초록 열기/닫기 버튼
본 연구는 한국과 영국의 온라인게임 소비자를 대상으로 세 가지 연구주제를 실증하고 결과적 함의를 도출하고자 수행되었다. 첫 번째 연구주제는 두 나라에서 플로우(flow)와 관계형성 요인이 구전(word-of-mouth)에 유의한 설명 변수인가를 실증하는 것이다. 두 번째는 플로우의 유인요인으로서 도전감과 숙련도가 두 나라에서 유의한 영향력을 가지는가를 실증하는 것이다. 세 번째는 제안된 연구모델을 토대로 한국과 영국의 온라인 게임 소비자를 대상으로 두 나라 소비자의 경로계수의 차이를 탐색적으로 비교분석하는 것이다. 본 연구의 결과는 글로벌 게임업체가 향후 아시아를 대표하는 한국과유럽을 대표하는 영국의 온라인게임시장에 진입할 때, 자사의 게임 브랜드에 대한 소비자들의 구전을 어떠한 준거에 근거하여 개발하고 관리하는 것이 효과적인가에 대한 이론적, 실무적 시사점을 제공할 것이다.
Online game business has emerged as one of the most lucrative entertainment industry. The popularity of online games can be attributed to reliable broadband internet services and high quality contents. The age distribution of online game players is expanding and a variety of new games are under development to target certain age groups. While the online games markets continue to expand, relatively little theory has been developed about which factors influence flow, social relationship, and word-of-mouth in online games situations. This research focuses on three research questions on online game customers’ behavior in Korea and the UK. The first research question is to examine the effects of the flow and the social relationship on the word-of-mouth in the two countries. The second question is concerned with reconfirming the findings from previous studies that the challenge and the skill have been found to affect the flow. And the final, third question is to explore the differences between Korean and British online game customers in terms of the relationships of these key factors (i.e., word-of-mouth, social relationship, flow, challenge, and skill). To test the above research questions, the author collect data from Korean (N=183) and British online game customers (N=192). The proposed structural model was tested using the PLS (Partial Least Square) statistical program. The results indicate that the flow and the social relationship have positive influences on the word-of-mouth, and the flow has significant influence on the social relationship not only in Korea but also in the UK. It was also found that both the challenge and the skill have effects on the flow in two countries. In addition, some differences between Korean and British online game customers were found. Korean online game customers were found to respond more sensitively than British customers concerning the effect of the social relationship on the word-of-mouth. However,British online game customers were found to have strong causal relationships than Korean customers concerning the “challenge → flow”, “skill → flow”, “flow → social relationship”, and “flow → word-of-mouth”. This empirical research provides managerial implications for the online game enterprises on how to strategically use the flow, challenge, skill, and social relationship to enhance the word-of-mouth in Korea and the UK. Nevertheless, some limitations of this study should be noted. First, the responses to this study were voluntary and thus inevitably subject to self-selection biases. Conceivably, customers who feel comfortable with playing online games may have been more likely to respond to the survey. Second, the multi-group (Korea and the UK) comparison can explore systematically the similarities and differences between the two countries, but this method in itself could not supply substantial information on the causes that induce those similarities and differences. Therefore, to some extent, the applications of this research require cautions. However, because online game industry is still at an early stage, the findings are expected to provide informative policy implications for the online game enterprises which have been considering the release of new online games in Korea and the UK.
키워드열기/닫기 버튼
Online games, Word-of-mouth, Flow, PLS
