• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
• /
• v.3 no.2
• /
• pp.47-76
• /
• 1989

The objectives of this study was to analyze the major causes of decreasing utilization rate of health care institutios in pilot-project area of regional medical insurance, Kwang-hwa and Kun-wi country. After the implementation of medical insurance, utilization rate of health institutions turned out' to be lower than it was estimated, when the pilot-project of regional medical insurance was planned. It might be due to changes in inhabitant's behavioral attitude toward medical insurance. So this study was made to find measures for financial stability by increasing utilization rate of health care institutions and to be available for basic demand-supply program of medical care. The hypothesis of this study was as follows; First. there is difference in understanding health care institutions between Kun-wi and Kwang-hwa. Second. respondesnts of inquiry survey have exact knowledge of their past experience of treatment taken prior to enforcement of medical insurance, Questionaire survey was made as to each 700 household among total 11, 884 households in Kun-wi and 20,919 households in Kwang-hwa. In case of Kun-wi, 70% of inquired households (491) gave their answers. In Kwang-hwa, the number was 560 households (80% of inquireds). Dollected data was processed and analyzed by way of using SPSS batch system. To evaluate facto rs distribution aspects of data and to make comparison between two area, percentage and $X^2$ distribution were applied. The results were as follows; L The utilization rate of health care institutions in Kun-wi and Kwang-hwa was lower than it was estimated. when pilot-project of medical insurance was planned. 2. Prior to the implementation of medical insurance. inhabitants in two area chose the medical institutions considering such factors. First was medical care fee cheap. second in habitant's residence, Third was the institutions conveniently easy of access. 3. After the implementation of medical insurance. 26.1% of inqurieds in Kun-wi and 41.6% in Kwang-hwa, changed medical institutions. In case of Kwn-wi, from health care institution (p 0.05), and in case of Kwang-hwa, vice versa, from general medical institutions to health care institutions. 4. Evaluation by factors were made such as follows. Inquired gave high marks to following facts: In case of Kun-wi, general medical institutions were difficult of access and relation between patients: was not friendly, but burden of medical expenditure was light. Effects of treatment and facilities was good. In case of Kwang-hwa, inquired gave high evaluation marks to the follow ing facts; facilities of medical institutions was not good, but the burden of medical expenditure was light. 5. After the implementation of medical insurance, the services was evaluated as good, but inquired hopec for lessening the burden of medical expenditure. 6. In case of exact understanding of cost-sharing, the evaluation rate in Kwang-hwa was higher than that of Kun-wi (p < 0.005). And positive attitude toward necessity of medical insurance was also good in Kwang-hwa (p < 0.05). 7. In case of inquired's attitude toward medical institutions, Kwang-hwa showed positive response (p < 0.05) 8. In the case of comparison between general medical institution and health care institution, two area showed similar positive response; medical manpower, facilities of medical institutions and effest: of treatement was good. 9. In comprehensive evaluation of benefit-service; the general medical institution's positiveness was higher than that of health care institutions in Kun-wi. But in Kwang-hwa vice-versa. 10. If the medical expenditure of general medical institution and health care institutions was equal 77% of inquireds in Kun-wi and 59.1% in Kwang-hwa answered that they chose general medical insurance. Considering results above mentioned, the conclusion of this study was made as follows. 1. In Kwang-hwa county, where the understanding of health care institutions's was good, the utilization's of health care institutions was shown high. Therefore, in case of Kwang-hwa, betterment: should be made to induce increasing utilization rate for negative factors of health care institutions. 2. In case of Kun-wi, where the understanding of health care institutions was on the decrease, measures for changing such negative factors should be taken by way of strengthening public relations. And cases of Kwang-hwa should also be studied. 3. On the side of financial stabilization and establishing health care delivery system, primary health care should be available. Therefore, the major cause of inhabitant's avoiding health care institutions should be known. And measures for activating that institutions have to be taken. So, the facilities of health care institution have to be improved up to the level of clinic. And supportive measures for securing equipment and improving health care services should also be taken. It is necessary that strategy for public relations should be employed with policy considerations and supports.

• Proceedings of the KOR-BRONCHOESO Conference
• /
• 1981.05a
• /
• pp.14.2-14
• /
• 1981

In 1859, Billroth used the term "Zylindrome" to describe a tumor arising in the paranasal sinuses. This neoplasm has been referred to by a variety of terms including cylindroma, basaloma, basaloid adenoma, cribriform adenocarcinoma, and "adenoid cystic carcinoma", now preferred by most authors. It most often arises in the major and minor salivary glands of the head and neck but has been noted in the trachea, lung, breast, skin and elsewhere. The tumors are characterized by a high incidence of local recurrence and ultimate distant metastases after agrressive attempts at surgical excision. Radiation therapy, while not curative, has proved uniformly useful in promoting tumor regression and pain relief as a palliative treatment. The present study was undertaken to review our experience with a group of 44 patients with adenoid cystic carcinoma of the head and neck, diagnosed at the Jeonju Presbyterian Medical Center between 1963 and 1980. The results are as follows: 1. Forty-four cases of adenoid cystic carcinoma represented 40% of the malignant salivary gland tumors during the same interval. 2. The most common primary sites were palate(8 cases) and submandibular gland (8 cases). 3. Thirteen patients (31%) had tumors. that arose in the major salivary glands; 29 (69%), minor salivary glands. 4. Of the 44 patients, there were 21 males. and 23 females. 5. Age at diagnosis ranged from 19 to 78 years; the average age was 50 years. 6. The tumor size was more than 4cm to 6cm in its greatest diamension in 10 patients. Clinically positive cervical lymph nodes were found in 7 patients; distant metastasis in one case at the time of diagnosis. 7. Radical excision was employed in 27 patients, 14 of whom combined with radiotherapy. 8. Of 29 patients available for follow-up the gross and determinate 3-year survival rates were 27.6% and 44.4%, respectively. Among twelve patients who received radical excision, the 3-year survival was 58%. 9. Ten of these 44 patients had local recurrence in an interval of 3 to 88 months. from the initial treatment. Of ten recurrences, 3 occured after 5 years. 10. Distant metastasis was found in 3 of the treated patients. All were pulmonary metastasis.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.26 no.2
• /
• pp.57-78
• /
• 2020

With the development of the Internet, consumers have had an opportunity to check product information easily through E-Commerce. Product reviews used in the process of purchasing goods are based on user experience, allowing consumers to engage as producers of information as well as refer to information. This can be a way to increase the efficiency of purchasing decisions from the perspective of consumers, and from the seller's point of view, it can help develop products and strengthen their competitiveness. However, it takes a lot of time and effort to understand the overall assessment and assessment dimensions of the products that I think are important in reading the vast amount of product reviews offered by E-Commerce for the products consumers want to compare. This is because product reviews are unstructured information and it is difficult to read sentiment of reviews and assessment dimension immediately. For example, consumers who want to purchase a laptop would like to check the assessment of comparative products at each dimension, such as performance, weight, delivery, speed, and design. Therefore, in this paper, we would like to propose a method to automatically generate multi-dimensional product assessment scores in product reviews that we would like to compare. The methods presented in this study consist largely of two phases. One is the pre-preparation phase and the second is the individual product scoring phase. In the pre-preparation phase, a dimensioned classification model and a sentiment analysis model are created based on a review of the large category product group review. By combining word embedding and association analysis, the dimensioned classification model complements the limitation that word embedding methods for finding relevance between dimensions and words in existing studies see only the distance of words in sentences. Sentiment analysis models generate CNN models by organizing learning data tagged with positives and negatives on a phrase unit for accurate polarity detection. Through this, the individual product scoring phase applies the models pre-prepared for the phrase unit review. Multi-dimensional assessment scores can be obtained by aggregating them by assessment dimension according to the proportion of reviews organized like this, which are grouped among those that are judged to describe a specific dimension for each phrase. In the experiment of this paper, approximately 260,000 reviews of the large category product group are collected to form a dimensioned classification model and a sentiment analysis model. In addition, reviews of the laptops of S and L companies selling at E-Commerce are collected and used as experimental data, respectively. The dimensioned classification model classified individual product reviews broken down into phrases into six assessment dimensions and combined the existing word embedding method with an association analysis indicating frequency between words and dimensions. As a result of combining word embedding and association analysis, the accuracy of the model increased by 13.7%. The sentiment analysis models could be seen to closely analyze the assessment when they were taught in a phrase unit rather than in sentences. As a result, it was confirmed that the accuracy was 29.4% higher than the sentence-based model. Through this study, both sellers and consumers can expect efficient decision making in purchasing and product development, given that they can make multi-dimensional comparisons of products. In addition, text reviews, which are unstructured data, were transformed into objective values such as frequency and morpheme, and they were analysed together using word embedding and association analysis to improve the objectivity aspects of more precise multi-dimensional analysis and research. This will be an attractive analysis model in terms of not only enabling more effective service deployment during the evolving E-Commerce market and fierce competition, but also satisfying both customers.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.65-87
• /
• 1981

The study is aimed at exploring concept held by clinical nurses of nursing. The data were collected from 225 nurses conviniently selected from the population of nurses working in Kang Won province. Findings include. 1) Nurse's Qualification. The respondents view that specialized knowledge is more important qualification of the nurse. Than warm personality. Specifically, 92.9% of the respondents indicated specialized knowledge as the most important qualification while only 43.1％ indicated warm personality. 2) On Nursing Profession. The respondents view that nursing profession as health service oriented rather than independent profession specifically. This suggests that nursing profession is not consistentic present health care delivery system nor support nurses working independently. 3) On Clients of Nursing Care The respondents include patients, family and the community residents in the category of nursing care. Specifically, 92.0％ of the respondents view that patient is the client, while only 67.1％ of nursing student and 74.7％ of herself. This indicates the lack of the nurse's recognition toward their clients. 4) On the Priority of Nursing care. Most of the respondents view the clients physical psychological respects as important component of nursing care but not the spiritual ones. Specially, 96.0% of the respondents indicated the physical respects, 93% psychological ones, while 64.1% indicated the spiritual ones. This means the lack of comprehensive conception on nursing aimension. 5) On Nursing Care. 91.6% of the respondents indicated that nursing care is the activity decreasing pain or helping to recover illness, while only 66.2% indicated earring out the physicians medical orders. 6) On Purpose of Nursing Care. 89.8% of the respondents indicated preventing illness and than 76.6% of them decreasing 1;ai of clients. On the other hand, maintaining health has the lowest selection at the degree of 13.8%. This means the lack of nurses' recognition for maintaining health as the most important point. 7) On Knowledge Needed in Nursing Care. Most of the respondents view that the knowledge faced with the spot of nursing care is needed. Specially, 81.3% of the respondents indicated simple curing method and 75.1%, 73.3%, 71.6% each indicated child nursing, maternal nursing and controlling for the communicable disease. On the other hand, knowledge w hick has been neglected in the specialized courses of nursing education, that is, thinking line among com-w unity members, overcoming style against between stress and personal relation in each home, and administration, management have a low selection at the depree of 48.9%,41.875 and 41.3%. 8) On Nursing Idea. The highest degree of selection is that they know themselves rightly, (The mean score measuring distribution was 4.205/5) In the lowest degree,3.016/5 is that devotion is the essential element of nursing, 2.860/5 the religious problems that human beings can not settle, such as a fatal ones, 2,810/5 the nursing profession is worth trying in one's life. This means that the peculiarly essential ideas on the professional sense of value. 9) On Nursing Services. The mean score measuring distribution for the nursing services showed that the inserting of machine air way is 2.132/5, the technique and knowledge for surviving heart-lung resuscitating is 2.892/s, and the preventing air pollution 3.021/5. Specially, 41.1% of the respondents indicated the lack of the replied ratio. 10) On Nurses' Qualifications. The respondents were selected five items as the most important qualifications. Specially, 17.4% of the respondents indicated specialized knowledge, 15.3% the nurses' health, 10.6％ satisfaction for nursing profession, 9.8% the experience need, 9.2% comprehension and cooperation, while warm personality as nursing qualifications have a tendency of being lighted. 11) On the Priority of Nursing Care The respondents were selected three items as the most important component. Most of the respondents view the client's physical, spiritual: economic points as important components of nursing care. They showed each 36.8%, 27.6%, 13.8% while educational ones showed 1.8%. 12) On Purpose of Nursing Care. The respondents were selected four items as the most important purpose. Specially,29.3% of the respondents indicated curing illness for clients, 21.3% preventing illness for client 17.4% decreasing pain, 15.3% surviving. 13) On the Analysis of Important Nursing Care Ranging from 5 point to 25 point, the nurses' qualification are concentrated at the degree of 95.1%. Ranging from 3 point to 25, the priorities of nursing care are concentrated at the degree of 96.4%. Ranging from 4 point to 16, the purpose of nursing care is concentrated at the degree of 84.0%. 14) The Analysis, of General Characteristics and Facts of Nursing Concept. The correlation between the educational high level and nursing care showed significance. (P < 0.0262). The correction between the educational low level and purpose of nursing care showed significance. (P < 0.002) The correlation between nurses' working yeras and the degree of importance for the purpose of nursing care showed significance (P < 0.0155) Specially, the most affirmative answers were showed from two years to four ones. 15) On Nunes' qualification and its Degree of Importance The correlation between nurses' qualification and its degree of importance showed significance. (r = 0.2172, p< 0.001) 0.005) B. General characteristics of the subjects The mean age of the subject was 39 ; with 38.6% with in the age range of 20-29 ; 52.6% were male; 57.9％ were Schizophrenia; 35.1% were graduated from high school or high school dropouts; 56.l％ were not have any religion; 52.6% were unmarried； 47.4% were first admission; 91.2% were involuntary admission patients. C. Measurement of anxiety variables. 1. Measurement tools of affective anxiety in this study demonstrated high reliability (.854). 2. Measurement tools of somatic anxiety in this study demonstrated high reliability (.920). D. Relationship between the anxiety variables and the general characteristics. 1. Relationship between affective anxiety and general characteristics. 1) The level of female patients were higher than that of the male patient (t = 5.41, p < 0.05). 2) Frequencies of admission were related to affective anxiety, so in the first admission the anxiety level was the highest. (F = 5.50, p < 0.005). 2, Relationship between somatic anxiety and general characteristics. 1) The age range of 30-39 was found to have the highest level of the somatic anxiety. (F = 3.95, p < 0.005). 2) Frequencies of admission were related to the somatic anxiety, so .in first admission the anxiety level was the highest. (F = 9.12, p ＜ 0.005) 0. Analysis of significant anxiety symptoms for nursing intervention. 1. Seven items such as dizziness, mental integration, sweating, restlessness, anxiousness, urinary frequency and insomnia, init. accounted for 96％ of the variation within the first 24 hours after admission. 2. Seven items such as fear, paresthesias, restlessness, sweating insomnia, init., tremors and body aches and pains accounted for 84% of the variation on the 10th day after admission.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.39-45
• /
• 2002

Our study shows the following results of the patterns and reality of oral health of 862 Government employees and private school employees who had received oral examinations from April to May, 2000. For the exposition of each group to dental service, the male groups(37.4%) were more exposed than the female ones(30.0%, p<0.05), while the scaling experience results indicated that more ages mean more scaling(the over 50 year group 27.1%, 41-50 group 23.9%, 31-40 group 20.5%, 21-30 group 10.8%, p<0.001). The data involving sweet food and refreshments revealed that 'positive respondents' in the male groups were 19.7% with 12.5% positive in the female ones, and 'negative respondents' were 32.3% and 51.0% in the male and female groups respectively(p<0.001). For the oral odor, the male groups(37.9%) are more severe than the female ones(25.5%, p<0.01). The results of dental caries revealed that 19.1% of the male and 13.9% of the female said 'yes'(p<0.05), with 25.1% of the male and 11.1% of the female suffering from missing teeth(p<0.001); 77.4% of the male and 51.0% of the female from periodontal disease (p<0.001).

• Radiation Oncology Journal
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.73-79
• /
• 1991

Between January 1980 and September 1988,08 patients with advanced T3 & T4 glottic carcinoma were treated with RT and surgery/RT in the Department of Radiation Oncology, Yonsei Cancer Center and ENT, Yonsei University College of Medicine. The mean age was 60 years old (range 33 to 79 years old). The 34 patients were treated with irradiation alone, and the remaining 34 patients with surgery and irradiation. Initial nodal presentation was $37\% (25/68);\;31\%$ (l1/34) in RT alone group and $41\%$ (14/34) in combined treatment group. The minimum follow-up was 2 years. The local control rate after treatment was $47\%$ in RT alone group and $65\%$ in combined treatment group; $57\%$ for node negative and $27\%$ for node positive patients treated with RT alone; $65\%$ for node negative and $54\%$ for node positive patients treated with combined treatment. The treatment failure was observed in 30 patients; 14 patients for primary local failure, 6 patients for regional nodal failure,5 patients for local and regional failure, 26 patients for primary failure and/or distant metastasis, and 2 patient for regional failure and/or distant metastasis. The overall 5-year suwival rate was $57\%;\;37\%$ in RT alone group and $70\%$ in combined treatment group; $55\%$ for node negative and $20\%$ for node positive patients treated with RT alone; $73\%$ for node negative and $77\%$ for node positive patients treated with combined treatment. In conclusion, the combined treatment groups in the treatment of advanced 73 and 74 glottic cancer showed the better results in local control rates and S-year actuarial survival rates than RT alone group. We suggest that total laryngectomy and postoperative RT in the most patients of advanced glottic cancer were performed. However, in cases of node negative patints, RT alone is prefer as a treatment modality over combined surgery and RT since the treatment results were comparable and furthermore functional preservation could be achieved.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.581-596
• /
• 1995

Clinical practice in nursing education provides an opportunity for students, through the process of ap-plying theoretical knowledge to practice, and to learn nursing skills as well as being socialized into nursing and as such decrease the reality shock of actual nursing practice. Because of a shortage of nursing faculty, the job of achieving the objectives of the clinical practice had been turned over to the head nurses. This resulted in many problems, such as, unclear location of responsibilities and inadequate feedback from head nurses. Therefore this study was done to introduce and evaluate the use of preceptors as a way to minimize the above problems, and to maximize the achievement of the clinical practice objectives. Using an adaptation of Zerbe's (1991) three-tiered team model, clinical practice was done using a preceptor, a head nurse and a clinical instructor, each with different and well defined roles. The subjects of this study were 67 senior students of the College of Nursing of Y University in Seoul whose clinical practice in adult nursing was carried out between May 1, 1994 and December 8, 1994. There were 22 preceptors who had at least two years of clinical experience and who were recommended by their head nurses. They were given additional education on the philosophy and objectives of the College of Nursing, on communication skills, on the theory and practice of education, and on nursing diagnosis and education evaluation. The role of the preceptor was to work one-to-one with students in their practice. The role of the head nurse was to supervise and evaluate the preceptors. The role of the clinical instructor was to provide the education program for the preceptors, to provide ad-vice and suggestions to the preceptors and to maintain lines of communication with the college. With each of these roles in place, it was thought that the effectiveness and efficiency of the clinical practice could be increased significantly. To evaluate the effectiveness of the preceptorship, the three - tiered model, Lowery's Teacher Evaluation Opinion Form translated and adapted to Korea was used to measure student statisfaction. The Clinical Practice Compentency Evaluation Tool developed by Lee et ai was also used to measure student competencies. The results of this study are as follows 1. The satisfaction with clinical practice was higher with the introduction of the perceptors than it was before they were used. (t=-5.96, p=<.005) 2. The clinical practice competencies were higher with the introduction of the preceptors than it was before they were used(t=-5.l3, p<.005) 3. In order to analyze areas not measured by the quantitative tools additional analysis of the open questions was done. The results of this analysis showed that : 1) The students felt positive about their sense of security, confidence, handling of responsbility, and being systematic. They also felt positive about improvements in knowledge, opportunities for direct care, and socialization. 2) The students felt negative about the technical part of their role, lack of knowledge by the preceptor, unprofessional attitudes on the part of the preceptor, difficulty in the role of the professional nurse(student). 3) The preceptors felt positive about their responsibility, motivation, and relationship with the college. 4) The preceptors felt negative about their bur-den. Introduction of the preceptorship model will lead to change and improvement in the negative factors discussed above, solve problems in the present clinical education system, increase continuity in the education of the students, help with socialization of the students and motivation of the preceptors to up-grade their education and increase their confidence. These objectives must be obtained to further the development of professional nursing, and thus, making the preceptorship a reality is our job for the future.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.61-101
• /
• 2014

This study investigates when and how disagreements in online customer ratings prompt more favorable product evaluations. Among the three metrics of volume, valence, and variance that feature in the research on online customer ratings, volume and valence have exhibited consistently positive patterns in their effects on product sales or evaluations (e.g., Dellarocas, Zhang, and Awad 2007; Liu 2006). Ratings variance, or the degree of disagreement among reviewers, however, has shown rather mixed results, with some studies reporting positive effects on product sales (e.g., Clement, Proppe, and Rott 2007) while others finding negative effects on product evaluations (e.g., Zhu and Zhang 2010). This study aims to resolve these contradictory findings by introducing preference heterogeneity as a possible moderator and causal attribution as a mediator to account for the moderating effect. The main proposition of this study is that when preference heterogeneity is perceived as high, a disagreement in ratings is attributed more to reviewers' different preferences than to unreliable product quality, which in turn prompts better quality evaluations of a product. Because disagreements mostly result from differences in reviewers' tastes or the low reliability of a product's quality (Mizerski 1982; Sen and Lerman 2007), a greater level of attribution to reviewer tastes can mitigate the negative effect of disagreement on product evaluations. Specifically, if consumers infer that reviewers' heterogeneous preferences result in subjectively different experiences and thereby highly diverse ratings, they would not disregard the overall quality of a product. However, if consumers infer that reviewers' preferences are quite homogeneous and thus the low reliability of the product quality contributes to such disagreements, they would discount the overall product quality. Therefore, consumers would respond more favorably to disagreements in ratings when preference heterogeneity is perceived as high rather than low. This study furthermore extends this prediction to the various levels of average ratings. The heuristicsystematic processing model so far indicates that the engagement in effortful systematic processing occurs only when sufficient motivation is present (Hann et al. 2007; Maheswaran and Chaiken 1991; Martin and Davies 1998). One of the key factors affecting this motivation is the aspiration level of the decision maker. Only under conditions that meet or exceed his aspiration level does he tend to engage in systematic processing (Patzelt and Shepherd 2008; Stephanous and Sage 1987). Therefore, systematic causal attribution processing regarding ratings variance is likely more activated when the average rating is high enough to meet the aspiration level than when it is too low to meet it. Considering that the interaction between ratings variance and preference heterogeneity occurs through the mediation of causal attribution, this greater activation of causal attribution in high versus low average ratings would lead to more pronounced interaction between ratings variance and preference heterogeneity in high versus low average ratings. Overall, this study proposes that the interaction between ratings variance and preference heterogeneity is more pronounced when the average rating is high as compared to when it is low. Two laboratory studies lend support to these predictions. Study 1 reveals that participants exposed to a high-preference heterogeneity book title (i.e., a novel) attributed disagreement in ratings more to reviewers' tastes, and thereby more favorably evaluated books with such ratings, compared to those exposed to a low-preference heterogeneity title (i.e., an English listening practice book). Study 2 then extended these findings to the various levels of average ratings and found that this greater preference for disagreement options under high preference heterogeneity is more pronounced when the average rating is high compared to when it is low. This study makes an important theoretical contribution to the online customer ratings literature by showing that preference heterogeneity serves as a key moderator of the effect of ratings variance on product evaluations and that causal attribution acts as a mediator of this moderation effect. A more comprehensive picture of the interplay among ratings variance, preference heterogeneity, and average ratings is also provided by revealing that the interaction between ratings variance and preference heterogeneity varies as a function of the average rating. In addition, this work provides some significant managerial implications for marketers in terms of how they manage word of mouth. Because a lack of consensus creates some uncertainty and anxiety over the given information, consumers experience a psychological burden regarding their choice of a product when ratings show disagreement. The results of this study offer a way to address this problem. By explicitly clarifying that there are many more differences in tastes among reviewers than expected, marketers can allow consumers to speculate that differing tastes of reviewers rather than an uncertain or poor product quality contribute to such conflicts in ratings. Thus, when fierce disagreements are observed in the WOM arena, marketers are advised to communicate to consumers that diverse, rather than uniform, tastes govern reviews and evaluations of products.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.31-54
• /
• 2007

The exchange between buyers and sellers in the industrial market is changing from short-term to long-term relationships. Long-term relationships are governed mainly by formal contracts or informal agreements, but many scholars are now asserting that controlling relationship by using formal contracts under environmental dynamism is inappropriate. In this case, partners will depend on each other's flexibility or interdependence. The former, flexibility, provides a general frame of reference, order, and standards against which to guide and assess appropriate behavior in dynamic and ambiguous situations, thus motivating the value-oriented performance goals shared between partners. It is based on social sacrifices, which can potentially minimize any opportunistic behaviors. The later, interdependence, means that each firm possesses a high level of dependence in an dynamic channel relationship. When interdependence is high in magnitude and symmetric, each firm enjoys a high level of power and the bonds between the firms should be reasonably strong. Strong shared power is likely to promote commitment because of the common interests, attention, and support found in such channel relationships. This study deals with environmental dynamism in high-tech industry. Firms in the high-tech industry regard it as a key success factor to successfully cope with environmental changes. However, due to the lack of studies dealing with environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the high-tech industry, it is very difficult to find effective strategies to cope with them. This paper presents the results of an empirical study on the relationship between environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the high-tech industry. We examined the effects of consumer, competitor, and technological dynamism on supply chain commitment. Additionally, we examined the moderating effects of flexibility and dependence of supply chains. This study was confined to the type of high-tech industry which has the characteristics of rapid technology change and short product lifecycle. Flexibility among the firms of this industry, having the characteristic of hard and fast growth, is more important here than among any other industry. Thus, a variety of environmental dynamism can affect a supply chain relationship. The industries targeted industries were electronic parts, metal product, computer, electric machine, automobile, and medical precision manufacturing industries. Data was collected as follows. During the survey, the researchers managed to obtain the list of parts suppliers of 2 companies, N and L, with an international competitiveness in the mobile phone manufacturing industry; and of the suppliers in a business relationship with S company, a semiconductor manufacturing company. They were asked to respond to the survey via telephone and e-mail. During the two month period of February-April 2006, we were able to collect data from 44 companies. The respondents were restricted to direct dealing authorities and subcontractor company (the supplier) staff with at least three months of dealing experience with a manufacture (an industrial material buyer). The measurement validation procedures included scale reliability; discriminant and convergent validity were used to validate measures. Also, the reliability measurements traditionally employed, such as the Cronbach's alpha, were used. All the reliabilities were greater than.70. A series of exploratory factor analyses was conducted. We conducted confirmatory factor analyses to assess the validity of our measurements. A series of chi-square difference tests were conducted so that the discriminant validity could be ensured. For each pair, we estimated two models-an unconstrained model and a constrained model-and compared the two model fits. All these tests supported discriminant validity. Also, all items loaded significantly on their respective constructs, providing support for convergent validity. We then examined composite reliability and average variance extracted (AVE). The composite reliability of each construct was greater than.70. The AVE of each construct was greater than.50. According to the multiple regression analysis, customer dynamism had a negative effect and competitor dynamism had a positive effect on a supplier's commitment. In addition, flexibility and dependence had significant moderating effects on customer and competitor dynamism. On the other hand, all hypotheses about technological dynamism had no significant effects on commitment. In other words, technological dynamism had no direct effect on supplier's commitment and was not moderated by the flexibility and dependence of the supply chain. This study makes its contribution in the point of view that this is a rare study on environmental dynamism and supply chain commitment in the field of high-tech industry. Especially, this study verified the effects of three sectors of environmental dynamism on supplier's commitment. Also, it empirically tested how the effects were moderated by flexibility and dependence. The results showed that flexibility and interdependence had a role to strengthen supplier's commitment under environmental dynamism in high-tech industry. Thus relationship managers in high-tech industry should make supply chain relationship flexible and interdependent. The limitations of the study are as follows; First, about the research setting, the study was conducted with high-tech industry, in which the direction of the change in the power balance of supply chain dyads is usually determined by manufacturers. So we have a difficulty with generalization. We need to control the power structure between partners in a future study. Secondly, about flexibility, we treated it throughout the paper as positive, but it can also be negative, i.e. violating an agreement or moving, but in the wrong direction, etc. Therefore we need to investigate the multi-dimensionality of flexibility in future research.