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International Journal of Electronic Business Management, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 57-69 (2009) 57

THE IMPACT OF A CUSTOMER PROFILE AND CUSTOMER

PARTICIPATION ON CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP

MANAGEMENT PERFORMANCE

Ji-Tsung Ben Wu*

, I-Ju Lin and Ming-Hsien YangDepartment of Information Management

Fu-Jen Catholic University

Taipei Hsien (24205), Taiwan

ABSTRACT

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is one important application for e-business.

Two important factors influencing CRM performance are: customer profiles and customer

participation. The result of this experimental study demonstrates that the use of customer

profiles improves the customers perception of the quality of goods and increases the

effectiveness of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). In addition, customer

participation can improve customers perceptions the quality of goods and enhance

performance of CRM through perceived participation. The results indicate that the

customer profiles and customer participation are two crucial factors for companies to

maintain good customer relations.

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management, Customer Profile, Customer Participation

1. INTRODUCTION*

Companies are now more than ever focusing

on high customer retention and maintaining good

long term customer relationships [3][16][35].

Customer relationships management (CRM) is a high

customer retention strategy. It is very important to

know more about customers needs and offer

customized products and services in order to improve

customer satisfaction and loyalty [22][28]. Two

main strategies, collecting customers' profiles and

promoting customer participation, are used to probe

customers' needs. CRM research highlights that

knowledge of customers is critical, but the tacit

knowledge of customers is not much emphasized.

Companies need to make CRM efforts effective

[17][23]. Therefore, corporations should seek new

interaction mechanisms to improve customerrelations by achieving complete communication with

customers, building partnerships with customers, and

getting more non-structured information about

customers that is leveraged to drive CRM activities.

Regarding the urgent demand for tacit information

about customers, customer participation in the service

research should be considered as one important

source of knowledge about customers, in addition to

customer profiles which are acquired by database

technologies. Also, gaining customers active

participation is able to directly increase their

perception of the services provided by the companies.

*Corresponding author: [email protected]

The main objectives of this paper are to (1)

discuss and integrate related research to infer a

conceptual model which includes the customer

profile, customer participation, and measures of CRM

performance; (2) to investigate the relationship

between the degree of using a customer profile andcustomers perceptions of the quality of goods; and

(3) to investigate the relationship between the degree

of customer participation and customers perceptions

of the quality of goods and CRM performance.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

To research the impact of customer profile and

customer participation on the CRM performances,

this study examines the theories of CRM, customer

profiling and customer participation.

2.1 Customer Relationship ManagementThe new marketing paradigm is based on

knowledge and experience [24][30][31]. The

knowledge-based marketing paradigm indicates that

corporations need to know more about customers;

and an experience-based marketing paradigm

suggests bringing more interactions into customer

related activities. Since the 90s, there have arisen

numerous synonymous terms: customer management,customer information systems, customer value

management, customer care and sometimes customer

centricity or customer-centric management, but now

clearly, the term Customer Relationship Managementhas become the most widely used [6][20].


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58 International Journal of Electronic Business Management, Vol. 7, No. 1 (2009)

CRM is an interactive process that turns

customer information into customer relationships

through actively using and learning from information.

It is a cycle for encompassing major group of actions:

knowledge discovery, market planning, customer

interaction, and analysis refinement [7][35].

Ryals and Knox [32] determined that thephilosophical bases of CRM are: relationship

orientation, customer retention, and superior

customer value created through process management.

Successful implementation of CRM requires

cross-functional reorganization, especially marketing

and IT, to work closely together to maximize the

return on customer information. The impact of the

use of IT on marketing includes the fact that database

marketing grew in significance in the late 1980s [24].

In summary, CRM integrates practices of database

marketing to support short-term market tactics and

conceptual frame to relationship marketing todevelop long-term customer relationship strategies.

2.2 Customer Profiles

Some characteristics correlate positively with

companies performing well in customer relationship

management: excellent products, excellent

management, and the informed use of knowledge

about customers. An insufficient knowledge base of

customers limits the value which a company can offer

to those customers [37][40]. Knowing customers

better, a corporation can precisely invest in valuable

customers and reduce the cost spent on poorly

performing customers [16][35]. The basic component

of customer knowledge comes from a customer

profile that is obtained by the use of a database and

data mining technologies used in organizations [1].

Building customer profiles is one of the most popular

strategies for knowing more about customers. In

summary, using a customer profile is the technique

which converts raw information about customers into

the strategic-support knowledge that reinforces the

value of goods which companies offer customers.

2.3 Customer Participation

The customer profile is a more structured partof customer knowledge; whereas a more

non-structured part could come from customer

participation. In the service research area, customers

who contribute information or efforts in the service

complete the process with the service provider. They

fulfill the process together while the service is

produced and consumed at the same time [8][13] [14]

[26] [36]. For example, patients describe their own

symptoms to doctors. It makes the process of

diagnosis go more smoothly. These service

performances are heavily influenced by customer

efforts and the information they themselves provide

[4][13][19].

There are different dimensions of participation,

including personal interaction, information sharing,

and responsible behavior. This suggests that

participation has a positive impact on customer's

perceived product/service quality, customer

satisfaction, and a mixed impact on retention.

Different aspects of participation do not contributeequally in these models. Specifically, personal

interaction was found to have more significant effects

while the information sharing was thought to be of

particular significance from a conceptual perspective

[13]. There is a similar result in the new product

development research area. It indicates that through

close interactions with customers, designers can

accurately identify market requirements, quickly

refine product specification, and reduce time for

marketing and thus remain more competitive

[11][27].

Little CRM research has put specific effort intogetting and using non-structured information about

customers [23]. Customer participation can fulfill the

shortage of application towards gaining tacit

customer knowledge. Customer participation in the

delivery of service processes has been found to be

highly related to customers perceived quality of

service, customer satisfaction and new products

performance [13][19]. Customers can contribute their

own information in the process of participation and

also get information about the corporation. This is a

two-way communication between buyers and sellers

which positively impacts the CRMs performance.

Similar discussions are involved in numbers of

different research areas. In service research, customer

participation refers to the contribution of customer

information and the effort spent in the process of

service encounters [8][13][26][36]. Customer

participation influences the quality of service

[13][19]. In information system development

research, user participation has been found to

influence users perception of system success and

user satisfaction [41]. In advertising research,

scholars look at the impact which customer

involvement, advertising and products have on

purchasing decisions [43].Table 1 identifies similar concepts regarding

different participation types and customer roles in

service or product delivery processes value chain.

3. THE RESEARCH

FRAMEWORK AND

HYPOTHESIS

Figure 1 presents this studys conceptual model

as it has been derived from the preceding discussion.

There are two main kinds of knowledge

sources about customers: customer profiles and

customer participation. The former represents the use


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J. T. B. Wu et al.: The Impact of a Customer Profile and Customer Participation 59

of IT to acquire and create information about

customers in the organization and the latter shows

there are two-way communications and interactions

between the corporation and customers. The CRM

performance construct includes three measurements:

customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and customer

retention [7][9][18][22].

Table 1: Customer roles in different stages of the product/service value chain

Stage Type Related ResearchNew Service or

Product Development

Customer-oriented design; focus group; close contact

between designer and customer[11][15]

Manufacture of Product;

Service Encounter

Customer participation; visit factory; customer provide

information

[2][8][13] [19][34]

[36][43]

Advertising Customer involvement [10] [43]

Service Encounter;

Product Delivery and Sell

Customer self-subscribe which channel and time that

the product delivery

[8][13] [19][34]

[36][43]

Figure 1: Conceptual model

1. The effect of the customer profile on perceivedgoods quality

Goods mean the service or product which

companies offer to customers. Although there are

many measurements to examine the quality of

products, customers usually determine the quality ofproducts on the basis of their own subjective points

of view. From this viewpoint, the main factor

concerning a products quality should be based on the

degree of conformation to customers demands. Of

course it is harder to measure the quality of a service

when the goods are intangible [26]. The output of

service is the process itself. The judgment of service

quality should be based on customer experiences and

their perception of the process [27]. The above

discussion shows that it is crucial to measure

customers' perception of goods quality.

A customer profile is a base form of customerknowledge. By obtaining and analyzing customer

profiles, corporations can develop products and

services to fit the customers needs. Showing

customers that the company is using their profiles to

provide customized goods will also lead users to raise

their perception of quality. To examine this

proposition, the first null hypothesis of this research

is proposed:

H1: Companies that obtain and use customer

profiles could not influence its perceived

goods quality their goods offer to customers.

2. The effect of customer participation on perceivedgoods quality and CRM performance

In addition to getting a customer profile to

identify customer needs, corporations also need to

seek solution to gain more tacit information from

customers to know them better [23]. This situationindicates that corporations should build certain

channels and launch activities to enable the

transformation of tacit information with customers.

Based on preceding discussion on customer

participation, it is possible for corporations to interact

with customers and get insights of customer needs

through customer participation. Getting customers to

participate in value delivery processes helps

customers to know corporation ability better and

raises the customers' perception on goods. The

customer participation also has positive effects on

customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and customer

retention [11][13][19]. To examine this proposition,the300 second null hypothesis of this research is

proposed:

H2: Customer participation could not influence the

perceived goods quality that companies offer

to customers.

3. The effect of goods quality on CRMperformance

The service quality the companies provide to

customers positively affects the customer relationship

quality, customer satisfaction and loyalty. The quality

of goods will influence the customers buyingdecision-making. When quality of goods is higher

than customers expectation, customers are motivated

to buy the goods. The goods quality depends on

customers subjective perceptions of how these high

quality goods will bring them benefits [39]. High

perception of goods quality leads to high customer

satisfaction, loyalty and retention. To examine this

proposition, the third null hypothesis of this research

is proposed:

H3: The perceived quality of goods could not

influence performance of CRM.

H3a: The perceived quality of goods could not

influence customer satisfaction.


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H3b: The perceived quality of goods could not

influence customer loyalty.

H3c: The perceived quality of goods could not

influence customer retention.

4. RESEARCH DESIGN

To test the relationships of customer profile and

customer participation on perceived goods quality

and performance of CRM, this research employs an

experiment with scenarios of services encountered

and a recall-base questionnaire. The primary

advantage of using scenarios is that they eliminate

difficulties of observation on the use of customer

profiles and the practice of customer participation in

organizations everyday operation. Also, the use of

scenarios reduces biases from memory lapses,

rationalization tendencies, and consistency factors,

which are common in results based on retrospectiveself-reports [33].

Recently, an on-line bank has prompted their

on-line services and this would be a focal

development in the future of the banking industry.

This is the reason that this research used on-line bank

services as scenarios and focused on five on-line

services: credit card bonuses and gift exchange

services; high amount transaction confirmation;

payment reminder services; comments; and new

service development conference to narrow down the

complexity and control the variable manipulation

more precisely.

4.1 Sampling Frames and Data Collection

Methods

The sample for this experiment was composed

of students from four departments of EMBA at the

Fu-Jen University. There were 119 EMBA students

involved in the experiment and the data were

collected using individually completed questionnaires

after the last step of the experiment. Of the 119

subjects, 96 subjects questionnaires were valid.

Among these 96 subjects, 68 were male, 28 were

female.

4.2 Experimental Design

The experiment employed a 2X2

between-subjects design, in which customer profile

and customer participation were manipulated. Four

treatments are shown in Table 2 and each treatment is

a scenario that represents a combination of one of

two customer profile scenarios with one of two

customer participation scenarios. Table 3 presents a

list of model variables and table 4 shows the labels of

each treatment and observation variable.

All the subjects were first grouped according to

three conditions: their answer to experience, recent

demand for on-line bank, and their interest in finance

management in the personal-data questionnaire. Each

subject in the same group was then exposed to one of

the four scenarios in proper sequence of the subjects

who finished the personal-data questionnaires in the

first step in the experiment process.

Table 2: Labels of manipulated treatments

High

Customer

Profile

Low

Customer

Profile

High

CustomerParticipation

HH LH

Low

Customer

Participation

HL LL

Table 3: Label of each variable

Description Label

Customer Profile K

Customer Participation P

Goods Quality Q

Customer Satisfaction S

Customer Loyalty L

Customer Retention R

Table 4: Experiment design

This study deemed these three conditions would

affect the perception of the subjects during the

process. The separation of the subjects was based on

these conditions. Then the subjects were assigned

according to their questionnaire filling time. This

would reach random sampling. Table 5 shows the

grouping process and Table 6 shows the whole

experiment process and the description of what the

subjects did in each step.


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Table 5: The grouping process

The subjects were asked to fill out personal data questionnaire.

The data were stored into the DB.

The program allocated the subjects who had the same choices of three conditions into the same array.

The program drew each record from one array and assigned into one of four treatments in turn.

After the assignment was done, each subjects browser was directed to the homepage of each scenario the subject

belong to.

Table 6: The experiment process

Stage Step Description

Personal-data questionnaire

The subjects were asked to fill out the questionnaire and set

their own account and password which would be used to login

the experiment system as realized scenarios of on-line bank.

Experiment instruction The explanation of specific terms and notice.

Pre-experiment

Waiting for assignment

The program drew data from the personal-data questionnaire

to assign subject into one treatment of experiment.

Login in experiment systemSubjects used their own account and password to login the

on-line bank of the experiment.

Customer accounts dataThe first page was subjects accounts data which was default

value represented the scenarios of on-line bank.

Transfer accounts for credit card

payment

Confirmation of transfer

Practice

Transfer success and the

instruction of next step

Subjects were asked to perform the transfer used the on-bank

interface which was a practice for subjects to familiar the

operation of experiment on-line bank system and also a cue

that the subject was one of on-bank customer.

Credit cards bonus and gift

exchange service

Confirmation of gifts, rest ofbonus points and receivers

address

This step was the beginning of experiments manipulation.

The different semantics and operation on the page of on-linebank represented each manipulation of the experiment.

The setting of payment inform

service

The different semantics and operation on the page of on-line

bank represented each manipulation of the experiment.

The setting of high amounttransaction confirmation

The different semantics and operation on the page of on-linebank represented each manipulation of the experiment.

Advice zone

This step was skipped at the low degree customer

participations manipulation to represent the manipulation of

low degree customer participation.

Experiment

The invitation of new service

development conference

The different semantics and operations on the page of on-line

bank represented each manipulation of the experiment.

Data

Collection

Observation variable data

collection questionnaires

This was the last step of experiment to ask subjects to fill out

the questionnaires based on the experience of previouslyoperations of the on-line bank system.

4.3 Manipulation of Factors and Measurement of

Variables

Customer profile and customer participation are

two independent variables of this study. Based on the

previous research discussed above, each of the two

independent variables was manipulated as high and

low degree and represented as an on-line banking

system. The details of manipulation and the definition

of independent variables are discussed below.

4.4 Customer Profile

Customer profile variable indicated that the

organization has acquired the customers information

by different kinds of channels or systems to transform

this information into practical instruments to provide

customized goods. This study manipulated low and

high degree of customer profiles by the different

semantic descriptions on the webpage, such as these

gifts are prepared for you based on your past

transactions via our on-line banking service as the

cue and let the subjects believe that this on-line

banking system provided customized service base ontheir own profiles and that this would be a high

customer profile degree. After the subjects logged


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into the system, the screen showed the customers

account information. The customers name was

drawn from the subjects personal data and all the

account information entered was the default value, so

all the subjects saw the same information, which

allowed them to be familiar with and understand their

accounts' information in this experiment. Table 7shows the details of customer profile manipulated.

4.5 Customer Participation

Customer participation means customers have

to contribute a certain amount of effort or information

in the process of purchasing products or services.

This variable in the study indicated that the

organization had built mechanisms and also invited

customers to participate actively. This study

manipulated this variable by supplying different

flexibilities of services for customers in the low and

high customer participation treatments. In the highcustomer participation treatment, the subjects had

more than one option based on their own demand;

while there was only one choice for the subjects in

the low participation treatment. For example, the

subjects in high participation could decide both the

means and the time to be informed about the due date

of a payment, but the subjects in the low participation

treatment didnt have these options.

Table 8 shows the details of the manipulated

customer participation.

Table 9 shows the detail of each manipulation

treatment. LL indicates Low in Customer Profile and

Low in Customer Participation. LH indicates Low in

Customer Profile and High in Customer Participation.HL indicates High in Customer Profile and Low in

Customer Participation. HH indicates High in

Customer Profile and High in Customer Participation.

4.6 Questionnaire

After going through all of the experiment steps,

the subjects were asked to fill out a questionnaire.

The questionnaire is divided into two sections: the

first section contains four questions to check whether

the subject perceived the proper scenarios in the right

manipulation treatment; the second section contains

20 questions concerning the intermediary anddependent variables, including perceived goods

quality, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and

customer retention. All the questions employed the 7

points likert scales with numbers 7-1 progressively

representing very strongly agree to very strongly

disagree and positive semantic statements. Table 10

presents the questionnaire for variables.

Table 7: Detail description of manipulation of customer profile

Definition Descriptions of Manipulation

Customer personal data recorded

by the system

Customer personal data were drawn from the

questionnaire of the first step of experiment and the

customer account data were designed as the default valueof the system in advance.

Low Degreeof Customer

ProfileRecognizing and contacting

customer by system

The records of customers personal data on the system

were displayed with proper descriptions on the web-pageinterface.

Customer personal and

transactional data recorded by

system

Customer personal data were drawn from the

questionnaire of the first step of experiment and thecustomer account and the historical transaction data were

designed as the default value of the system in advance.High Degree

of Customer

ProfileThere are predictive customers

demands of services and

differential customer credit

displayed on the system.

The records of the customers personal, transactional and

also analytical information on the system were

represented by the proper descriptions on the web-page

interface.

Table 8: Detail description of manipulation of customer participation

Definition Descriptions of manipulation

Low Degree

of Customer

Participation

There are no customer participate

mechanisms widespread built in

the customer contact system of the

organization.

Subjects cannot compose the form of service content by

their own need and have no channel to communicate or

give advice to company by the web interface.

High Degreeof Customer

Participation

There are widespread built

customer participation

mechanisms in the customer

contact system of the organization

and invite customer to participate

actively.

Subjects can decide which form of service content basetheir own need and have an advice zone to communicate

or give advice to the company by the web interface.


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Table 9: Description of four treatments

LL LH HL HH

Credit card

bonus and gift

exchange service

Exchange by

bonus points.

Exchange by bonus

points, bonus with

money and allow

each customer to

draw bonus in

advance.

There is statementemphasis that the gift list

were referred to subjects

transaction history and

offer only one way toexchange as in LL

treatment.

There is statement emphasis

that the gift list were

referred to subjects

transaction history and offer

three ways to exchange as in

LH treatment.

High amount

transaction

confirmation

service

Default amountand way of

notification.

Subjects can decidewhich amount and

way of notification.

There is statement

emphasis that the default

amount and way of

notification were

referred to subjects

exercise history.


that the default amount and

way of notification werereferred to each subjects

exercise history and subject

can change the default value

on the webpage.

Payment

notificationservice

Default amount

and way ofnotification.

Subjects can decide

which amount andway of notification.

There is statement

emphasis that the default

amount and way ofnotification were

referred to each subjects

exercise history.


that the amount and way of

notification were referred to

each subjects exercisehistory and each subject can

change the default value onthe webpage.

Advice zoneNo this page in

the web system.

This page is showed

up when finish the

last step.

No this page in the web

system.

This page is showed up

when finish the last step.

The invitation of

new service

development

conference

Using the form

of

advertisement.

Invite the subject to

participate.

There is statement

emphasis that the new

service in advisement

was referred to each

subjects exercise

history.

There is statement emphasisthat the new services were

referred to subjects exercise

history and invite subject to

participate.

Table 10: Questionnaire

Construct

Subjects perception of the using customer profile

by on-line bank system.

Subjects

Perception Check

(4 items) Subjects perceived participation.

Modified from

[42]

Reliability

Responsiveness

Assurance

Goods

Quality

(5 items)Empathy

Modified from

[29]

Perceived usefulness

Process satisfaction

Decision-making satisfaction

Customer

Satisfaction

(4 items)Total satisfaction

Modified from

[12][21][33][36]

Positive attitude

Word-of-mouth communications

Purchase intentions

Price sensitivity

Customer

Loyalty(6 items)

Complaining behavior

Modified from

[5][25]

Customer Retention

(1 item)Consumed the offer again Modified from [18]

5. RESULTS

5.1 Data ValidationTo measure the internal consistency of the

collected data, this study assessed the instruments

reliability using the Cronbach Alpha coefficient. The

results are presented in table 11. All Cronbach alpha

values reach the level of generally considered

acceptable reliability.


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The questions were adapted from relative

research and examined by two experts. Questions

were modified to reflect problems encountered by the

pretest subjects. The content validity and face validity

are considered acceptable. Table 12 shows all

dependent variables mean and stander deviations in

the different treatments.To ensure the subjects viewed the scenarios in

the right aspect, this doubt was tested using the

two-tailed t-test. The results are presented in table 13,

14, 15, and 16.

These results show that most of the subjects

perceived the right scenario and the high and low

degree of manipulation also made significant

differences.

This study used an F-test to evaluate the effect

of individual differences in perception of scenarios.

Table 17 shows the results.

The results show that individual differencesmake no effect on each dependent variable.

5.2 The Effect of Customer Profile

Table 18 shows the results of the main effects

of two independent variables on all dependent

variables.

The results show that the use of a customer

profile reflects customers' perception of the quality of

goods (p=0.027). Thus null hypothesis H1 can be

rejected. That is, the degree of using customer profile

by a company is positively related to customers

perception of goods quality. This means the subjects

have perceived that the service was designed basedon their historic transactions and so they were more

satisfied, which raised their perception of the goods

quality.

5.3 The Effect of Customer Participation

The results indicated that customer

participation is not significantly related to the

subjects perception of goods quality, customer

satisfaction, loyalty and retention (see table 18). Thus

there is no significant evidence to reject the null

hypotheses 2 and 4. Wu and Marakas [41] suggest

that perceived participation should be an intermediarybetween participation and user satisfaction in the

information system development research area. It will

be discussed later of this paper to see if the perceived

participation makes a difference.

Table 11: Cronbach alpha coefficient value

Constructs Number of Items

Perceived Customer Profile Using 2 0.78

Perceived Participation 2 0.66

Goods Quality 5 0.86

Customer Satisfaction 4 0.89

Customer Loyalty 6 0.80

Customer Retention 1 1.00

Table 12: Mean and St. Dev. of dependence variableGoodsQuality

CustomerSatisfaction

CustomerLoyalty

CustomerRetention

Mean St. Dev. Mean St. Dev. Mean St. Dev. Mean St. Dev.H 5.22 1.07 5.26 1.11 4.92 0.85 5.31 1.18Customer

Profile L 4.68 1.31 5.00 1.18 4.63 1.13 5.40 1.14H 5.08 1.17 5.27 1.00 4.83 0.88 5.29 1.18Customer

Participation L 4.85 1.27 5.01 1.26 4.73 1.11 5.41 1.13ALL 4.96 1.22 5.13 1.15 4.78 1.00 5.35 1.15

Table 13: Mean and St. Dev. of high and low customer profile

Manipulation Treatment Subjects Mean St. dev.

H 49 5.73 1.24Perception of Customer Profile Manipulation

L 47 4.75 1.63

Table 14: T-test result of high and low customer profile

T-value D. F. P-value

Perception of Customer Profile Manipulation 3.328 94 0.001*

*p


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Table 16: T-test result of high and low customer participation

T-value D. F. P-value

Perceived Participation 2.016 94 0.047*

*p


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Figure 2: Modified model

This study investigated the effects of customer

profiles and customer participation on the quality of

goods. The findings suggest that the organizations

would be wise to apply customer profiles into

practical characteristics of products or services.

This will raise the customers perception goods

quality and further affects the CRM performance. In

this study, the condition was simulated. It can beargued that the effect would be greater when the

customers see that their real profiles are used.

Based on this studys findings, the impact of

customer participation on goods quality and CRM

performance is mediated by perceived participation.

In this study, users did not actually interact with

representatives from the company. It can be argued

that the effect would be greater when the customers

interact with real people. This process changes

customers attitudes towards this organization and

reflects customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention.

Although every effort was made to enact the

experiment scenarios in something like a near-real

environment, limitations do exist because the subjects

knew that they were participating in an experiment

and had different levels of perception as customers of

an on-line bank. These factors will naturally cause

some inaccuracy in the results when compared to

real-world cases.

Overall, the research discussed in this article

explores the different dimensions of CRM theoretical

development drawn from service research area in the

context of the service industry as a main trend in the

business world. These findings can be considered as

the elements of building a strong customerrelationship that ultimately is needed in order to

survive in todays competitive environment.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Ji-Tsung Ben Wu received his D.B.A. degree from

Indiana University, U.S.A. He is now an assistant

professor in the Department of Information

Management, Fu-Jen Catholic University, Taiwan.

His research interests are Knowledge Management

and Web 2.0.

I-Ju Lin received her M.B.A. degree from the

Department of Information Management, Fu-Jen

Catholic University, Taiwan. Her research interests

are Customer Relationship Management and

Knowledge Management.

Ming-Hsien Yang received his Ph.D. degree fromNational Taiwan University, Taiwan. He is now the

dean of the College of Management, Fu-Jen Catholic

University, Taiwan and a professor in the Department

of Information Management, Fu-Jen Catholic

University, Taiwan. His research interests include

Electronic Business, Collaborative Commerce, and

Business Process Reengineering.

(Received February 2009, revised March 2009,

accepted March 2009)


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