This article examines factors that influence health and quality of life. In addition to the symptomatology and physiological functioning, the influence of the psychological functioning and interpersonal relationship on the overall health and quality of life are also investigated. Using a case-study approach, a total of 70 patients suffering from allergy or asthma were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire developed by the present authors. It assessed the following six areas: Cause and onset of illness, psychological functioning, health management, trust, social support received and overall health and quality of life. Based on the transactional model (Bandura, 1997; Kim & Park, 2005), the results of the case studies have been integrated and divided into three aspects: (1) Cause and onset of illness that includes physiological and environment factors; (2) mediating influences that includes psychological functioning, health management, interpersonal relationship and social support received; and (3) outcome factor that includes symptomatology, health and quality of life. The psychological functioning includes self-efficacy (self-regulated efficacy, efficacy for enlisting social support, efficacy for managing the environment, and efficacy for overcoming difficulties), positive outlook, life goals, experience of stress, and proxy control. Interpersonal relationship includes trust of family members and the physician. Health management includes receiving proper health assessment, following the advice and prescription given by the physicians, control of the environment and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The results indicate that physiological, psychological, relational and environment factors interact with each other and affect individual's overall health and quality of life. Self-efficacy, social support received from family members, trust of physicians, and the health care system are key factors promoting healthy lifestyle and quality of life. The results indicate the need for further interdisciplinary, indigenous and cultural psychological research.
The supply chain management (SCM) systems have emerged as strong managerial tools for manufacturing firms in enhancing competitive strength. Despite of large investments in the SCM systems, many companies are not fully realizing the promised benefits from the systems. A review of literature on adoption, implementation and success factor of IOS (inter-organization systems), EDI (electronic data interchange) systems, shows that this issue has been examined from multiple theoretic perspectives. And many researchers have attempted to identify the factors which influence the success of system implementation. However, the existing studies have two drawbacks in revealing the determinants of systems implementation success. First, previous researches raise questions as to the appropriateness of research subjects selected. Most SCM systems are operating in the form of private industrial networks, where the participants of the systems consist of two distinct groups: focus companies and vendors. The focus companies are the primary actors in developing and operating the systems, while vendors are passive participants which are connected to the system in order to supply raw materials and parts to the focus companies. Under the circumstance, there are three ways in selecting the research subjects; focus companies only, vendors only, or two parties grouped together. It is hard to find researches that use the focus companies exclusively as the subjects probably due to the insufficient sample size for statistic analysis. Most researches have been conducted using the data collected from both groups. We argue that the SCM success factors cannot be correctly indentified in this case. The focus companies and the vendors are in different positions in many areas regarding the system implementation: firm size, managerial resources, bargaining power, organizational maturity, and etc. There are no obvious reasons to believe that the success factors of the two groups are identical. Grouping the two groups also raises questions on measuring the system success. The benefits from utilizing the systems may not be commonly distributed to the two groups. One group's benefits might be realized at the expenses of the other group considering the situation where vendors participating in SCM systems are under continuous pressures from the focus companies with respect to prices, quality, and delivery time. Therefore, by combining the system outcomes of both groups we cannot measure the system benefits obtained by each group correctly. Second, the measures of system success adopted in the previous researches have shortcoming in measuring the SCM success. User satisfaction, system utilization, and user attitudes toward the systems are most commonly used success measures in the existing studies. These measures have been developed as proxy variables in the studies of decision support systems (DSS) where the contribution of the systems to the organization performance is very difficult to measure. Unlike the DSS, the SCM systems have more specific goals, such as cost saving, inventory reduction, quality improvement, rapid time, and higher customer service. We maintain that more specific measures can be developed instead of proxy variables in order to measure the system benefits correctly. The purpose of this study is to find the determinants of SCM systems success in the perspective of vendor companies. In developing the research model, we have focused on selecting the success factors appropriate for the vendors through reviewing past researches and on developing more accurate success measures. The variables can be classified into following: technological, organizational, and environmental factors on the basis of TOE (Technology-Organization-Environment) framework. The model consists of three independent variables (competition intensity, top management support, and information system maturity), one mediating variable (collaboration), one moderating variable (government support), and a dependent variable (system success). The systems success measures have been developed to reflect the operational benefits of the SCM systems; improvement in planning and analysis capabilities, faster throughput, cost reduction, task integration, and improved product and customer service. The model has been validated using the survey data collected from 122 vendors participating in the SCM systems in Korea. To test for mediation, one should estimate the hierarchical regression analysis on the collaboration. And moderating effect analysis should estimate the moderated multiple regression, examines the effect of the government support. The result shows that information system maturity and top management support are the most important determinants of SCM system success. Supply chain technologies that standardize data formats and enhance information sharing may be adopted by supply chain leader organization because of the influence of focal company in the private industrial networks in order to streamline transactions and improve inter-organization communication. Specially, the need to develop and sustain an information system maturity will provide the focus and purpose to successfully overcome information system obstacles and resistance to innovation diffusion within the supply chain network organization. The support of top management will help focus efforts toward the realization of inter-organizational benefits and lend credibility to functional managers responsible for its implementation. The active involvement, vision, and direction of high level executives provide the impetus needed to sustain the implementation of SCM. The quality of collaboration relationships also is positively related to outcome variable. Collaboration variable is found to have a mediation effect between on influencing factors and implementation success. Higher levels of inter-organizational collaboration behaviors such as shared planning and flexibility in coordinating activities were found to be strongly linked to the vendors trust in the supply chain network. Government support moderates the effect of the IS maturity, competitive intensity, top management support on collaboration and implementation success of SCM. In general, the vendor companies face substantially greater risks in SCM implementation than the larger companies do because of severe constraints on financial and human resources and limited education on SCM systems. Besides resources, Vendors generally lack computer experience and do not have sufficient internal SCM expertise. For these reasons, government supports may establish requirements for firms doing business with the government or provide incentives to adopt, implementation SCM or practices. Government support provides significant improvements in implementation success of SCM when IS maturity, competitive intensity, top management support and collaboration are low. The environmental characteristic of competition intensity has no direct effect on vendor perspective of SCM system success. But, vendors facing above average competition intensity will have a greater need for changing technology. This suggests that companies trying to implement SCM systems should set up compatible supply chain networks and a high-quality collaboration relationship for implementation and performance.
In this study, the early suicide prevention program was applied to the elementary school students and compared the prior & post effect of the program, and verified the status of psychology change like emotional status, or temptation to take a suicide, and presented the possibility as a suicide prevention program. The period of adolescence is the very unstable period in the process of growth being cognitively immature, emotionally impulsive period. It is the period emotionally unstable and unpredictable possible to select the method of suicide as an extreme method to escape the reality, or impulsive problem solving against small conflict or dispute situation. Many stress of the student such as recent nuclear family, expectation of parents to their children, education problem, socio-environmental elements, individual psychological factor lead students to the extreme activity of suicide in recent days. In this study, the scope of stress experienced in the elementary school as well as idea and degree of temptation regarding suicide by the suicide prevention program were identified, and through prevention program such as meditation training, breath training and through experience of anger control, emotion-expression, self overcome and establish positive self-identity and make understanding Self-control, Self-esteem & preciousness of life based on which the effect to suicide prevention was analyzed. The study was made targeting 51 students of 2 classes of 6th grade of elementary school of Goyang-si and processed 30 minutes every morning focused on through experience & activity of the principle & method of brain science. The data was collected for 20 times before starting morning class by using Suicide Probability Scale(herein SPS-A) designed to predict effectively suicide Probability, suicide risk prediction scale, surveyed by 7 areas such as Positive outlook, Within the family closeness, Impulsivity, Interpersonal hostility, Hopelessness, Hopelessness syndrome, suicide accident. Analytical methods and validation was used the Wilcoxon's signed rank test using SPSS Program. Though the process of program in short period, but there was a effective and positive results in the 7 areas in the average comparison. But in the t-test result, there was a different outcome. It indicated changes in the 3 questionnaires (No.7, No.14, No.19) out of 31 SPS-A questionnaires, and there was a no change to the rest item. It also indicated more changes of the students in the class A than class B. And in case of the class A students, psychological changes were verified in the areas of Hopelessness syndrome, suicide accident among 7 areas after the program was processed. Through this study, it could be verified that different results could be derived depending on the Student tendency, program professional(teacher in charge, processing lecturer). The suicide prevention program presented in this article can be a help in learning and suicide prevention with consistent systematization, activation through emotion and impulse control based on emotional stress relief and positive self-identity recovery, stabilization of brain waves, and let the short period program not to be died out but to be continued connecting from childhood to adolescence capable to make surrounding environment for spiritual, physical healthy growth for which this could be an effective program for suicide prevention of the social problem.
To investigate the factors related with the compliance and the treatment of the patients with pulmonary tuberculosis in urban and suburb area, we followed up all the 755 registered patients(at urban Public Health Office 544, at suburb 210) as follow from January 1,1992 to December 31, 1993. We describe the general characteristics and the characteristics related with the disease of the patients according to the area as follow. 150 patients(27.5%) were at their age of 20 to 29 years in the urban area, whereas 45 patients (21.4%) were 60 to 69 years and another 45 patients(21.4%) were 70 to 79 years in the suburb area. According to the first chest X -ray examination, 54.5% of all cases were proved to be mild in the urban area. But in the suburb area, moderate cases (44.3%) were more than mild cases(p<0.01). Follow-up X-ray's were performed more properly(p<0.05) in the urban area(94.3%) than in the suburb area(90.0%). Most cases were found in the chest X -ray examination performed by Public Health Office (p<0.01) : payable chest X-ray in the urban area (56.7%) and free chest X-ray in the suburb area(35.2%). More patients were cured in the urban area(90.8%) than in the suburb area(87.1%). The presence of supporting family member were significantly higher(p<0.05) in the urban area(79.1%) than in the suburb area(88.1%). In the analysis of the treatment efficacy, more cure ate were found in the patients cytologically confirmed to be culture (+). In the urban area, 201 culture (+) patients (93.5%) 294 culture (-) patients (89.1%) were cured. In the suburb area, 99 culture (+) patients(91.7%) and 84 culture (-) patients(82.4%) were cured. Age, the presence of supporting family member, and the socioeconomic status of the patient had significant association with the prescription compliance related with the general characteristics of the patients. Whereas, X-ray finding and AFB culture finding were the significant factors associated with the prescription compliance related with pulmonary tuberculosis (p<0.05). The cumulative compliance in the survival analysis was 92.5% in the urban area and 88.1% in suburb area, at sixth month of follow-up. Failure rate for regular drug receipt was highest at second month in the urban area(3.75%) and at fourth month in the suburb area(4.15%). In logistic regression of the factors related with the tratment result, first X-ray examination and prescription compliance were significantly associated in the urban area(p<0.05). However, there is no factor significantly associated with the treatment result in the suburb area. It could be explained by too small size of the sample. In logistic regression of the factors related with the prescription compliance, first chest X-ray, sputum culture outcome and the presence of supporting family member were significant variables in the urban area(p<0.05). Most patients with family member were proved to be compliant with the prescription. This shows that it is important for the patients with long-lasting ilnesses to have supporting family member. Therefore, to improve prescription compliance we should strengthen the health education before the initiation of treatment and take special interest in the patients without supporting family member.
The basic purpose of this study is to investigate perceived quality and service personal value affecting the result of long-term relationship between service buyers and suppliers. This research presented a constructive model(perceived quality affecting the service personal value and the moderate effect of NFC) in the on off line and then propose the research model base on prior researches and studies about relationships among components of service. Data were gathered from respondents who visit at the education service market. For this study, Data were analyzed by AMOS 7.0. We integrate the literature on services marketing with researches on personal values and perceived quality. The SERPVAL scale presented here allows for the creation of a common ground for assessing service personal values, giving a clear understanding of the key value dimensions behind service choice and usage. It will lead to a focus of future research in services marketing, extending knowledge in the field and stimulating further empirical research on service personal values. At the managerial level, as a tool the SERPVAL scale should allow practitioners to evaluate and improve the value of a service, and consequently, to define strategies and actions to address services for customers based on their fundamental personal values. Through qualitative and empirical research, we find that the service quality construct conforms to the structure of a second-order factor model that ties service quality perceptions to distinct and actionable dimensions: outcome, interaction, and environmental quality. In turn, each has two subdimensions that define the basis of service quality perceptions. The authors further suggest that for each of these subdimensions to contribute to improved service quality perceptions, the quality received by consumers must be perceived to be reliable, responsive, and empathetic. Although the service personal value may be found in researches that explore individual values and their consequences for consumer behavior, there is no established operationalization of a SERPVAL scale. The inexistence of an established scale, duly adapted in order to understand and analyze personal values behind services usage, exposes the need of a measurement scale with such a purpose. This need has to be rooted, however, in a conceptualization of the construct being scaled. Service personal values can be defined as a customer's overall assessment of the use of a service based on the perception of what is achieved in terms of his own personal values. As consumer behaviors serve to show an individual's values, the use of a service can also be a way to fulfill and demonstrate consumers'personal values. In this sense, a service can provide more to the customer than its concrete and abstract attributes at both the attribute and the quality levels, and more than its functional consequences at the value level. Both values and services literatures agree, that personal value is the highest-level concept, followed by instrumental values, attitudes and finally by product attributes. Purchasing behaviors are agreed to be the end result of these concepts' interaction, with personal values taking a major role in the final decision process. From both consumers' and practitioners' perspectives, values are extremely relevant, as they are desirable goals that serve as guiding principles in people's lives. While building on previous research, we propose to assess service personal values through three broad groups of individual dimensions; at the self-oriented level, we use (1) service value to peaceful life (SVPL) and, at the social-oriented level, we use (2) service value to social recognition (SVSR), and (3) service value to social integration (SVSI). Service value to peaceful life is our first dimension. This dimension emerged as a combination of values coming from the RVS scale, a scale built specifically to assess general individual values. If a service promotes a pleasurable life, brings or improves tranquility, safety and harmony, then its user recognizes the value of this service. Generally, this service can improve the user's pleasure of life, since it protects or defends the consumer from threats to life or pressures on it. While building upon both the LOV scale, a scale built specifically to assess consumer values, and the RVS scale for individual values, we develop the other two dimensions: SVSR and SVSI. The roles of social recognition and social integration to improve service personal value have been seriously neglected. Social recognition derives its outcome utility from its predictive utility. When applying this underlying belief to our second dimension, SVSR, we assume that people use a service while taking into consideration the content of what is delivered. Individuals consider whether the service aids in gaining respect from others, social recognition and status, as well as whether it allows achieving a more fulfilled and stimulating life, which might then be revealed to others. People also tend to engage in behavior that receives social recognition and to avoid behavior that leads to social disapproval, and this contributes to an individual's social integration. This leads us to the third dimension, SVSI, which is based on the fact that if the consumer perceives that a service strengthens friendships, provides the possibility of becoming more integrated in the group, or promotes better relationships at the social, professional or family levels, then the service will contribute to social integration, and naturally the individual will recognize personal value in the service. Most of the research in business values deals with individual values. However, to our knowledge, no study has dealt with assessing overall personal values as well as their dimensions in a service context. Our final results show that the scales adapted from the Schwartz list were excluded. A possible explanation is that although Schwartz builds on Rokeach work in order to explore individual values, its dimensions might be especially focused on analyzing societal values. As we are looking for individual dimensions, this might explain why the values inspired by the Schwartz list were excluded from the model. The hierarchical structure of the final scale presented in this paper also presents theoretical implications. Although we cannot claim to definitively capture the dimensions of service personal values, we believe that we come close to capturing these overall evaluations because the second-order factor extracts the underlying commonality among dimensions. In addition to obtaining respondents' evaluations of the dimensions, the second-order factor model captures the common variance among these dimensions, reflecting the respondents' overall assessment of service personal values. Towards this fact, we expect that the service personal values conceptualization and measurement scale presented here contributes to both business values literature and the service marketing field, allowing for the delineation of strategies for adding value to services. This new scale also presents managerial implications. The SERPVAL dimensions give some guidance on how to better pursue a highly service-oriented business strategy. Indeed, the SERPVAL scale can be used for benchmarking purposes, as this scale can be used to identify whether or not a firms' marketing strategies are consistent with consumers' expectations. Managerial assessment of the personal values of a service might be extremely important because it allows managers to better understand what customers want or value. Thus, this scale allows us to identify what services are really valuable to the final consumer; providing knowledge for making choices regarding which services to include. Traditional approaches have focused their attention on service attributes (as quality) and service consequences(as service value), but personal values may be an important set of variables to be considered in understanding what attracts consumers to a certain service. By using the SERPVAL scale to assess the personal values associated with a services usage, managers may better understand the reasons behind services' usage, so that they may handle them more efficiently. While testing nomological validity, our empirical findings demonstrate that the three SERPVAL dimensions are positively and significantly associated with satisfaction. Additionally, while service value to social integration is related only with loyalty, service value to peaceful life is associated with both loyalty and repurchase intent. It is also interesting and surprising that service value to social recognition appears not to be significantly linked with loyalty and repurchase intent. A possible explanation is that no mobile service provider has yet emerged in the market as a luxury provider. All of the Portuguese providers are still trying to capture market share by means of low-end pricing. This research has implications for consumers as well. As more companies seek to build relationships with their customers, consumers are easily able to examine whether these relationships provide real value or not to their own lives. The selection of a strategy for a particular service depends on its customers' personal values. Being highly customer-oriented means having a strong commitment to customers, trying to create customer value and understanding customer needs. Enhancing service distinctiveness in order to provide a peaceful life, increase social recognition and gain a better social integration are all possible strategies that companies may pursue, but the one to pursue depends on the outstanding personal values held by the service customers. Data were gathered from 284 respondents in the korean discount store and online shopping mall market. This research proposed 3 hypotheses on 6 latent variables and tested through structural equation modeling. 6 alternative measurements were compared through statistical significance test of the 6 paths of research model and the overall fitting level of structural equation model. and the result was successful. and Perceived quality more positively influences service personal value when NFC is high than when no NFC is low in the off-line market. The results of the study indicate that service quality is properly modeled as an antecedent of service personal value. We consider the research and managerial implications of the study and its limitations. In sum, by knowing the dimensions a consumer takes into account when choosing a service, a better understanding of purchasing behaviors may be realized, guiding managers toward customers expectations. By defining strategies and actions that address potential problems with the service personal values, managers might ultimately influence their firm's performance. we expect to contribute to both business values and service marketing literatures through the development of the service personal value. At a time when marketing researchers are challenged to provide research with practical implications, it is also believed that this framework may be used by managers to pursue service-oriented business strategies while taking into consideration what customers value.