• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.7 no.4
• /
• pp.123-151
• /
• 2002

The objective of this study is to analyze the causal relationship of hospital inpatient's perceived quality, overall satisfaction, service value, and future intention to revisit. To carry out this objective, first we analyzed the dimensions of inpatient care service quality using SERVQUAL scale. The SERVQUAL scale is based on the gap theory, that is, the difference of patients' expectations and the actually received medical care service in hospital. On the basis of this theory, we measured the inpatient's perceived service quality and overall patient satisfaction. Data was gathered from a self-administered questionnaire at a 980 bed university hospital in Inchon City. These questionnaire measuring the service quality were distributed to 250 inpatients. The response rate was 66.4%. A total of 166 questionnaires was finally analyzed. To categorize medical service quality, the factor analysis was performed on 42 items. The reliability and validity of these items was evaluated. Finally to test 6 hypotheses, we analyzed the causal relationship of service quality, overall satisfaction, service value, and intention to revisit through the structural equation modeling(SEM). The major results of this study are as follows. First, the dimension of inpatient service quality was categorized into 7 dimensions, that is, personal caring, communication, access, physical environment, facilities and equipment, cleanliness, appropriateness and health status. Second, the reliability and validity of inpatient service quality items was satisfied. Third, as a result of structural equation modeling, the effect of inpatient's perceived service quality on overall satisfaction, service value, and intention to revisit was statistically significant. And total effect on intention to revisit as the core endogenous variable was perceived service quality(1.100), patient satisfaction(0.006), and service value(0.605).

• Management & Information Systems Review
• /
• v.35 no.2
• /
• pp.27-44
• /
• 2016

In recent year, graphic emoticons in MIM(Mobile Instant Messenger) play an important role not as a valuable communication methods, but as main business model for MIM service providers. Although the graphic emoticons in MIM are regarded as a commercial product, there has been little systematic research reflecting consumers' perspectives. In order to fill this theoretical and practice gap, the study is designed to explore the structural relationships among emoticon use motives, attitude, and purchasing intention to emoticons in context of MIM. The results showed that emoticon use motives in MIM were composed of two main factors, perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment. And we also verified that both perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment positively impact flow in communication with using emoticons and social influence. Lastly, flow and social influence were positively related to attitude toward using emoticons and attitude also was related to purchase intention to emoticons in MIM, positively. However, flow and social influence did not have a positive influence on purchase intention to emoticons directly. The implications and limitations of this study are also discussed.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.103-128
• /
• 2013

When a consumer needs a product or service and multiple sellers are available online, the process of selecting a seller to buy online from is complex since the process involves many behavioral dimensions that have to be taken into account. As a part of this selection process, consumers may set minimum trust expectation that can be used to screen out less trustworthy sellers. In the previous research, the level of consumers' trust expectation has been anchored on two important factors: product involvement and perceived risk. Product involvement refers to the extent to which a consumer perceives a specific product important. Thus, the higher product involvement may result in the higher trust expectation in sellers. On the other hand, other related studies found that when consumers perceived a higher level of risk (e.g., credit card fraud risk), they set higher trust expectation as well. While abundant research exists addressing the relationship between product involvement and perceived risk, little attention has been paid to the integrative view of the link between the two constructs and their impacts on the trust expectation. The present paper is a step toward filling this research gap. The purpose of this paper is to understand the process by which a consumer chooses an online merchant by examining the relationships among product involvement, perceived risk, trust expectation, and intention to buy from an e-tailer. We specifically focus on the mediating role of perceived risk in the relationships between enduring product involvement and the trust expectation. That is, we question whether product involvement affects the trust expectation directly without mediation or indirectly mediated by perceived risk. The research model with four hypotheses was initially tested using data gathered from 635 respondents through an online survey method. The structural equation modeling technique with partial least square was used to validate the instrument and the proposed model. The results showed that three out of the four hypotheses formulated were supported. First, we found that the intention to buy from a digital storefront is positively and significantly influenced by the trust expectation, providing support for H4 (trust expectation ${\rightarrow}$ purchase intention). Second, perceived risk was found to be a strong predictor of trust expectation, supporting H2 as well (perceived risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust expectation). Third, we did not find any evidence of direct influence of product involvement, which caused H3 to be rejected (product involvement ${\rightarrow}$ trust expectation). Finally, we found significant positive relationship between product involvement and perceived risk (H1: product involvement ${\rightarrow}$ perceived risk), which suggests that the possibility of complete mediation of perceived risk in the relationship between enduring product involvement and the trust expectation. As a result, we conducted an additional test for the mediation effect by comparing the original model with the revised model without the mediator variable of perceived risk. Indeed, we found that there exists a strong influence of product involvement on the trust expectation (by intentionally eliminating the variable of perceived risk) that was suppressed (i.e., mediated) by the perceived risk in the original model. The Sobel test statistically confirmed the complete mediation effect. Results of this study offer the following key findings. First, enduring product involvement is positively related to perceived risk, implying that the higher a consumer is enduringly involved with a given product, the greater risk he or she is likely to perceive with regards to the online purchase of the product. Second, perceived risk is positively related to trust expectation. A consumer with great risk perceptions concerning the online purchase is likely to buy from a highly trustworthy online merchant, thereby mitigating potential risks. Finally, product involvement was found to have no direct influence on trust expectation, but the relationship between the two constructs was indirect and mediated by the perceived risk. This is perhaps an important theoretical integration of two separate streams of literature on product involvement and perceived risk. The present research also provides useful implications for practitioners as well as academicians. First, one implication for practicing managers in online retail stores is that they should invest in reducing the perceived risk of consumers in order to lower down the trust expectation and thus increasing the consumer's intention to purchase products or services. Second, an academic implication is that perceived risk mediates the relationship between enduring product involvement and trust expectation. Further research is needed to elaborate the theoretical relationships among the constructs under consideration.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
• /
• v.30 no.4 s.152
• /
• pp.567-581
• /
• 2006

The purpose of this research is to provide the basic data for the development of make-up color application system, based of Korean's skin tone and the preference in make-up color to enhance the effectiveness of the education of beauty in universities. The research was conducted by the previous studies, the analyses of sale's rate of hue-cosmetics, the analytic experiment of color of cosmetics by using Spectrum Color Analyzer and other experimental researches. This research, based on the results of three preliminary researches, shows the result of evaluation from perceivers which has been come out from the experiment of having one model in her twenties being changed with twenty-two different conditions of make-up. Here follows the result of the research. Firstly, there was difference on perceiving images in terms of the gender of perceivers and especially male-group tend to have clearly perceived the gap between elegance-greyish purple, orange-natural, red-classic on monochrome make-up and contrast make-up. Secondly, in terms of lip-colors, salmon pink and pink was regarded positively to both female and male subjects and to male subjects, greyish purple was thought to be better on darker skin-tone and to female subjects, better on lighter skin-tone. Thirdly, on image make-up, romantic gives intelligent image regardless of skin-tone and gender, especially gives more positive looks to male subjects. Natural and classic elements were perceived more positively on darker skin-tone and had bigger perceiving gap in female subjects. Fourthly, in preference rate, male subjects normally preferred the look with make-up than female subjects did and salmon pink and pink lip color was preferred on the darker skin-tone.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.265-276
• /
• 2010

The purpose of this study was to investigate the Korean Local Government's recognition on the educational gap among regions in the filed of adult learning including vocational education and life long-learning. The study also tried to figure out the local government's recognition and infrastructure of e-Learning which is suggested as one of the solutions on the regional gap of educational opportunities and quality. This study took 12 HRD(Human Resources Development) centers funded and operated by the Korean Local Governments except Seoul and Kyong-Gi classified by the metropolitan areas in Korea. As a result, firstly it was found that the local governments had perception on the difference and gap of educational opportunities and quality among regions in the area of adult education. Especially, the perception was relatively more serious on quality than quantity. Secondly, the result showed the large gap among regions on the area of opening educational and training programs, the quality of teachers and tutors, the effectiveness and outcomes of educational programs. Thirdly, they perceived more serious educational gap on face-to-face classes rather than e-Learning in the context of educational methodology. It also revealed that the local governments had relatively better foundations on physical systems than other infrastructures and resources such as human-ware, culture-ware and soft-ware(contents, programs etc.). It was recommended to consider these findings in developing and implementing future educational policies to solve the problem of regional gap on education.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.45-69
• /
• 2004

The purpose of this study is to identify the nature of the inpatient service quality of national university hospital, and based on that, to examine the relationship of hospital inpatient's perceived quality, overall satisfaction, customer loyalty(intention of revisiting, intention of oral transmitting). To carry out these objectives, first we analyzed the dimensions of inpatient care service quality using SERVQUAL scale. The SERVQUAL scale is based on the gap theory, that is, the difference of patients' expectations and the actually received medical care service in hospital. On the basis of this theory, we measured the inpatient's perceived service quality, overall patient satisfaction and customer loyalty. Data were collected by self-administered questionnaires at a 809 bed national university hospital. These questionnaires measuring the service quality were distributed to 400 inpatients. The data samples are 347 cases in final. The response rate was 86.8%. Firstly, to categorize inpatient service quality in hospital, the factor analysis was performed on 48 items. The reliability and validity of these items was evaluated. Finally to explore the relationship of service quality, overall satisfaction, and customer loyalty, the multiple regression and logistic regression analysis are used. This study shows firstly, the dimension of inpatient service quality was categorized into 7 dimensions, that is, kindness, medical service, nurse caring, environment, facilities, appropriateness and access. Secondly, the reliability and validity of inpatient service quality items was satisfied. Thirdly, as a result of multiple regression analysis, the effect of inpatient's perceived service quality, especially, nurse caring(P<0.01), environment (P<0.01), facilities, appropriateness and access variables(P<0.05), on overall satisfaction was statistically significant. Lastly, in case of the effect on customer loyalty as a intension of oral transmitting, medical service(P<0.05), environment(P<0.01) and overall satisfaction(P<0.01) are statistically significant. Also, in case of intension of revisiting, medical service, environment, access, and overall satisfaction variables are significant factors. In conclusion, to maintain the satisfaction and customer loyalty on national university hospitals, the efforts to improve the inpatient service quality, especially, environment, medical service, and access factors might be needed.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
• /
• v.10 no.6
• /
• pp.943-951
• /
• 2005

The purposes of this study were to analyze the gap between foodservice personnel and inpatients, to urge foodservice providers to reconsider by identifying the problems in service delivery for customer satisfaction, and to deduce the priority for foodservice quality improvement. The results of this study can be summarized as follows : the average perception score of personnel (4.32 out of 5) was higher than that of customers (3.90). In particular, the customers' perceptions of 17 attributes, which included 'removal service of tray by foodservice personnel', 'nutrition and health-related information service', 'handling inpatient's complaint ASAP', 'delicious meals' and 'salty enough meals' and so on, was significantly lower than personnel's. Both service providers and customers perceived that 'personnel attitude' was the highest and 'meal quality' was the lowest among the 4 factors, but there was significant difference on 'meal quality'(p < .001), 'customer reception' (p < .001) and 'personnel attitude' (p < .05) between the two groups. As a results of quadrant analysis, 'removal service of tray by foodservice personnel', 'handling inpatient's complaints ASAP' and 'meal service according to doctor's orders were categorized into Quadrant A with meaning of high personnel's perceptions and low customers'. Therefore service providers have to perceive the gap between the two viewpoints and grant priority to these attributes in improving foodservice qualify. (Korean J Community Nutrition 10(6) $943\∼951$, 2005)

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.7 no.9
• /
• pp.697-706
• /
• 2020

The relationship between education and work is of the greatest concern to individuals and society because they are the key drivers of growth and development. In the context of Industry 4.0, labor and educators are facing the challenges of big changes in the workplace. How to prepare undergraduate students for the world of employment has become the most important mission of higher education providers. This paper explored the competency gap in the labor market in Vietnam from the perspective of employees who have been dissatisfied with the current status. First, a qualitative method with the Delphi technique was applied to confirm this consensus in an employees' competency model. Then, the satisfaction level for each competency criterion was explored by applying the advance quantitative method, namely, best non-fuzzy performance approach. Lifelong learning was ranked first, followed by creativity and innovation, foreign languages, expertise and digitalization, adaptability, and finally, organizing and managing ability. Critical thinking and problem-solving were perceived to have the biggest gap. The order of competency satisfaction is useful in explaining the mismatch between education quality and labor market demand. The findings provide valuable guidelines for education managers who seek to bridge the competency gap and improve education quality.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
• /
• v.39 no.11
• /
• pp.129-144
• /
• 2001

In spite of rapid sociocultural changes and an increase in the number of nuclear families in recent years, quite many families in Korea still have taken the extended family form where daughter-in-law provides care for the elderly parents. Even though the nature of the inter-generational relationship in Korea is reciprocal in many regards, most of the studies looked at the burden or costs of coresidence with the elderly parents while relatively little attention has been given to the positive side of the coresidence. This study is an attempt to fill this gap in the area. The purpose of this study is to examine not only the costs but also benefits of the coresidence with the elderly parents. We also explore whether there is a rural-urban differences in costs and benefits of coresidence and related factors. For the purpose, data were gathered from 876 daughters-in-law of three generational family both in rural and urban area, using structured questionnaire. The statistical methods used for data analysis were descriptive statistics, cross tables, and regression analysis with SPSS/PC+ program. The major findings of this study were as follows: Marital and economic status of the elderly parents, age, job status and filial responsibility attitude of caregiver, sibling support, and coresidence duration were the significant variables predicting the level of perceived benefits. Marital status of elderly parents, income, job status, educational level, and filial responsibility altitude of caregiver, residence region affected the level of perceived costs. Rural-urban differences are found in many aspects of coresidence experiences and related factors. Rural caregivers receive higher level of the sibling support, have more traditional final responsibility altitude and perceived less costs and more benefit than urban caregivers. There also are differences in the factors influencing the level of perceived costs and benefits between rural and urban area. Level of sibling support and final responsibility attitude have significant impact on both the perceived costs and benefits. But there are differences in terms of that perceived costs and benefits of urban caregivers are affected by job status of caregivers while those of rural caregivers are affected by educational level of caregivers and marital status of elderly. The results confirm that Korean caregivers experience both positive and negative aspects of coresidence and shows that the nature of the inter-generational relationships differ between rural and urban Korea.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.242-264
• /
• 2019

This study focuses on considering the factors affecting the user intention to adopt an intelligent service - A.I. speaker services. Currently there can be a considerable difference between the expectation and the realized diffusion of IT-based intelligent services. This study aims to find out this gap based on the idea of diver previous researches including TAM and UTAUT studies and to identify the direct and indirect effects of diverse factors such as security issues, perceived time pressure, service innovativeness, and the experience of these IT-based intelligent services. And this study considers the expected impact of perceived time pressure factor on the user acceptance of A.I. speaker services. In analysis results, not only the traditional factors such as the perceived usefulness and the hedonic/utilitarian motives but also the perceived time pressure, the perceived security issues, and the experience of the services should be considered as meaningful factors to affect the users adopting A.I. speaker services.