Earticle

Most of enterprises depend on a data modeler during developing their management information systems. In formulating business requirements for information systems, they widely and naturally use the interview method between a data modeler and a field worker. But, the discrepancy between both parties would certainly cause information loss and distortion that lead to let the systems not faithful to real business works. To improve or avoid modeler-dependant data modeling process, many automated data design CASE tools have been introduced. However, since most of traditional CASE tools just support drawing works for conceptual data design, a data modeler could not generate an ERD faithful to real business works and a user could not use them without any knowledge on database. Although some CASE tools supported conceptual data design, they still required too much preliminary database knowledge for a user. Against these traditional CASE tools, we proposed a Requirement-Oriented Entity Relationship Model for automated data design tool, called ROERM. Based on Non-Stop Methodology, ROERM adopts inner systematic modules for complete and sound ERD that is faithful to real field works, where modules are composed of interaction modules with a user, rules of schema operations and sentence translations. In addition to structure design of ROERM, we also devise detailed algorithms and perform an experiment for a case study.

F&B(food and beverage) in accommodation industry is a key service that determine the satisfaction of customers in tourism industry. As the importance of the management of quality gets increasingly highlighted in service industry, the innovation in the management of service quality and satisfaction in tourism industry is gaining high attention. In this research, we focused on the improvement and innovation of the management of procurement process for F&B service based on the smart use of information technology. A case and scenario analysis of the improvements in the management of procurement process is performed focusing on a medium-size accommodation business. Future opportunities and potential of further IT-based innovation is discussed.

Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart or CAPTCHA has received remarkable attention. Deciphering distorted texts is still a human task. The current CAPTCHA mainly requires users to read English alphabets. As such, Thai CAPTCHA may be the choice for Thai online practitioners. However, no published work has examined how Thai online practitioners perceive CAPTCHA. This study thus attempts to fill this void. Based on the 112 number of usable online questionnaire submission, Thai online practitioners are all aware of CAPTCHA. Also, nine out of ten samples identified correctly the prime benefits of CAPTCHA. Using exploratory factor analysis, their attitude towards CAPTCHA was classified into two dimensions. They perceived (1) drawback of general CAPTCHA and (2) feasibility of Thai CAPTCHA. In addition to extending our insight into application of CAPTCHA, policy-makers responsible for electronic commerce in Thailand could initiate plans in response to Thai online practitioners’ perception.

Many organizations have had deep interests in studies concerning leadership and in academic areas, in not only management but also psychology. Until now, leadership has been accentuated by managers or team leaders especially. Recently, however, the concept of self-leadership directing one"s own activities through self-control or self-management is being focused on practices and in academia. This study is to investigate the influence between self-leadership strategies and learning performance in IT classes mediated by attitude of attendance focused on the social science students in a university. Research results can give us direction of task-taking attitudes in firms or learning attitudes in teaching organizations and implications to human resource managers who are in charge of improving learning performance or productivity.

This study is to present effective ways of IT adoption as a new growth engine for vitalizing service industry. The paper identifies key success factors of IT adoption and analyzes empirically its’ impact on user satisfaction. Additional analysis of control effect by company sizes is conducted. For data sampling, among 1590 companies in IT systems, equipment, and software, 1570 companies participated and total 2,000 questionnaires were collected. In order to analyze main effect analysis and control effect, Structural Equation Modeling method was applied. The result show that there are significant effect between key success factors and user satisfaction. Based on the result, the paper suggests effective way of IT adoption according to company sizes.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impacts of media symbol variety on group performance in virtual teams. Symbol variety is defined as the number of ways in which information can be communicated and includes Daft and Lengel [1986]’s multiplicity of cues and language variety. According to media richness theory and media synchronicity theory, the use of media with high symbol variety is assumed to facilitate and promote communications among virtual team members. Therefore, it is expected that the media symbol variety is positively associated with group performance in virtual teams. Furthermore, online relationship building is expected to mediate the impacts of symbol variety on the performance. To confirm the suppositions, a controlled lab experiment was conducted with 60 undergraduate students as subjects. In the experimental virtual teams, subjects were allowed to communicate with other members using text-based messenger with emoticons. Subjects in the control virtual teams were allowed to communicate using only text-based messenger. The direct impact of symbol variety on group performance in virtual teams was found insignificant. However, the online relationship was found to completely mediate the positive impact of symbol variety on group performance. The implications and limitations of this study are also discussed for future research.

The Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID), once used widely, is expected to provide improved convenience in our everyday life. Crude observations of RFID consumption show that there is a wide variation in the adoption of this technology across different individuals. One plausible explanation is that consumers with challenging mind who seek for new technologies and have a good grasp of the new RFID technology should have higher propensity to use the technology. A better understanding of such acceptance pattern of RFID is of high importance in establishing technology providers’ marketing strategies. This study is aimed to explain differences in the level of RFID acceptance focusing on cognitive styles of potential RFID users. By presenting potential RFID users’ discriminative propensity toward RFID technology, this study hopes to provide guidelines for the design of service strategies that facilitate consumers’ acceptance of RFID.

Past studies in e-commerce loyalty were mostly focused on the effects of customer satisfaction and trust on loyalty toward online vendors. Few studies investigated the impacts of switching barriers, whilst they are widely proven to affect customer loyalty in offline commerce. Even in a handful of studies that did deal with switching barriers, their treatment of the subject remained at best superficial. This may have to do with the fact that switching costs in e-commerce could be comparatively negligible, as switching to another online vendor often involves one simple mouse click. In this study, we investigated the impact of switching barriers on loyalty under the e-commerce context. Furthermore, the extent of switching barriers which could be affected by those positive factors (most constructs were adopted from IDT) was also examined. The statistical testing results revealed that combined model which includes both the positive factors and the switching barriers explains the loyalty formation process more strongly (R² = 0.543) than each separated models (R² = 0.468 for positive factor only model, and R² = 0.365 for switching barrier only model). While only the two switching barriers such as convenience and emotional were shown to be statistically significant, we found that trust strongly influences customer’s emotional barrier, let alone direct impact on loyalty, which thereby influences loyalty. The results offer insights for better understanding switching barriers in e-commerce related applications.

Interactivity has been referred to as an important element promoting students’ active participation in virtual classes. Assuming that interactivity cannot be defined by a single dimension, this study proposes multi-dimensional interactivity. Multi-dimensional interactivity includes all types of interactivity in e-learning. This study explored multi-dimensional interactivity which affects learners’ satisfaction with e-learning. Data were collected from 132 students who had attended e-learning courses and the relationship between multi-dimensional interactivity and learners’ satisfaction levels were tested through regression analysis. The result of this study showed that mechanical, reactive, and creative interactivity were positively related to learners’ satisfaction. However, social interactivity seemed not to be related to learners’ satisfaction. This study provides new insights on interactivity and verifies the importance of the multi-dimensional interactivity. The result of this study is expected to provide practical implications for interactivity strategies in e-learning.

Recent developments in financial market liberalization and information technology are accelerating the interdependence of national stock markets. This study explores the information spillover effect of the US stock market on the overnight and daytime returns of the Korean stock market. We develop a profitable intra-day trading strategy based on the information spillover effect. Our study provides several important conclusions. First, an information spillover effect still exists from the overnight US stock market to the current Korean stock market. Second, Korean investors overreact to both good and bad news overnight from the US. Therefore, there are significant price reversals in the KOSPI 200 index futures prices from market open to market close. Third, the overreaction effect is different between weekdays and weekends. Finally, the suggested intra-day trading system based on the documented overreaction hypothesis is profitable.

The purpose of this research is to develop a decision-making model for the calculation of the National Disaster Management System’s standard prevention workforce quota. The final purpose of such model is to support in arranging a rationally sized prevention workforce for local authorities by providing information about its calculation in order to support an effective and efficient disaster management administration. In other words, it is to establish and develop a model that calculates the standard disaster prevention workforce quota for basic local governments in order to arrange realistically required prevention workforce. In calculating Korea’s prevention workforce, it was found that the prevention investment expenses, number of prevention facilities, frequency of flood damage, number of disaster victims, prevention density, and national disaster recovery costs have positive influence on the dependent variable when the standard prevention workforce was set as the dependent variable. The model based on the regression analysis-which consists of dependent and independent variables-was classified into inland mountainous region, East coast region, Southwest coastal plain region to reflect regional characteristics for the calculation of the prevention workforce. We anticipate that the decision-making model for the standard prevention workforce quota will aid in arranging an objective and essential prevention workforce for Korea’s basic local authorities.

Existing models of knowledge processing do not feature a systemic meaning of knowledge management and ignore the role of leadership and social energy in the knowledge processing system (KPS). This conceptual paper introduces the Leadership Invigorating Flows of Energies, (LIFE) Model as an attempt to remedy that situation and provide a more useful description of the KPS. The LIFE Model highlights the role of emergent leadership and flows of social energies as forces encouraging knowledge creation and dynamic diffusion within an organization through the Knowledge Processing Cycle in eight activities interacting with its social knowledge base in a self-organizing system.