• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
• /
• v.61 no.4
• /
• pp.137-161
• /
• 2009

In an effort to identify predictors of job performance, research studies in social work administration has been so far on the individual practitioners' levels of knowledge and skills, which could be used in a workplace. As the theoretical concept of organizational environment was fully introduced into social work administration research, however, studies on practitioners' job performance began to have interest in the team or the organizational level variables as well as individual level variables. Along the course of this tendency, this study attempted to test the effect of individual, team, and organizational level variables on the job performance of human service workers. The individual level variables consisted of knowledge, skills, job satisfaction, personality, and counter-productive work behaviors of workers. The team or the organizational level variables included situational constraint, organizational justice, job characteristics, government-dependency, and inter-organizational cooperation. Multi-level complex survey data collected by cluster sampling method from 314 practitioners in 23 organizations were analyzed using Hierarchial Linear Model. Results showed that both task and contextual performance were affected by individual, team, and organizational level variables in various ways.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.129-136
• /
• 2023

Natural ventilation has proven to be an effective passive strategy in improving energy efficiency and providing healthy environments. However, such a strategy has not been commonly adopted to tall office buildings that traditionally rely on single-skin façades (SSFs), due to the high wind pressure that creates excessive air velocities and occupant discomfort at upper floors. Double-skin façades (DSFs) can provide an opportunity to facilitate natural ventilation in tall office buildings, as the fundamental components such as the additional skin and openings create a buffer to regulate the direct impact of wind pressure and the airflow around the buildings. This study investigates the impact of modified multi-story type DSFs on indoor airflow in a 60-story, 780-foot (238 m) naturally ventilated tall office building under isothermal conditions. Thus, the performance of wind effect related components was assessed based on the criteria (e.g., air velocity and airflow distribution), particularly with respect to opening size. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was utilized to simulate outdoor airflow around the tall office building, and indoor airflow at multiple heights in case of various DSF opening configurations. The simulation results indicate that the outer skin opening is the more influential parameter than the inner skin opening on the indoor airflow behavior. On the other hand, the variations of inner skin opening size help improve the indoor airflow with respect to the desired air velocity and airflow distribution. Despite some vortexes observed in the indoor spaces, cross ventilation can occur as positive pressure on the windward side and negative pressure on the other sides generate productive pressure differential. The results also demonstrate that DSFs with smaller openings suitably reduce not only the impact of wind pressure, but also the concentration of high air velocity near the windows on the windward side, compared to SSFs. Further insight on indoor airflow behaviors depending on DSF opening configurations leads to a better understanding of the DSF design strategies for effective natural ventilation in tall office buildings.

• 한국노년학
• /
• v.37 no.3
• /
• pp.583-600
• /
• 2017

The purpose of this study is to explore qualitatively what kind of coping strategy the Korean older adults use when they are depressed and why. Participants were users, older than 60, of an elderly welfare center in Seoul, and answers of 34 respondents who experienced depression were included in the analysis. The collected data were analyzed through content analysis. The results of the analysis showed that strategies to cope with depression used by participants were composed of 6 domains and 11 sub-domains: health behavior (medical approach / exercise and diet), family and social contact (social interaction / going out and going on a trip / communication with family), Religious activities (Religious activities), lifelong education (hobbies / educational activities), productive activities (labor), health risk behaviors (drinking and gambling / resignation). The depression coping strategies of the older adults and their characteristics are as follows. First, older adults used diverse problem-focused coping strategies to cope with depression. Second, older adults considered various coping strategies together and used them simultaneously. Third, the facility space for older adults functions as a shelter. Fourth, although there were cases where medical approach was used, the intention to reuse was very low. Through this study, the following suggestions were made to help older adults cope with depression more successfully. First, access to various coping strategies should be promoted. Second, more places where older adults can spend their time comfortably need to be provided. Third, resistance to mental health care should be resolved.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.53-74
• /
• 2012

A challenge in fostering virtual communities is the continuous supply of knowledge, namely members' willingness to contribute knowledge to their communities. Previous research argues that giving away knowledge eventually causes the possessors of that knowledge to lose their unique value to others, benefiting all except the contributor. Furthermore, communication within virtual communities involves a large number of participants with different social backgrounds and perspectives. The establishment of mutual understanding to comprehend conversations and foster knowledge contribution in virtual communities is inevitably more difficult than face-to-face communication in a small group. In spite of these arguments, evidence suggests that individuals in virtual communities do engage in social behaviors such as knowledge contribution. It is important to understand why individuals provide their valuable knowledge to other community members without a guarantee of returns. In virtual communities, knowledge is inherently rooted in individual members' experiences and expertise. This personal nature of knowledge requires social interactions between virtual community members for knowledge transfer. This study employs the social capital theory in order to account for interpersonal relationship factors and identity theory for individual and group factors that may affect knowledge contribution. First, social capital is the relationship capital which is embedded within the relationships among the participants in a network and available for use when it is needed. Social capital is a productive resource, facilitating individuals' actions for attainment. Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1997) identify three dimensions of social capital and explain theoretically how these dimensions affect the exchange of knowledge. Thus, social capital would be relevant to knowledge contribution in virtual communities. Second, existing research has addressed the importance of identity in facilitating knowledge contribution in a virtual context. Identity in virtual communities has been described as playing a vital role in the establishment of personal reputations and in the recognition of others. For instance, reputation systems that rate participants in terms of the quality of their contributions provide a readily available inventory of experts to knowledge seekers. Despite the growing interest in identities, however, there is little empirical research about how identities in the communities influence knowledge contribution. Therefore, the goal of this study is to better understand knowledge contribution by examining the roles of social capital and identity in virtual communities. Based on a theoretical framework of social capital and identity theory, we develop and test a theoretical model and evaluate our hypotheses. Specifically, we propose three variables such as cohesiveness, reciprocity, and commitment, referring to the social capital theory, as antecedents of knowledge contribution in virtual communities. We further posit that members with a strong identity (self-presentation and group identification) contribute more knowledge to virtual communities. We conducted a field study in order to validate our research model. We collected data from 192 members of virtual communities and used the PLS method to analyse the data. The tests of the measurement model confirm that our data set has appropriate discriminant and convergent validity. The results of testing the structural model show that cohesion, reciprocity, and self-presentation significantly influence knowledge contribution, while commitment and group identification do not significantly influence knowledge contribution. Our findings on cohesion and reciprocity are consistent with the previous literature. Contrary to our expectations, commitment did not significantly affect knowledge contribution in virtual communities. This result may be due to the fact that knowledge contribution was voluntary in the virtual communities in our sample. Another plausible explanation for this result may be the self-selection bias for the survey respondents, who are more likely to contribute their knowledge to virtual communities. The relationship between self-presentation and knowledge contribution was found to be significant in virtual communities, supporting the results of prior literature. Group identification did not significantly affect knowledge contribution in this study, inconsistent with the wealth of research that identifies group identification as an important factor for knowledge sharing. This conflicting result calls for future research that examines the role of group identification in knowledge contribution in virtual communities. This study makes a contribution to theory development in the area of knowledge management in general and virtual communities in particular. For practice, the results of this study identify the circumstances under which individual factors would be effective for motivating knowledge contribution to virtual communities.