• Archives of design research
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• v.19 no.3 s.65
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• pp.131-142
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to develop an online community construct, which proposes an inclusive illustration of the structure of online communities, for online community designers. This study reviewed researches from psychology, sociology, management engineering, and practical reports to understand the characteristics and dynamics of online communities. The proposed online community construct visualizes the cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects of online community. As the notion of community originates from geographical groups, and with the assumption that geographical community shares identical characteristics with online community, this study reviewed researches about geographical communities as a starting-point. Then the study went through three main perspectives (1) online community attributes, (2) sense of online community and (3) challenges of online community. Then this study proposed an online community construct that encompasses the reviewed frameworks. The online community can be seen as a congregation of members from two sources. One is from the 'Shared Goal' that meets the personal needs. Given the shared goal, members gather into the community without personal relationship and have more chances to feel the sense of belonging to their needs fulfillment or benefit. This befitting tendency leads to strengthening of membership. Public online forums fall under this classification. The other source is from the emotional connections that are already initiated by personal and casual contacts in the real world. The network of emotional connection can evolve into an online congregation of people under faint boundaries. Although there is no (or weak) shared goal, members are strongly bound to other members. Personal homepage or web log (blog) can be classified as an example of relationship-oriented community.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.17-35
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• 2010

As the internet has been used widely, many online communities have been appeared. Initially, many users used online communities for communication and information sharing. Recently, users start using online communities for building, maintaining, and extending social networks which they did in offline environments previously. The importance of online community is considered by many scholars and also companies to use it strategically. Therefore many studies have focused on exploring characteristics of online communities. Most of them have emphasized the importance of online community. Few study focuses on dynamics within online community. By using social network analysis (SNA), this study tries to explore dynamics of online community. Specially, By measuring the centrality of online community and tracing its changes, this study investigates how the relationships among participants in online communities have been changed over the time. Findings of this study indicate that, as participants has joined in an online community over the time, an opinion leader is appeared, and her/his power is changed.

• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.3-13
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• 2004

On today, online community that is irrespective to geometrical area and time has been appeared by information technology and development of internet. It has been significant decision method of a personal and company. And online community is variously classified by it's purpose. Among online community, online game community is be roughly classed as community in online game and community in related online game. Community in related online game community is means for interchanging informations using e-mail, bulletin board, so as on. These information contain game playing, game contents so as on. And community in online game is implemented as team, item exchange, chatting etc. Importance of community in online game and community in related online game have been increased. But online game community is not distinguished, comparing with importance of it. So, in this paper, we study on the case analysis of cyworld's community that developed characteristic community. Cyworld community is suitable for new generation and korean life style, method of adaption online game. This paper should be profitable for community in re lated online game, community company to planning, developing a characteristic community.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.107-116
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• 2018

The aim of this study is to delve deeper into the online brand community study. This study tests (a) the effects of online brand community on its outcomes, (b) the impact of value creation practice construct as a whole, (c) the effects of value creating practice construct on the two types of loyalty, loyalty toward the brand and the community. Participants of this study (N=353) are members of four types of online brand communities (e.g., business-to-consumer virtual product support community, firm-hosted online community, user-generated online community, peer-to-peer problem-solving community, and social media based brand community). Data were collected online using Amazon Mechanical Turk from April 10, 2016 to May 10, 2016. The data were analyzed through structural equations modeling using AMOS 20. The three community markers (e.g., consciousness of kind, rituals and traditions, and moral responsibility) and the four value creation practices (e.g., social networking, impression management, community engagement, and brand use) are proved to be significant indicators of online brand community and value creation practice constructs, respectively. Test results showed that strong and effective online brand communities generate value creation practices, and value creation practices enhance brand loyalty. The mediating effects of community loyalty between value creation practices and brand loyalty were revealed.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.69-90
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• 2005

Online community as a business model has gotten much attention in online market. And it has been recognized as an increasingly important tool for better understanding and relationships with customers. Thus, There are needs for conducting researches, such as those being performed in social psychology area. Due to the lack of current researches on online community, variables that have been considered in social science and factors in relationship marketing are adopted in this study. The primary purpose of this research is to develop and test a model that explains the process of how sense of online community through relationship quality influences customer loyalty. The major findings of this study are as follows: First, sense of online community was found to have a positive influence on relationship quality. Second, relationship quality was found to have a strong positive effect on customer loyalty. Finally, relationship quality was found to have a mediation effect between the sense of online community and the customer loyalty. Implications of these findings are discussed for researchers and practitioners.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Design Studies Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.144-145
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• 2005

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.191-214
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• 2005

The interests and impacts on the phenomena online are increasing, due to the development of the Internet. Above all, the importance of the online community, which is similar to the community in reality and has a feature being easily committed is on the rise. Firms are transformed into a relationship for successful e-business in line with the online community utilization, as the digitalization society develops. Hereby, this study was intended to empirically analyze the impacts of individual participatory motives (perceived usefulness, perceived. ease of use and perceived playfulness) in the online community and social influences (subjective norm, visibility and image) on the user's attitudinal and behavioral commitment. In the empirical study of this study, a questionnaire survey was conducted targeting individuals who participated in the online community, and the related data was collected through on/offline. Finally, 280 samples were used in the analysis. The results of the major hypotheses test using the covariate structural model analysis are as follows: First, there are differences in the impacts of individual participatory motives in the online community and social influence factors on the commitment. The individual participatory motives in the online community influence the behavioral commitment positively, but the social influence factors are not significant. Second, the attitudinal commitment in the online community shows a mediate effect on the behavioral commitment in the subjective norms and image variables excluding visibility. Third, the relationship between the attitudinal commitment and behavioral commitment is significant.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.183-200
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• 2014

Online brand communities have become a major component of marketing strategy given that these communities encourage participation and share the culture of Web 2.0 core concepts to Internet users. This study investigated the effects of social capital and knowledge quality on the success of online brand communities. A research model suggests that trust among members and the identification derived from social capital theory and knowledge quality influence individual community participation; knowledge quality also influences brand trust. In turn, community participation and brand trust develop brand loyalty. The model was empirically analyzed using structural equation modeling with data from online brand community members in Korea. The results indicate that identification and knowledge quality significantly affects brand trust and brand loyalty through community participation. This study provides a basis for developing a success model for online brand communities. Also, this study identifies a new role of knowledge quality in an online brand community context.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Design Studies Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.210-211
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• 2005

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.415-432
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• 2021

The growth of social media has enabled firms to create virtual organizations (online communities) in which value can be co-created with members. Yet, current typologies of firm-sponsored online communities focus either on the firm or participants, and not the interaction between them. This paper provides a systematic review of the online community literature from 2000 to 2018 to develop an understanding of the types of firm-sponsored online communities and the co-creation of value within them. Four types of sponsored online communities are found. These can be differentiated based on the output for the sponsoring firm and the level of self-organization of the communities. This study contributes to the discussion of value co-creation by (i) shedding light on differences among firm-sponsored online community types based on the level and nature of interaction within an online community; and (ii) examining the perceived value co-created through community interactive experiences.