In the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the application of ICT technology has brought many changes in society. In particular, the paradigm shift of consumer shopping, which customers experience through the incorporation of new technologies in the shopping environment, is also bring a big change of shopping behavior. In this study, we implemented a virtual reality shopping environment, a form of new distribution channel, and then attempted to find out the user’s time distortion and enjoyment as well as the future intention of using VR by allowing the respondents to experience the VR shopping. In addition, this study examines the mediation role of time distortion between telepresence and interactivity, and enjoyment. Managerial implications and limitations of the results of this study are also discussed.

This research examines the relationships among consumption values, affective responses, and patronage intention for luxury brands. The study found that the consumption values positively influenced the consumer engagement and the flow, which in turn had a significant impact on the patronage intention, respectively. The affective responses exercised an important role as mediating variables.

Introduction Service quality is becoming an important business factor even in the business-to-business markets. Actually, the various service factors such as technical level, lead time and after-sales service play the role as the important factors regarding decision making on purchasing other than price in the trade of B2B market. Most researches that measure the service quality in service field have focused on B2C consumer goods and the limited number of researches are only being carried out regarding the service quality in B2B area. Initial studies in B2B borrowed the service quality scale that was made mainly based on consumer goods (Gounaris 2005) by partially using the measure of SERVQUAL that was developed and collected by Parasuraman et al. (1988). In this study, we tried to investigate two main objectives: (1) develop the measurement scale to facilitate assessments of B-to-B service quality and (2) investigate the structural model which deals with the relation between the service quality and B2B relationship performance. Considering that most previous researches about service quality were conducted in the business-to-consumer area, this study conceptualizes the various quality aspects of service that are considered in B2B market and proposes our research model which is the detailed quality measurement scale of B2B service. We developed a measurement scale called B-SERVQUAL for B2B service quality and tested research hypotheses and structural model. Conceptual background This study carried out the comparative analysis against the measured items of previous researches and the contents acquired from the qualitative research. Various different measuring items and aspects related with service quality evaluation can be drawn out through the in-depth interview with companies’ purchasing staffs. To develop items for B2B service quality scale, we followed the procedure proposed by Churchill(1979), and Gerbing and Anderson(1988). First, in-depth interview with purchasing staffs was performed regarding transaction experience with B2B service providers. As proposed by Homburg and Garbe(1999), B2B service was classified into professional service that is provided by service expert company and industrial service that is provided by manufacturer of machine equipment. The responders were instructed to answer some important factors required to evaluate service providing company and items for current service provider to improve. After performing the pre-test with the filtered measuring items, the scale of service quality specialized for B2B service was developed after checking reliability and validity of measurement items. Based on such results of pre-test, we finally carried out the survey of respondents of B2B companies. Our final scales to measure the service quality were composed of 5 factors with 19 items such as economic quality, technical quality, process quality, empathy quality and convenience quality. We determined to call this scale ‘B-SERVQUAL’. Research design We developed research hypotheses and proposed our research model to analyze the effects of service quality on relationship performance in B-to-B market. To verify the sets of hypotheses and study model, we conducted questionnaire survey, targeting the personnel in purchase departments of public corporation and in the field of distribution/logistics, financial services, construction, manufacturing (electricity / machine, textile leather, food). A total of 250 questionnaires were distributed directly or through mail and 230 responses were used for the final analysis. Result and conclusion Through the confirmatory factor analysis, reliability and validity of the study constructs were verified. By using the structural equation model, research hypotheses were tested and most research hypotheses were statistically significant and accepted. The final research model also showed the statistical significance with the goodness-of-fit indices. We found that service quality has a positive effect on relationship bonding, indicating that the superior service quality of service providers leads relationship bonding with buyers. Five dimensions considered in this study bring not only structural bond but also the social bond that refers to the emotional bonding. Relationship bonding has a positive effect on commitment. Relationship commitment appeared to be an important factor that has a positive effect on relationship performance, which demonstrates the reduction of management cost through commitment. This study reflected the economic and convenience aspects of services that haven’t been highlighted in the previous studies in the business marketing area. This study has academic implications in that it reflected the economic aspects of services, which have been dealt with conceptually by some scholars such as profitability, productivity, and cost. From the viewpoint of B2B service providers, the B-SERVQUAL proposed in this study will be helpful guide for B2B marketers to specifically identify the customers’ needs and manage their service quality in the business market.

Introduction The Fourth Industrial Revolution brings a great change in the retail market through combining new digital technologies, such as data clouding, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality(VR) technology. The Alibaba group, which is in charge of 90% market share in China, announced a new Virtual Reality (VR) shopping mall, Buyplus, and Alibaba expected that VR will improve shoppers’ engagement and will experience the joy of shopping mall at home. The potential power of VR shopping mall in Korea is recently acknowledged by the Korean government and Korean government developed the full scale VR shopping mall for the first time in Korea. The VR shopping mall is expected to be a new paradigm of distribution channel industry by incorporating some advanced digital technologies. Conceptual Background In previous study, Pelet et al. (2017) investigated the optimal flow experience enhanced by the telepresence in social media. The overall flow provides a unique immersion experience for social media users, also the frequency of use and time distortion were affected during the use of the system. Choi and Choi (2016) conducted a study and they showed that telepresence was one of the important factors in the new technology-based marketing environment. Limioid Theory is explaining a psychological process when user enters into a new situation. Users have to decide how to expand and act on their own in a new situation, so users quickly fall into new situation and want to transit successfully (Huang & Liao, 2017). Virtual Reality shopping with new technology will bring a new marketing paradigm in the future. The purpose of this study is to analyze users’ telepresence and other underlying factors of behavioral intention of VR shopping. To achieve this primary goal, first, we investigated the factors of VR shopping psychology—such as telepresence, challenge, body ownership, and control for VR shopping. We also tried to investigate the factors of perceived value VR shopping - such as playfulness and usefulness by applying the Flow Theory and Virtual Liminoid Theory. Second, we analyzed the relationships between the factors of perceived value and the behavior intention VR shopping by applying the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). This study suggests the moderating effects of technology readiness and time distortion between telepresence and playfulness. Model Testing and Conclusion In this study, we developed the virtual reality supermarket which is operated by headmounted VR glasses and body sensors with the help of VR technology start-up company. Total 120 university students participated and experienced the VR shopping. By using the structural equation model, research hypotheses were tested and most research hypotheses were statistically significant and accepted. The final research model also showed the statistical significance with the goodness-of-fit indices. We tried to analyze the moderating effects of time distortion and technology readiness between telepresence and playfulness. We also found that there is a moderating effect of time distortion between body control and playfulness. As a result of model testing, we found that playfulness and usefulness are the major mediators between the underlying factors of VR shopping and behavioral intention of VR shopping. The results of this study about VR shopping explain how retail and marketing managers can operate VR shopping store in the technology-based future retail environment. The managerial implications of the study results for the corporate marketing managers and the limitations of the study were also discussed.

Even in the business-to-business markets, service quality is becoming very important factor which determines success or failure of the long-term business relationship. Our study aims to reveal how such recognized B-to-B service quality influences on realizing the relationship between the customer and the supplier. We began this research with two main objectives: (1) develop the service quality scale to facilitate assessments of B-to-B service quality and (2) investigate the structural model which deals with the relation between the service quality and business relationship performance. Considering that most previous researches about service quality were conducted in the business-to-consumer(B-to-C) area, this study conceptualizes the various quality aspects of service that are considered in B-to-B market and proposes B-SERVQUAL model which is the detailed quality measurement scale of B-to-B service. We developed a measurement scale called B-SERVQUAL for B-to-B service quality and tested research hypotheses and structural model. We found that service quality has a positive effect on relationship bonding, indicating that the superior service quality of service providers leads relationship bonding with buyers. Five dimensions considered in this study bring not only structural bond but also the social bond that refers to the emotional bonding. Relationship bonding has a positive effect on commitment. Relationship commitment appeared to be an important factor that has a positive effect on relationship performance, which demonstrates the reduction of management cost through commitment. This study reflected the economic and convenience aspects of services that haven’t been highlighted in the previous studies in the business marketing area. This study has academic implications in that it reflected the economic aspects of services, which have been dealt with conceptually by some scholars such as profitability, productivity, and cost. From the viewpoint of B2B service providers, the B-SERVQUAL proposed in this study will be helpful guide for service providers to specifically identify the customers’ needs and manage their service quality in the business market.

Even in the business-to-business(B2B) markets, service quality is becoming very important factor which determines success or failure of the long-term business relationship. Considering that most previous researches about service quality were conducted in the business-to-consumer (B2C) area, this study conceptualizes the various quality aspects of service that are considered in B2B market and proposes B-SERVQUAL which is the detailed quality measurement scale of B2B service. Our study aims to reveal how such recognized service quality influences on realizing the relationship between the customer and the supplier. We began this research with two main objectives: (1) develop the service quality scale to facilitate assessments of B2B service quality and (2) investigate the structural model which deals with the relation between the service quality and business relationship performance. Service quality has a positive effect on relationship bonding, indicating that the superior service quality of service providers leads relationship bonding with buyers. Five dimensions considered in this study bring not only structural bond but also the social bond that refers to the emotional bonding. Especially, we assumed that the empathy quality, a human factor in service quality, plays an important role in binding sellers and buyers personally and emotionally. Technical quality and the process quality related to service delivery are closely associated with the technical level of the service provided, so the service quality structurally binds the relationship between companies. In addition, service quality has a greater effect on structural bond than social bond, which implies that service quality is emphasized as core elements that bring economic, strategic, technical, and organizational benefits in B2B trading rather than be seen as a catalyst to accelerate trading or supplementary elements to the products. Structural bond in relationship bonding is an antecedent of social bond. Relationship bonding has been studied in 2 categories traditionally. This study could identify a casual relation between them. The findings from the study demonstrate that the structural bond is developed when clear economic and managerial advantages exist for buyers, and then the social bond is formed based upon this. In other words, structural bond is a positive predictor of social bond or emotional bond. As suggested earlier, service quality has a greater effect on structural bond than social bond, which supports a structural casual relation in which the structural bond is accomplished first through service and then, based upon this, social bond is accomplished. Commitment appeared to be an important factor that has a positive effect on relationship performance, which demonstrates the experience and the reduction of management cost through commitment is the antecedent that brings the relationship performance which is defined as the degree of the effectiveness and efficiency from mutual organization exchange activities. Managerial implications and limitations of the study were also discussed in detail.