• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.37-53
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• 2006

SPI (Software Process Improvement) activities have been considered one of the crucial approaches to achieve high quality, productivity and timely delivery of software products and services. The basic premise of SPI model is that higher maturity levels lead to better performance. In this research, the relationships between SPI results and performance were empirically investigated with Korean software companies. CMM key process areas were categorized into two dimensions, 'Process Implementation' and 'Quantitative Management'. The relationship between process implementation and performance was significant, but the relationship between quantitative management and performance was insignificant. The control variable, size of OU(Organizational Unit), did not have significant impact on the relation ships between SPI activities and OU performance.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.113-134
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• 2009

Rapid knowledge change, heightened competition. and shortened product life cycles are just a few of the constants faced by many buying firms in today's markets. Many buying firms have responded to these conditions by outsourcing non-core activities. The Quality and cost of a product or service offered in the market is a function, not only of the capabilities of the firm, but also of the network of suppliers who provide inputs to the firm. When a firm finds its suppliers lacking in performance it can help suppliers to develop their capabilities. There are three main goals for this study. The first goal is to identify the important factors that precede and influence firms' investment in knowledge transfer activities. The second goal is to investigate the relationship between knowledge transfer activities and the consequences of knowledge transfer activities. The last goal is to explore the effects of knowledge change speed. To analyze the validity of the research model and the hypotheses. the data are collected from 238 manufacturing firms through the administration of structured Questionnaires. The results of structural equation model analyses indicate that the model is generally valid and 11 of 14 hypotheses are supported by the data. Reasons for and implications of these observed relationships are discussed.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.15-25
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• 2022

Purposes: This study aimed to identify the relationships among personal and organizational communication skills, occupational stress, and patient safety activity levels of two nursing workforce groups (nurses and nursing assistants) who provide integrated nursing care services. Methodology: The study design is a cross-sectional study. Seventy-one nurses and forty-three nursing assistants working in the integrated nursing care service wards participated in this study. The data were collected using a self-reported questionnaire from June to July 2021. The relationships among the variables were analyzed using the Pearson correlation coefficient. Findings: Nurses' personal communication skills (r=.294, p=.013), organizational communication skills (r=.408, p<.001), and occupational stress (r=.243, p=.041) were associated with their patient safety activities. However, nursing assistants' personal communication skills, organizational communication, and occupational stress were not correlated with their patient safety activities. Practical Implication: Patient safety activities of nurses were related to their communication skills and occupational stress, but nurse assistants were not. Therefore, nurses should encourage nursing assistants to responsibly engage in patient safety activities and supervise their works appropriately to achieve high-quality care.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.17-32
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• 2019

Purpose: CMMI is a process model used to assess or improve an organization's software development capabilities. This paper deals with the quality indicators when using CMMI and their priorities for possible improvement. Methods: The 22 process areas and 167 practices of CMMI are matched with 60 indicators of Quality Scorecard(QSC) first to analyze the balance of CMMI in terms of prevention, appraisal, and final result categories and second to isolate a set of key areas for quality focused performance measures. Results: A total of 86.2% (144 out of 167) CMMI practices were mapped to QSC. According to the CMMI level of maturity, level 2 and 3 accounted for more than 75% of the total. The practices at the maturity level of 4 and 5 were mapped to more than 52% of the final result's measurements. It has been observed that CMMI practices need further elaboration at higher levels to consider prevention, appraisal, and final results simultaneously. Conclusion: In order to improve the quality performance of the organization by applying CMMI, the final result measures should be refined in metrics, cycles, and methods, and then corrective actions could be conducted to improve the performance of CMMI practices. This strategy would help the practitioners benefit from CMMI in fostering the overall quality level of key activities for the organization's business goals.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.163-176
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• 2017

The fourth industrial revolution and creative economy are in the center of today's economic environments. In this context, venture companies make great efforts in achieving innovative capability for sustainable growth. Especially, in order to create the innovative capability or innovation performance, they are very much interested in obtaining such characteristics of organizational ambidexterity as exploration and exploitation. Thus, this study aims to study the organizational contextual ambidexterity as a key factor to create SMEs' performance and to conduct an empirical research with the data collected from domestic SMEs in order to find the antecedent and consequence of this ambidexterity. In so doing, we selected as an antecedent of contextual ambidexterity quality management practice, which is an innovative method of enterprise innovation and enterprise level, innovation performance (radical and incremental Innovation performance) as a consequence and ran a series of regression analyses. As a result, quality management practices such as quality circle activities have had positive effect on organizational ambidexterity, that is, exploration and exploration, and contextual ambidexterity has affected positively on innovation performance. It is also found that the contextual ambidexterity plays a full mediating role in the relationship between quality management practices and innovation performance. The results of this study suggest that contextual ambidexterity is essential to achieving organizational innovation performance and quality management activities such as quality circle should be preceded in order to stimulate or stimulate contextual ambidexterity.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.811-828
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• 2017

Purpose: In the meantime, studies on the measurement methods of service quality have mainly been conducted in views of the service recipients. In this study, we introduce a co-orientation model that compares the perceptions of service provider and recipient and examine the applicability in service quality field. Methods: In this study, we conducted a case study on the specific service called 'National R&D Project Plan Evaluation Service' to examine the applicability of the co-orientation model in the service quality field. Results: We could identify the phenomenon of how service providers and recipients perceive differently about specific services introduced in the case study. This study confirms that it can be used to identify problems in mutually oriented service quality activities and to take practical measures to improve them. As we have seen in this case study, the co-orientation model is expected to be of great help in exploring opportunities for quality improvement in the area of service quality. Conclusion: The service quality co-orientation model allows the service provider to distinguish between what they think of differently with the service recipient and what they have in common, so the service provider will be able to find the agenda of service quality improvement.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.93-118
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• 2022

Purpose - Export marketers may have incentives to attempt real earnings management to avoid low reported earnings. Therefore, we attempted to verify the relationship between cost stickiness and real earnings management in the context of export marketing. Design/methodology/approach - Data were collected from exporters that settle-accounts in December excluding financial businesses listed on the stock market from 2015 to 2019. Multiple regression analysis were employed to analyze the data. Findings - The results showed that there is a negative relationship between cost stickiness and real earnings management. In addition, the results showed that export marketers little attempt to offset the cost inefficiency caused by the increase in expense because of cost stickiness with opportunistic management activities through real earnings management. Rather, as the level of real earnings management appears lower, exporters showing cost stickiness are expected to report management performance based on actual marketing. Furthermore, exporters with a high level of managerial centrality or high managerial overconfidence little attempt to offset cost inefficiency caused by cost stickiness with real earnings management activities. Research implications or Originality - Our study is the first to investigate the quality of earnings information of exporters with cost stickiness. Based on the results, we suggested efficient marketing strategies for exporters.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.54-69
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• 2001

This study was conducted to assess factors associated with the degree of performance of qualify improvement(QI) activities. A mailed questionnaire survey was conducted between September 15 and October 30, 2000, with the staffs being charge of QI at each of the hospitals with 400 beds or greater. Of the 108 hospitals eligible for inclusion in our study, 79 participated, yielding a response rate of 73.1%. After excluding 12 hospitals that did not perform any QI activities, 117 responses from 67 hospitals were used for the analysis. Using the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Criteria(MBNQAC), perceived performance of QI was measured in terms of the improvement of the quality of clinical practice, clinical supporting department, administrative procedure of receiving care, customer satisfaction, efficiency and standardization of work process. Factors evaluated for the association were the extent of QI implementation, compliance to 5 QI principles, participation of hospital CEOs, budget allocation, history of QI, and bed size. Path analysis was performed to assess the relationship between QI performance and these factors. Major findings of this study are as follows. Hospitals showing higher degree of QI implementation (path coefficient=0.5967, p<0.001)) and better compliance with the basic principes of QI(0.5736, p<0.05) tended to achieve better performance. Path analysis results showed that interest and participation of hospital CEOs(0.1954, p<0.05) and compliance with the basic principes of QI(0.4028, p<0.0001) indirectly affected the outcomes of QI by influencing the intermediate variable of the level of QI implementation. This study results suggest that having employees have a good orientation of the basic concept and principes of QI through relevant training be the most important requirement to achieve better outcomes from QI activities. In addition, to educate leaders of hospitals the need of active implementation of QI is important to encourage their participation and draw strong support for QI programs.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.121-129
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• 2021

Sodium intake has been associated with the health-related quality of life (HRQoL). This study examined the demographic factors related to HRQoL and whether there is an association between sodium intake and HRQoL in adults residing in rural areas. A total of 1,980 adults (aged ≥20 years) were selected from a cross-sectional study conducted between December 2013 and February 2014 in Gyeongju, South Korea. The sodium intake and HRQoL were measured using a validated food frequency questionnaire and the EuroQol Five-Dimension (EQ-5D) (mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort, and anxiety/depression), respectively. The education levels (<5 years) were inversely associated with all five dimensions of HRQoL. Men had better EQ-5D scores for each of the five components examined. Adults living with spouses had better scores related to usual activities and anxiety/depression, whereas widowers had decreased scores of mobility and self-care. Unlike older adults aged 70-79 years, adults aged <60 years were more likely to have greater scores related to mobility, usual activities, and pain/discomfort. The income levels were also inversely related to the scores for self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort, and anxiety/depression. Sodium intake was positively associated with the HRQoL related to self-care, usual activities, and pain/discomfort, but it was negatively associated with anxiety/depression. In conclusion, these findings suggest that the demographic factors and sodium intake were independently associated with HRQoL. The results highlight the need to provide tailored, targeted policies and interventions that consider personal characteristics and dietary intake to improve the overall HRQoL in adults residing in rural areas.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.256-270
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• 2022

This paper examined whether quality management(QM) positively impacts Kazakh companies' business performance (financial and non-financial performance). As a result of testing ten hypotheses based on the research model for 287 companies in Almaty, only eight hypotheses were supported. Top management leadership was identified as a critical factor that positively affected financial performance, and customer-centered thinking is strongly related to non-financial performance. Employee participation and quality information analysis factors also positively affected business performance, but their influence was lower than top management leadership and customer-centered thinking factors. Finally, the supplier management factor did not significantly affect business performance, and the two related hypotheses were not supported. These results are presumed to be due to the characteristics of the target companies, such as oil and raw material manufacturing and construction, rather than high-quality finished products.