• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.81-101
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• 2012

A franchise system develops competitive products for a franchise store through the system established by the franchise head office. Therefore, it has advantages of expanding the marketing effect since the risk of failure is reduced for a founder and the franchise head office supports the overall sales, advertisement and promotional activities. Also, a franchise store has advantages of fulfilling necessary facilities and tools on advantageous terms, reducing expenses by purchasing in bulk, and getting a supply of products with stable qualities. However, aside from such advantages, franchise head offices are forcing franchise stores to make unnecessary investments in equipments and remodel the interior. Also, franchise business operators are being made to share the cost of marketing and multiple franchise stores are being approved within the same business district, and franchise business operators are suffering damages. Therefore, cases of shutting down a franchise store or not renewing the contract are frequent. From the position of a franchise head office, profits that are generated from franchise fees, interior remodeling fees and supplying facilities and materials will increase as the number of new franchise stores increases. However, franchise stores are faced with difficulties due to excessive competitions between similar types of businesses and the overlapping of business districts that come from increases in the number of stores, and they eventually end up shutting down. Therefore, in order for a franchise business operator and franchise head office to grow and develop continuously, opening new stores is important, but successfully renewing the contract by maintaining a relationship with an existing franchise business operator is desirable. In this aspect, a study that examines the elements that can affect the relationship between a franchise business operator and franchise head office is believed to be important for the development of the franchise industry and creating safe jobs for the public. With an emphasis on the relationship between a franchise head office and franchise store, this study attempted to examine the effect of characteristics of a franchise head office and franchise business operator on the bilateral relationship such as the faith and immersion, and wished to review the effects of such faith and immersion on the satisfaction of a franchise store, including an intention of renewing the contract. In particular, in the current situation of great uncertainties in the market, this study also wished to examine how uncertain market elements will affect the relationship between the characteristics of a franchise head office and franchise business operator, and the faith and immersion. The study revealed that among the characteristics of a franchise head office, the standardization management of a franchise head office hinders a franchise store's faith and immersion in a franchise head office. Also, a franchise head office's support was shown to increase a franchise store's faith and immersion. However, it was revealed that a franchise head office's regulation and incentive policies for a franchise store do not affect a franchise store's faith and immersion. Among characteristics of a franchise business operator, a franchise store's healthy financial status and entrepreneur spirits were shown to enhance the faith and immersion in a franchise head office. However, it was shown that excellent business abilities of a franchise business operator actually reduce the immersion for a franchise head office. Also, the faith and immersion in a franchise head office were shown to enhance the intention of renewing the contract by increasing the satisfaction for a franchise head office. In addition, it was originally believed that the effects of a franchise business operator's characteristics on the faith and immersion in a franchise head office will vary depending on the market uncertainty, but the effect of a franchise business operator's characteristics depending on the recognition of uncertainties was shown to be insignificant. Such findings show that instead of making a franchise store pay for equipment investments and marketing and obtaining profits by force, a franchise head office should actively support a franchise store so that a franchise store's business activities can be conducted well, which will bring profits to a franchise store and ultimately to a franchise head office. This is a more desirable direction for the development of both parties. Implications of such findings are summarized as follows. First, it was shown that a franchise head office's standardization management actually reduces a franchise store's faith and immersion. Therefore, it is believed that instead of conducting standardization managements for regulating and managing franchise stores, measures should be developed so that franchise stores can actually participate voluntarily. For this, a head office should put in efforts to develop and provide standardized manuals, and make sure that a self-review system takes root. Second, a franchise head office's incentives did not have significant effects on the faith and immersion, but the support was shown to be effective. Therefore, it can be seen that instead of taking post-measures for a franchise store, taking pre-measures of actively supporting is more effective in maintaining a franchise store. Third, among characteristics of a franchise head office, it was shown that a franchise store's healthy financial status increased the faith and immersion in a franchise head office. Therefore, when selecting a franchise business operator, instead of thoughtlessly opening up franchise stores for the profit of a head office, it is believed that reviewing a franchise business operator's financial firepower and credit status is necessary. As for academic implications, previous studies examined the relationship by focusing on the characteristics of a franchise head office and franchise store, but this study focused on the characteristics of a franchise business operator. Therefore, this study dealt with the importance of a franchise business operator's competence, and is significant because it revealed the fact that a franchise business operator's excellent commercialization ability can become an element that hinders the immersion in a franchise head office. It was originally believed that a franchise store's characteristics will have different effects on the faith and immersion depending on the market uncertainty, but it was shown that the effect of a franchise store's characteristics depending on the recognition of uncertainties was insignificant, and that is the limitation of this study.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 1995

Based on the questionnaires sent to 270 nurses of public health centers in kyungnam during the period of March 19 to April 11 in 1992, this study was written for the of finding out the grade of satisfaction, obstacles in carrying out duties concerned with nursing services and the change of nurses role needed according to the change of the local public health administration. The first-ranking tasks carried by nurses of public health center are believed to have been family planning activities before the 1970's, nursing services during the 1970's, mother-child health activities during the 1980's, and nursing services during the period of 1990 to 1992. As far as the priority order of all the family planning activities is concerned, the counseling of the insertion of intrauterine contraceptive device, the use of oral pill or the distribution of condom was placed emphasis on before 1970, and publicity activities of family planning after that time. The first priority order of mother-child health activities has been put on the registration of pregnant women since 1970, with prenatal examination and vaccination ranking next to it. The priority order for activities against tuberculosis was laid on finding out and registration of new T.B. patients every year, with patients' control, and medication or injection ranking next to it. As for the priority order of nursing services, traveling medical examination and treatment ranked the first-stressed activity before 1970, with medication and injection ranking next to it. The first priority order management activity of communicable diseases was put on vaccination before 1970, with medication and injection. ranking next. And consultation and education ranked second to it during 1990 to 1992. As for the health services of the aged, traveling examination and treatment ranked the order, with the assistance of medical examination ranking next to it. As far as troubles and obstacles shown in case of family planning, the rate of residents' lack understanding was 28.8%, that of lacking budget 13.6%, and the imperfection of public health administration system 11.9%. In the case of tuberculosis control, residents' lacking understanding was 32.5%, the deficiency of public health administration system 18.2%, over-duty(shortage of hands) 15.6%, and the insufficiency skill and know-how 13.0%. In the case of nursing services, the deficiency of public health administration system was 18.2%, each over-duty(the shortage of hands) and the shortage of facilities and equipment 15.6% respective, and residents' lacking understanding 13.0%. The rate of dissatisfaction with the chance or possibility of promotion for his or her career or capability was shown to be 49.2%, and 65.9% of the health nurses expressed their complaints of the deficiency of the chance of the promotion to a professional or expert. when the public health nurses were asked in the questionably whether they were satisfied or not with current state of equipment and facilities needed for public health service, 49.6% of them answered in the negative. The grade of the satisfaction with the current individual position was shown to be low as much as the status of his or her position was now. 37.6% of those asked in the research answered to have the readiness to switch jobs for the reasons of dissatisfaction and so on with lacking promotion chance as well as bad working condition. Significant correlation between the grade of job satisfaction and the current status of the po as found to be in this research, which showed that the lower the status of position was, the lower the grade of job satisfaction was. But little correlation between the grade of job satisfaction and his or her schooling and career was found. In order to carry out primary health care successfully, it can be said that more education and publicity activities to make public health nurses and residents see it in a new light are requested. In addition to it, it is suggested that the improvement of promotion system for public health nurses and the enlargement of job province should also be taken in consideration of the high dissatisfaction with and complaints of the chance of promotion and the system of position. In order words, it is important that considerations for system improvement enough to make nursing services pleasant and satisfactory should be taken into.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.1-23
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• 2012

The conflict between major corporations and small and medium-sized businesses is being aggravated, the trickle down effect is not working properly, and, as the controversy surrounding the effectiveness of the business limiting system continues to swirl, the plan proposed to protect the business domain of small and medium-sized businesses, resolve polarization between these businesses and large corporations, and protect small family run stores is the suitable business type designation system for small and medium-sized businesses. The current status of carrying out this system of selecting suitable business types among small and medium-sized businesses involves receiving applications for 234 items among the suitable business types and items from small and medium-sized businesses in manufacturing, and then selecting the items of the consultative group by analyzing and investigating the actual conditions. Suitable business type designation in the service industry will involve designation with priority on business types that are experiencing social conflict. Three major classifications of the service industry, related to the livelihood of small and medium-sized businesses, will be first designated, and subsequently this will be expanded sequentially. However, there is the concern that when designated as a suitable business type or item, this will hinder the growth motive for small to medium-sized businesses, and designation all cause decrease in consumer welfare. Also it is highly likely that it will operate as a prior regulation, cause side-effects by limiting competition systematically, and also be in violation against the main regulations of the FTA system. Moreover, it is pointed out that the system does not sufficiently reflect reverse discrimination factor against large corporations. Because conflict between small to medium sized businesses and large corporations results from the expansion of corporations to the service industry, which is unrelated to their key industry, it is necessary to introduce an advanced contract method like a master franchise or local franchise system and to develop local small to medium sized businesses through a franchise system to protect these businesses and dealers. However, this method may have an effect that contributes to stronger competitiveness of small to medium sized franchise businesses by advancing their competitiveness and operational methods a step further, but also has many negative aspects. First, as revealed by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, the franchise industry is contributing to the strengthening of competitiveness through the economy of scale by organizing existing individual proprietors and increasing the success rate of new businesses. It is also revealed to be a response measure by the government to stabilize the economy of ordinary people and is emphasized as a 'useful way' to revitalize the service industry and improve the competitiveness of individual proprietors, and has been involved in contributions to creating jobs and expanding the domestic market by providing various services to consumers. From this viewpoint, franchises fit the purpose of the suitable business type system and is not something that is against it. Second, designation as a suitable business type may decrease investment for overseas expansion, R&D, and food safety, as well negatively affect the expansion of overseas corporations that have entered the domestic market, due to the contraction and low morale of large domestic franchise corporations that have competitiveness internationally. Also because domestic franchise businesses are hard pressed to secure competitiveness with multinational overseas franchise corporations that are operating in Korea, the system may cause difficulty for domestic franchise businesses in securing international competitiveness and also may result in reverse discrimination against these overseas franchise corporations. Third, the designation of suitable business type and item can limit the opportunity of selection for consumers who have up to now used those products and can cause a negative effect that reduces consumer welfare. Also, because there is the possibility that the range of consumer selection may be reduced when a few small to medium size businesses monopolize the market, by causing reverse discrimination between these businesses, the role of determining the utility of products must be left ot the consumer not the government. Lastly, it is desirable that this is carried out with the supplementation of deficient parts in the future, because fair trade is already secured with the enforcement of the franchise trade law and the best trade standard of the Fair Trade Commission. Overlapping regulations by the suitable business type designation is an excessive restriction in the franchise industry. Now, it is necessary to establish in the domestic franchise industry an environment where a global franchise corporation, which spreads Korean culture around the world, is capable of growing, and the active support by the government is needed. Therefore, systems that do not consider the process or background of the growth of franchise businesses and harm these businesses for the sole reason of them being large corporations must be removed. The inhibition of growth to franchise enterprises may decrease the sales of franchise stores, in some cases even bankrupt them, as well as cause other problems. Therefore the suitable business type system should not hinder large corporations, and as both small dealers and small to medium size businesses both aim at improving competitiveness and combined growth, large corporations, small dealers and small to medium sized businesses, based on their mutual cooperation, should not include franchise corporations that continue business relations with them in this system.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.20 no.1 s.21
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• pp.165-203
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• 1987

This project was a service-cum-research effort with a quasi-experimental study design to examine the health benefits of an integrated Family Planning (FP)/Maternal & Child health (MCH) Service approach that provides crucial factors missing in the present on-going programs. The specific objectives were: 1) To test the effectiveness of trained nurse/midwives (MW) assigned as change agents in the Health Sub-Center (HSC) to bring about the changes in the eight FP/MCH indicators, namely; (i)FP/MCH contacts between field workers and their clients (ii) the use of effective FP methods, (iii) the inter-birth interval and/or open interval, (iv) prenatal care by medically qualified personnel, (v) medically supervised deliveries, (vi) the rate of induced abortion, (vii) maternal and infant morbidity, and (viii) preinatal & infant mortality. 2) To measure the integrative linkage (contacts) between MW & HSC workers and between HSC and clients. 3) To examine the organizational or administrative factors influencing integrative linkage between health workers. Study design; The above objectives called for quasi-experimental design setting up a study and control area with and without a midwife. An active intervention program (FP/MCH minimum 'package' program) was conducted for a 2 year period from June 1982-July 1984 in Seosan County and 'before and after' surveys were conducted to measure the change. Service input; This study was undertaken by the Soonchunhyang University in collaboration with WHO. After a baseline survery in 1981, trained nurses/midwives were introduced into two health sub-centers in a rural setting (Seosan county) for a 2 year period from 1982 to 1984. A major service input was the establishment of midwifery services in the existing health delivery system with emphasis on nurse/midwife's role as the link between health workers (nurse aids) and village health workers, and the referral of risk patients to the private physician (OBGY specialist). An evaluation survey was made in August 1984 to assess the effectiveness of this alternative integrated approach in the study areas in comparison with the control area which had normal government services. Method of evaluation; a. In this study, the primary objective was first to examine to what extent the FP/MCH package program brought about changes in the pre-determined eight indicators (outcome and impact measures) and the following relationship was first analyzed; b. Nevertheless, this project did not automatically accept the assumption that if two or more activities were integrated, the results would automatically be better than a non-integrated or categorical program. There is a need to assess the 'integration process' itself within the package program. The process of integration was measured in terms of interactive linkages, or the quantity & quality of contacts between workers & clients and among workers. Intergrative linkages were hypothesized to be influenced by organizational factors at the HSC clinic level including HSC goals, sltrurture, authority, leadership style, resources, and personal characteristics of HSC staff. The extent or degree of integration, as measured by the intensity of integrative linkages, was in turn presumed to influence programme performance. Thus as indicated diagrammatically below, organizational factors constituted the independent variables, integration as the intervening variable and programme performance with respect to family planning and health services as the dependent variable: Concerning organizational factors, however, due to the limited number of HSCs (2 in the study area and 3 in the control area), they were studied by participatory observation of an anthropologist who was independent of the project. In this observation, we examined whether the assumed integration process actually occurred or not. If not, what were the constraints in producing an effective integration process. Summary of Findings; A) Program effects and impact 1. Effects on FP use: During this 2 year action period, FP acceptance increased from 58% in 1981 to 78% in 1984 in both the study and control areas. This increase in both areas was mainly due to the new family planning campaign driven by the Government for the same study period. Therefore, there was no increment of FP acceptance rate due to additional input of MW to the on-going FP program. But in the study area, quality aspects of FP were somewhat improved, having a better continuation rate of IUDs & pills and more use of effective Contraceptive methods in comparison with the control area. 2. Effects of use of MCH services: Between the study and control areas, however, there was a significant difference in maternal and child health care. For example, the coverage of prenatal care was increased from 53% for 1981 birth cohort to 75% for 1984 birth cohort in the study area. In the control area, the same increased from 41% (1981) to 65% (1984). It is noteworthy that almost two thirds of the recent birth cohort received prenatal care even in the control area, indicating that there is a growing demand of MCH care as the size of family norm becomes smaller 3. There has been a substantive increase in delivery care by medical professions in the study area, with an annual increase rate of 10% due to midwives input in the study areas. The project had about two times greater effect on postnatal care (68% vs. 33%) at delivery care(45.2% vs. 26.1%). 4. The study area had better reproductive efficiency (wanted pregancies with FP practice & healthy live births survived by one year old) than the control area, especially among women under 30 (14.1% vs. 9.6%). The proportion of women who preferred the 1st trimester for their first prenatal care rose significantly in the study area as compared to the control area (24% vs 13%). B) Effects on Interactive Linkage 1. This project made a contribution in making several useful steps in the direction of service integration, namely; i) The health workers have become familiar with procedures on how to work together with each other (especially with a midwife) in carrying out their work in FP/MCH and, ii) The health workers have gotten a feeling of the usefulness of family health records (statistical integration) in identifying targets in their own work and their usefulness in caring for family health. 2. On the other hand, because of a lack of required organizational factors, complete linkage was not obtained as the project intended. i) In regards to the government health worker's activities in terms of home visiting there was not much difference between the study & control areas though the MW did more home visiting than Government health workers. ii) In assessing the service performance of MW & health workers, the midwives balanced their workload between 40% FP, 40% MCH & 20% other activities (mainly immunization). However, $85{\sim}90%$ of the services provided by the health workers were other than FP/MCH, mainly for immunizations such as the encephalitis campaign. In the control area, a similar pattern was observed. Over 75% of their service was other than FP/MCH. Therefore, the pattern shows the health workers are a long way from becoming multipurpose workers even though the government is pushing in this direction. 3. Villagers were much more likely to visit the health sub-center clinic in the study area than in the control area (58% vs.31%) and for more combined care (45% vs.23%). C) Organization factors (admistrative integrative issues) 1. When MW (new workers with higher qualification) were introduced to HSC, it was noted that there were conflicts between the existing HSC workers (Nurse aids with less qualification than MW) and the MW for the beginning period of the project. The cause of the conflict was studied by an anthropologist and it was pointed out that these functional integration problems stemmed from the structural inadequacies of the health subcenter organization as indicated below; i) There is still no general consensus about the objectives and goals of the project between the project staff and the existing health workers. ii) There is no formal linkage between the responsibility of each member's job in the health sub-center. iii) There is still little chance for midwives to play a catalytic role or to establish communicative networks between workers in order to link various knowledge and skills to provide better FP/MCH services in the health sub-center. 2. Based on the above findings the project recommended to the County Chief (who has power to control the administrative staff and the technical staff in his county) the following ; i) In order to solve the conflicts between the individual roles and functions in performing health care activities, there must be goals agreed upon by both. ii) The health sub·center must function as an autonomous organization to undertake the integration health project. In order to do that, it is necessary to support administrative considerations, and to establish a communication system for supervision and to control of the health sub-centers. iii) The administrative organization, tentatively, must be organized to bind the health worker's midwive's and director's jobs by an organic relationship in order to achieve the integrative system under the leadership of health sub-center director. After submitting this observation report, there has been better understanding from frequent meetings & communication between HW/MW in FP/MCH work as the program developed. Lessons learned from the Seosan Project (on issues of FP/MCH integration in Korea); 1) A majority or about 80% of the couples are now practicing FP. As indicated by the study, there is a growing demand from clients for the health system to provide more MCH services than FP in order to maintain the achieved small size of family through FP practice. It is fortunate to see that the government is now formulating a MCH policy for the year 2,000 and revising MCH laws and regulations to emphasize more MCH care for achieving a small size family through family planning practice. 2) Goal consensus in FP/MCH shouBd be made among the health workers It administrators, especially to emphasize the need of care of 'wanted' child. But there is a long way to go to realize the 'real' integration of FP into MCH in Korea, unless there is a structural integration FP/MCH because a categorical FP is still first priority to reduce the rate of population growth for economic reasons but not yet for health/welfare reasons in practice. 3) There should be more financial allocation: (i) a midwife should be made available to help to promote the MCH program and coordinate services, (in) there should be a health sub·center director who can provide leadership training for managing the integrated program. There is a need for 'organizational support', if the decision of integration is made to obtain benefit from both FP & MCH. In other words, costs should be paid equally to both FP/MCH. The integration slogan itself, without the commitment of paying such costs, is powerless to advocate it. 4) Need of management training for middle level health personnel is more acute as the Government has already constructed 90 MCH centers attached to the County Health Center but without adequate manpower, facilities, and guidelines for integrating the work of both FP and MCH. 5) The local government still considers these MCH centers only as delivery centers to take care only of those visiting maternity cases. The MCH center should be a center for the managment of all pregnancies occurring in the community and the promotion of FP with a systematic and effective linkage of resources available in the county such as i.e. Village Health Worker, Community Health Practitioner, Health Sub-center Physicians & Health workers, Doctors and Midwives in MCH center, OBGY Specialists in clinics & hospitals as practiced by the Seosan project at primary health care level.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.1-34
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• 2010

Introduction As consumers' purchase behavior change into a rational and practical direction, the discount store industry came to have keen competition along with rapid external growth. Therefore as a solution, distribution businesses are concentrating on developing PB(Private Brand) which can realize differentiation and profitability at the same time. And as improvement in customer loyalty beyond customer satisfaction is effective in surviving in an environment with keen competition, PB is being used as a strategic tool to improve customer loyalty. To improve loyalty among PB users, it is necessary to develop PB by examining properties of a customer group, first of all, quality level perceived by consumers should be met to obtain customer satisfaction and customer trust and consequently induce customer loyalty. To provide results of systematic analysis on relations between antecedents influenced perceived quality and variables affecting customer loyalty, this study proposed a research model based on causal relations verified in prior researches and set 16 hypotheses about relations among 9 theoretical variables. Data was collected from 400 adult customers residing in Seoul and the Metropolitan area and using large scale discount stores, among them, 375 copies were analyzed using SPSS 15.0 and Amos 7.0. The findings of the present study followed as; We ascertained that the higher company reputation, brand reputation, product experience and brand familiarity, the higher perceived quality. The study also examined the higher perceived quality, the higher customer satisfaction, customer trust and customer loyalty. The findings showed that the higher customer satisfaction and customer trust, the higher customer loyalty. As for moderating effects between PB and NB in terms of influences of perceived quality factors on perceived quality, we can ascertain that PB was higher than NB in the influences of company reputation on perceived quality while NB was higher than PB in the influences of brand reputation and brand familiarity on perceived quality. These results of empirical analysis will be useful for those concerned to do marketing activities based on a clearer understanding of antecedents and consecutive factors influenced perceived quality. At last, discussions about academical and managerial implications in these results, we suggested the limitations of this study and the future research directions. Research Model and Hypotheses Test After analyzing if antecedent variables having influence on perceived quality shows any difference between PB and NB in terms of their influences on them, the relation between variables that have influence on customer loyalty was determined as Figure 1. We established 16 hypotheses to test and hypotheses are as follows; H1-1: Perceived price has a positive effect on perceived quality. H1-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of perceived price on perceived quality. H2-1: Company reputation has a positive effect on perceived quality. H2-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of company reputation on perceived quality. H3-1: Brand reputation has a positive effect on perceived quality. H3-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of brand reputation on perceived quality. H4-1: Product experience has a positive effect on perceived quality. H4-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of product experience on perceived quality. H5-1: Brand familiarity has a positive effect on perceived quality. H5-2: It is expected that PB and NB would have different influence in terms of brand familiarity on perceived quality. H6: Perceived quality has a positive effect on customer satisfaction. H7: Perceived quality has a positive effect on customer trust. H8: Perceived quality has a positive effect on customer loyalty. H9: Customer satisfaction has a positive effect on customer trust. H10: Customer satisfaction has a positive effect on customer loyalty. H11: Customer trust has a positive effect on customer loyalty. Results from analyzing main effects of research model is shown as