuracy. In addition, based on these results some guidelines can be set up to help determine which strategies are needed in an individual, group, and organizational level for the purpose of effective technology appropriation. In practice, managers can focus on the changes of spirits and elevation of the structural dimension to achieve effective technology use.

RFID(Radio Frequency IDentification) is a wireless frequency of recognition technology that can be used to recognize, trace, and identify people, things, and animals using radio frequency(RF). RFID will bring about many changes in manufacturing and distributions, among other areas.In accordance with the increasing importance of RFID techniques, great advancement has been made in RFID studies. Initially, the RFID research started as a research literature or case study. Recently, empirical research has floated on the surface for announcement. But most of the existing researches on RFID adop-tion have been restricted to a dichotomous measure of 'adoption vs. non-adoption' or adoption intention. In short, RFID research is still at an initial stage, mainly focusing on the research of the RFID performance, integration, and its usage has been considered dismissive.The purpose of this study is to investigate which factors are important for the RFID adoption and im-plementation with organizational resources. In this study, the organizational resources are classified into ei-ther finance resources or IT knowledge resources. A research model and four hypotheses are set up to identify the relationships among these variables based on the investigations of such theories as techno-logical innovations, adoption stage, and organizational resources.In order to conduct this study, a survey was carried out from September 27, 2008 until October 23, 2008. The questionnaire was completed by 143 managers and workers from physical distribution and manufactur-ing companies related to the RFID in South Korea. 37 out of 180 surveys, which turned out unfit for the study, were discarded and the remaining 143(adoption stage 89, implementation stage 54) were used for the empirical study. The statistics were analyzed using Excel 2003 and SPSS 12.0.The results of the analysis are as follows. First, the adoption stage shows that perceived benefits, stand-ardization, perceived cost savings, environmental uncertainty, and pressures from rival firms have significant effects on the intent of the RFID adoption. Further, the implementation stage shows that perceived bene-fits, standardization, environmental uncertainty, pressures from rival firms, inter-organizational cooperation, and inter-organizational trust have significant effects on the extent of the RFID use. In contrast, inter-organ-izational cooperation and inter-organizational trust did not show much impact on the intent of RFID adop-tion while perceived cost savings did not significantly affect the extent of RFID use. Second, in the adoption stage, financial issues had adverse effect on both inter-organizational coopera-tion and the intent against the RFID adoption. IT knowledge resources also had a deterring effect on both perceived cost savings and the extent of the RFID adoption.Third, in the implementation stage, finance resources had a moderate effect on environmental un-certainty and extent of RFID use while IT knowledge resources had also a moderate effect on perceived cost savings and the extent of the RFID use.Limitations and future research issues can be summarized as follows. First, it is difficult to say that the sample is large enough to be representative of the population. Second, because the sample of this study was conducted among manufacturers only, it may be limited in analyzing fully the effect on the industry as a whole. Third, in consideration of the fact that the organizational resources in the RFID study require a great deal of researches, this research may deem insufficient to fulfill the purpose that it initially set out to achieve. Future studies using performance research are, therefore, needed to help better understand the organizational level of the RFID adoption and implementation.

The purpose of this study is to make an empirical analysis on the factors affecting the intention for the continuous use of the BSC system, which has been recently spread in the public sector. Because the object of acceptance is the performance management system based on BSC (Balanced Scorecard) implemented in the form of information systems, this study proposes a research model by applying TAM (Technology Acceptance Model). Independent variables are factors affecting the acceptance of BSC system such as training, communication, IS support, CEO support and personal innovativeness, and we examine their effects on the dependent variable, namely, intention on continuous use via mediating variables: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use.A questionnaire survey was conducted with public institutions(firms) that had introduced and were operating the BSC system; 264 valid questionnaires are adopted. Collected data are analyzed using SPSS 16.0 and AMOS 7.0. Results of reliability test show that all analyzed data are reliable. In validity test, one item regarding communication was excluded; 9 latent variables and 34 observed variables are used in the final analysis.Based on the results of the hypothesis test through path analysis using a structural equation model, 10 out of 16 hypotheses are accepted. Factors affecting perceived usefulness are training and IS(Information System) support. The analysis results indicate that perceived ease of use is mainly affected by IS support, CEO support, and personal innovativeness among the factors related to the acceptance of the BSC system. This suggests that, contrary to the expectation that the BSC system may be used without difficulty, the manage-ment’s active support is required in order to attain expected improvement in productivity and work efficiency. This was also pointed out in case studies on the construction of the BSC system in public sectors. On the other hand, perceived ease of use is found to affect perceived usefulness. This supports the results of previous researches on TAM. Perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness are found to affect the attitude towards the use of the system. The intention on continuous use is affected more by perceived usefulness than by the attitude towards the use of system. This result supports the results of previous researches on TAM, showing that the BSC system is utilized substantially in worksites. This study is considered meaningful in that it was actually performed on users at public institutions(firms) that had introduced the BSC system and that it empirically tested hypotheses on the acceptance of the BSC system by applying TAM to the research model.