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ISSN : 1229-8778
In the digital media environment, privacy issues are becoming more important than ever, and individual’s privacy concerns are increasing. However, the definition of privacy remains unclear and limited empirical research has been conducted. In particular, limited research has investigated the types of privacy from consumers’ perspective. To address this gap in the literature, the present study defines the meaning of privacy in the digital media environment, including various types of personal information based on perceived privacy, and to classify personal information types. Results showed that there are four types of personal information people perceive: digital footprint information, digital life information, demographic information, and self-expression information. Perceived privacy for digital life information was the highest, and it was also most strongly correlated with privacy concerns, while perceived privacy for demographics was the lowest, and weakly correlated with privacy concerns. In addition, perceived privacy for each type of personal information differed depending on gender and age. These findings enhance the understanding of the meaning of privacy from the individual’s point of view, and provide more specific guidelines for government and corporate to solve privacy problems.
The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of self-construal and uncertainty on status-quo bias in subscription choices. Specifically, this study is to identify how self-construal and uncertainty jointly influence status-quo bias on the basis of self-concept literature. The research findings show that participants with an interdependent self-construal are more inclined to stay with the current state. On the other hand, participants with an independent self-construal tend to switch from the status quo. The results indicate that people with an interdependent self-construal are more likely to keep unused subscriptions than those with an independent self-construal. In addition, the relationship between self- construal and status-quo bias is moderated by primed uncertainty. When certainty is primed, people with an independent self-construal are less likely to retain, but more likely to acquire a subscription service. Also, people with an interdependent self-construal are less likely to subscribe to a new service compared to those with an independent self-construal. However, uncertainty leads people to continue to subscribe to a service regardless of whether one’s self-construal is independent or interdependent. These findings provide implications for decision-making research and for practitioners who wish to increase the retention of subscriptions.
This study was conducted to examine whether the degree of consumer's reference to online reviews varies depending on the type of product, similarity to the reviewer, and the psychological power of the consumer, and whether this relationship is mediated by the diagnosticity of the review. More specifically, in Study 1, it was examined whether the effect of product type on consumer reference to online review was moderated by the similarity between the consumer and the reviewer. More specifically, in Study 1, it was examined whether the effect of product type on consumer reference to online review was moderated by the similarity between the consumer and the reviewer. Results of Study 1 showed that consumers in high similarity condition referred to online review more than those in low similarity condition, which was found for experiential goods but not for material goods. Focused on experiential goods, findings of Study 2 indicated that the effect of perceived similarity on reference to online review was only found for consumers with low psychological power (moderating effect) and this effect was mediated by the diagnosticity of the review. Finally, based on the results of this study, limitations and future research directions, and implications of the study are discussed.
Consumers are exposed to various types of in-stream ads different in their length, timer, etc. This study seeks to investigate the influence of ad length, temporal certainty, and ad selection on an in-stream ad to maximize its advertising effectiveness. Findings of the study reveal the main effect of ad length on brand and ad recall, attitudes toward both the ad and the brand. The interaction effect of temporal certainty and ad length on attitudes toward the ad and the brand was also found. Specifically, the positive effect of the longer ad length was more prominent when the temporal certainty was given by the timer. The complete mediation effect of the perceived control was confirmed by identifying the route where the ad selection decreased perceived intrusiveness and improved attitudes via perceived control. The three-way interaction was not significant.
Most prior gift card research based on the mental accounting theory investigated the difference in consumer preference towards product types when different payment methods were used. However, little attention has focused on the influence of the gift card presentation format on consumers’ mental accounting. The purpose of this research is to test the difference in (1) the number of mental accounts that people allocate their budgets and (2) the preference towards product types when the gift card is presented in aggregate form or in segregated form. First, this research hypothesized that the number of mental accounts that people allocate their budgets will be higher in the segregated condition than in the aggregate condition because they perceive physically partitioned gift cards as segregated assets. The findings of this research consistently demonstrated that the budget was allocated into higher number of mental accounts when the gift card was presented in segregated form than in aggregate form (Studies 1-3). Furthermore, this research showed the preference towards hedonic products was lower in segregated (vs. aggregate) gift card condition because the budgets are not easily transferable across different mental accounts (Studies 2-3). The influence of the presentation format on mental accounting was only observed in gift card conditions, but not in cash conditions (Study 3). This research contributes to the literature by demonstrating that people use different mental accounting rules for an aggregate gift card versus segregated gift cards even when the total amount of financial reward is constant. Moreover, this research expands the understanding on preferred product types when gift cards are used as a payment method.