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This study seeks to examine the effects product presentation types on consumer's perceived risk reduction about apparel attributes (i.e. silhouette, colour, texture, and fit), and the effect of 3D virtual models' body shapes on consumer's perceived risk reduction about apparel fit. Internet shopping trust and consumer's actual body size have been considered as moderating variables, respectively.

Three types of web sites were developed for the experiment. Participants were recruited by a survey firm, explored the web sites, and filled out online questionnaires.

3D virtual models significantly reduce perceived risk about the four apparel attributes more than 2D images. Especially, they are effective to reduce perceived risk about apparel fit when their bodies represent a consumer's actual body shape.

This study verifies the informative role of 3D virtual models in apparel shopping. The implications related to the usage of the technology and the suggestions for future research are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is two‐fold: to investigate virtual agent representational characteristics (modality, interaction style, animation, realism, embodiment, and gender) employed by agent software providers in developing commercial and non‐commercial web sites; and to examine older consumers' preferences in these agent characteristics.

Study 1 involves a content analysis of 64 sample web sites of agent providers, and study 2 consists of four focus group interviews conducted with 25 older consumers in the age group of 65‐82 years.

Findings from both studies reveal some important disconnects between agent characteristics (modality, realism, animation, and gender) offered by virtual agent software providers and those preferred by older consumers. As a result, important recommendations are provided for the development of virtual agents for e‐commerce applications to enhance accessibility for older users.

No previous studies have investigated which agent characteristics enhance web accessibility and are most preferred by older users in the context of e‐commerce applications.

The purpose of this paper is to outline a framework for marketing cultural goods (e.g. music) to global markets by examining modes of entry and positioning strategies used by media producers of the South Korean music industry.

An historic analysis was implemented to investigate the modalities and structures through which cultural products are produced and disseminated. Data for this study came from 314 articles collected from www.allkpop.com, a leading English-language, South Korean popular culture news site.

The cultural technology framework consists of the institutionalization of cultural technology, exportation of cultural content, collaborations with local talent, and joint ventures with local markets.

The findings emerge from an analysis of South Korean popular music industries, and further research is needed to generalize the results across cultural industries.

The cultural technology framework can be applied to cultural industries such as music, film, comics, and art, where culture and language could be barriers to adoption.

This study outlines a framework for the modes of entry and positioning strategies of cultural goods (e.g. music) in international markets. Extant literature has examined global marketing from the purview of durable consumer goods and brands, with limited insights into cultural products. More broadly, this paper addresses the call for more qualitative inquiry into international marketing topics.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relations among knowledge sharing (KS), intellectual capital (IC), absorptive capacity (AC), innovation (IN) and organizational performance (OP).

This paper empirically tests a model that uses structural equation modeling (SEM) based on a partial least squares (PLS). The sample is composed of 351 Brazilian and 135 Portuguese enterprises. They are micro, small and medium enterprises.

The results show that: the relation between KS and AC is partially mediated by IC; the relation between IC and IN is partially mediated by AC and the relation between KS and IN is mediated by AC and IC or both. There are relations among KS, IC, AC, IN and OP.

The study does not control for industry effects and technological differences among the firms.

The use of KS mitigates the loss of knowledge associated to employees' retirement or job changes. The knowledge appropriation by the organization (turning human capital (HC) into structural capital (SC)), the knowledge achieved from connections (relational capital, RC) and the trust embedded in an organization's relation with employees are important for AC and IN. Moreover, KS can positively influence all elements of IC. OP depends directly on IN and indirectly on the others constructs.

This study is relevant because it explores the relations among KS, IC, AC, IN and OP in one model. Moreover, it focuses on small and mid-size enterprises (SMEs) with data from two countries.

Singles' Day (SD) in China is the world's biggest online shopping event while consumer dissatisfaction is also on the rise. Both theory and practice need sharper insights to foster consumer satisfaction, but such knowledge remains sparse in the literature. The current study addresses this void by assessing the effects of online and offline retail service features on consumer satisfaction with SD.

A two-phase survey was implemented before and after the SD online shopping holiday, with 594 participants in China. Respondents were randomly selected from unique proprietary databases of merchants in the top-five online product categories in China.

The findings show that information quality, product quality and savings improve, but product return worsens, customer satisfaction with the online shopping holiday. However, good after-sale service can ease the product return process thereby boosting customer satisfaction.

This paper addresses a research void by studying effectiveness of retail service features on consumer satisfaction with online shopping festivals.

The capital asset pricing model has failed to explain the effect of systematic risk (referred to as beta) on actual stock market returns. Accordingly, this study analyzes daily returns by splitting it into overnight and daytime returns. The study analysis empirically confirms a positive relationship between overnight returns and beta and a negative relation between daytime returns and beta. Furthermore, this paper aims to determine that empirical results are mostly the same with three different beta calculations, namely, daily, overnight and daytime returns. The study concludes that beta on overnight returns has the strongest explanatory power and is statistically significant.

This study aims to investigate interrelationships among perceived service fairness, emotions and behavioral intentions in a restaurant context.

Data were collected from two casual dining restaurants in the USA. The data were analyzed following Anderson and Gerbing's two‐step approach, utilizing both a measurement model and a subsequent structural model.

This study shows different roles for each fairness perception in relation to emotions and behavioral intentions based on the Mehrabian‐Russell model. Setting reasonable prices and providing efficient services in a timely manner were found to be the key to negate negative emotion. At the same time, the findings suggest that providing high‐quality tangible outcomes and intangible services are critical to evoke positive emotions and eventually to generate future favorable behaviors.

The data were collected from only casual dining restaurants. Therefore, generalizing the results to other segments of the restaurant industry may not work.

The results of this study can help restaurant managers to develop more effective and efficient strategies for ensuring fairness, thus resulting in higher levels of customer retention and profits.

Compared with previous fairness studies, which have focused exclusively on the role of justice after service failure and recovery, this study considers all service delivery contexts (with or without service failure) in order to provide a richer portrait of service fairness. Also, this study contributes to the services marketing and consumer behavior literature by shedding light on the issue of “fairness” as an axiom for evaluating services in restaurants.

This paper aims to design the circuit for electromagnetic interface (EMI) reduction in liquid crystal display (LCD).

The cascode level shifter and segmented driver circuit are applied in LCD column driver integrated circuit (IC) for EMI reduction. Cascode current mirror is used in the proposed level shifter for DC voltage biasing and reduction of the driving current which passes through the level shifter. The on-off switching currents and transient times are measured and compared between the conventional and proposed level shifters. Additionally, a segmented data latch is obtained by the timing spread solution in data latch, and applied to split the large peak switching current into a number of smaller peak current. The timing spread-operation does not actually reduce the total power of the noise, instead, it spreads the noise power evenly over the frequency bandwidth. The optimal number of latch is dependent on the operating frequency and EMI allowance. The column driver IC and clock controller are integrated in 0.18 μm CMOS technology with 1-poly and 4-metal process.

The post-layout simulation shows that the proposed column driver circuit for LCD driver IC significantly reduces the peak switching current, and it results in the reduction of EMI noise level by more than 15 dB. It is obtained with 20 segmented operations in data latch at 40 MHz frequency.

The advantage of the cascode current source is that it can provide a well-controlled bias current with an accurate current transfer ratio. To reduce the EMI noise in LCD driver circuit, the cascode current source is properly located for the DC bias block in the level shifter. The application is rarely done by others, and a significant EMI noise reduction is found. The well-controlled current source provides a high performance switching in the level shifter.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that motivate Korean baseball fans to support Korean Major League Baseball (MLB) players and to identify the effects of the motivations on identification and behavioral loyalty.

Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire at three Korean universities. A model was designed to see which three motivations (commitment to Korean baseball, interests in MLB and ethnic identity) affect loyalty behaviors to support Korean MLB players. In the model, the mediating effect of player identification is set to the relation between the three motivations and behavioral loyalty. The moderating effect of team identification is also set to the relation between player identification and behavioral loyalty. Collected data (n=294) were first analyzed via confirmatory factor analysis to ascertain the factor structure of the study model. Then, the study performed a structural equation modeling which finds the magnitude and significance of each causal path among designed factors.

All the effects were found to be significantly positive except team identification whose moderating effect was not significant. Interests in MLB had the greatest impact on the fan’s player identification followed by commitment to the Korean baseball league and their ethnic identity. It was also found that the influence of player identification was positive on behavioral loyalty.

This work can help MLB expand their fan base internationally, especially in Asian countries.

This paper aims to examine how the relationship between abnormal audit fees and audit quality changed after adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Korea.

Using empirical data collected over the period from 2008 to 2013, this study analyzes the association between abnormally high/low audit fee and audit quality. This study uses linear regression to test the hypothetical relation using discretionary accrual as a proxy for audit quality.

This study finds that there exists no significant relationship between abnormally high audit fees and audit quality measured by the magnitude of discretionary accruals in the pre-IFRS adoption period. However, the relationship between abnormally high audit fees and the magnitude of discretionary accruals turns to be positive in the post-IFRS adoption period. These finding suggests that the IFRS enables some clients to engage more discretion in the choice of discretionary accruals and auditors charge higher audit fees in return for allowing the discretion for such clients.

This study provides insight to regulators of the need to review carefully the financial statements of firms with abnormally high audit fees, and to investors to be more cautious when using financial information about these firms.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to assess IFRS impact on audit fee-quality relation. Also, unique Korean audit market with intensifying competition and discounting audit fee provides interesting setting to review the impact of abnormal audit fee on audit quality.