Cost Analysis of Home Nursing Care Patients in Rural Hospital (농촌 지역 중소병원의 가정간호사업소 등록환자의 방문비용분석)
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- Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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- v.24 no.1
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- pp.91-101
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- 1999
The home nursing care system is an integral part of the health care delivery system in order to meet the various needs of consummer, in particular, early discharge patient from the hospital, patient with long term care needed and the elderly. To find out the cost of home nursing care services, the home nursing care records of patients registered by home nursing care units established in public hospital with 150beds during the period of 1996 - 1997 were analyzed. The subjects were 102patients, 45 of male patients and 57 of female patients, those who live in a rural area in Kymiggi - Do The results obtained are as follows : 1. The male patients accounted for 44.1% of the total, with 45cases : group aged 60 years and more was the largest group, accounting for 79.5%. 2. The most frequent disease revealed was the osteoporosis which constitute 35.3% of the total registered patients, followed, in order, by malignant tumor, cerebrovascular disease. 3. It revealed that the cost per visit for the male was 47,764won ; the female, 46,078 won per visit. Noteworthy the cost per visit was high in the older patient. It was clearly that the gender, years of age and the cost per visit were statistically significant at 0.01 level and 0.05 level. 4. The cost per visit for the non complicated disease was slightly higher than the complicated disease, but it is not statistically significant, the cost per visit by type of disease varied, the cost per visit for COPD was the highest, followed, in order, by in malignant tumor, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis etc. 5. It revealed that home nursing care cost for a eligible disease for home nursing care was less than the cost for hospitalization of the same disease, therefore, we expect that the home nursing care is cost efficiency. In conclusion, the home nursing care costs are needed to analyze further in comparison with the hospitalization costs for a certain disease.
The objectives of this study are to identify the actual educational contents of management for head nurse and to propose the educational subjects according to identity the needs of head, charge, and staff nurses. The subjects were investigated the actual Management Development Programs and educational needs of head nurses and prospective nurse manager(charge nurse, staff nurse with a lot of clinical experiences) in general hospitals. The tools were composed of two questionnaires: One was developed from the literature review for making items to measure actual situation. The other was revised Katz's model for measurement of educational needs. The first respondents of actual situation were 27 general hospitals with over 400 beds in Seoul and the second respondents were 89 head nurses, 67 charge nurses and 136 nurses at 3 hospitals by convenient sampling out of 27 general hospitals. Data were collected by telephone interview, mail questionnaire and visiting from 7th of October through 30th of November in 1997. In data analysis, general characteristics of the respondents and actual status of Management Development Programs were analyzed by frequency and percentage. Educational needs according to general characteristics were analyzed by ANOVA The results were as follows: 1. Actual situation of Management Development Program 1) Seven hospitals(26%) had Management Development Program for prospective managers and 14 hospitals (52%) for head nurses. 2) Education Department existed in 14 hospitals (52%). 3) One hospital(4%) had top level managers took part in the Management Development. 4) Two hospitals selected head nurse, who had finished courses of Management Development. Eight hospitals(30%) assessed educational needs. The assessment tools consisted of making a question via questionnaire(75%), determining at department meeting(12%) and interview(13%). 5) Educational programs had 3 types: 10 lecture type, 7 discussion type and 4 role play type programs. 6) One hospital evaluated the change of learner's attitude. 7) Four hospitals scored educational point, but that was measured only by attending. 8) Actual Management Development Programs were as follows. parenthesis indicates the number of hospitals. (1) Management Development Programs for Prospective manager. Role perception of Middle level Manager (1) . Role reconstruction of Nurse Manager (1). Workshop for Charge Nurse (1). Nursing Delivery System and Nursing Process (1). Communication (1). Motivation (1) (2) Management Development Programs for Head nurse.. Head nurse's Role (5). Administrative Work (7). Service Education (4). Prevention and Countermeasure of Nursing Incidence (3). Appraisal (3) 2. The results of needs on Management Development subject 1) The educational needs of all respondents on 3 skill domains showed positive agreement to strongly positive agreement. 2) High priority(more than 4.5) items were 12 of 24 Human skill items(50%), 1 of 6 Technical skill items(16%), and 2 of 13 Conceptual skill items (15%). 3) Out of high priority items, 8 items were instituted. 4) All respondents showed high needs on 3 skill domains regardless of 3 positions (head nurse, charge nurse, and nurse). Educational needs of Human skill domain, according to position were 108. S, 108.7, 106.8 (mean score = 72) , needs of Technical skill domain were 26.5, 26.6, 26.I(mean score=18), and needs of Conceptual skill domains were 56.9,56.7, 55.1(mean score=39). 5) Needs of 3 skill domains according to clinical career showed significant difference. Out of respondents, nurses with career of over 16years showed lowest degree of needs in Human skill domains(F=4.47, P=.004) and Conceptual skill domain(F=2.93, P=.034). 6) Educational needs according to educational background were not significant difference. But out of respondents, nurses educated at 3-year junior college relatively showed lowest needs in all of the 3 skill domains. With the above-mentioned findings, further study is necessary for generalization of this study at hospitals with different bed size and location. Also it is needed to study about management skill of nurse and charge nurse, and effective educational method.
The purpose of this research is to construct research framework for international franchising based on existing literature and to identify research components in the framework. Franchise can be defined as management styles that allow franchisee use various management assets of franchisor in order to make or sell product or service. It can be divided into product distribution franchise that is designed to sell products and business format franchise that is designed for running it as business whatever its form is. International franchising can be defined as a way of internationalization of franchisor to foreign country by providing its business format or package to franchisee of host country. International franchising is growing fast for last four decades but academic research on this is quite limited. Especially in Korea, research about international franchising is carried out on by case study format with single case or empirical study format with survey based on domestic franchise theory. Therefore, this paper tries to review existing literature on international franchising research, providing research framework, and then stimulating new research on this field. International franchising research components include motives and environmental factors for decision of expanding to international franchising, entrance modes and development plan for international franchising, contracts and management strategy of international franchising, and various performance measures from different perspectives. First, motives of international franchising are fee collection from franchisee. Also it provides easier way to expanding to foreign country. The other motives including increase total sales volume, occupying better strategic position, getting quality resources, and improving efficiency. Environmental factors that facilitating international franchising encompasses economic condition, trend, and legal or political factors in host and/or home countries. In addition, control power and risk management capability of franchisor plays critical role in successful franchising contract. Final decision to enter foreign country via franchising is determined by numerous factors like history, size, growth, competitiveness, management system, bonding capability, industry characteristics of franchisor. After deciding to enter into foreign country, franchisor needs to set entrance modes of international franchising. Within contractual mode, there are master franchising and area developing franchising, licensing, direct franchising, and joint venture. Theories about entrance mode selection contain concepts of efficiency, knowledge-based approach, competence-based approach, agent theory, and governance cost. The next step after entrance decision is operation strategy. Operation strategy starts with selecting a target city and a target country for franchising. In order to finding, screening targets, franchisor needs to collect information about candidates. Critical information includes brand patent, commercial laws, regulations, market conditions, country risk, and industry analysis. After selecting a target city in target country, franchisor needs to select franchisee, in other word, partner. The first important criteria for selecting partners are financial credibility and capability, possession of real estate. And cultural similarity and knowledge about franchisor and/or home country are also recognized as critical criteria. The most important element in operating strategy is legal document between franchisor and franchisee with home and host countries. Terms and conditions in legal documents give objective information about characteristics of franchising agreement for academic research. Legal documents have definitions of terminology, territory and exclusivity, agreement of term, initial fee, continuing fees, clearing currency, and rights about sub-franchising. Also, legal documents could have terms about softer elements like training program and operation manual. And harder elements like law competent court and terms of expiration. Next element in operating strategy is about product and service. Especially for business format franchising, product/service deliverable, benefit communicators, system identifiers (architectural features), and format facilitators are listed for product/service strategic elements. Another important decision on product/service is standardization vs. customization. The rationale behind standardization is cost reduction, efficiency, consistency, image congruence, brand awareness, and competitiveness on price. Also standardization enables large scale R&D and innovative change in management style. Another element in operating strategy is control management. The simple way to control franchise contract is relying on legal terms, contractual control system. There are other control systems, administrative control system and ethical control system. Contractual control system is a coercive source of power, but franchisor usually doesn't want to use legal power since it doesn't help to build up positive relationship. Instead, self-regulation is widely used. Administrative control system uses control mechanism from ordinary work relationship. Its main component is supporting activities to franchisee and communication method. For example, franchisor provides advertising, training, manual, and delivery, then franchisee follows franchisor's direction. Another component is building franchisor's brand power. The last research element is performance factor of international franchising. Performance elements can be divided into franchisor's performance and franchisee's performance. The conceptual performance measures of franchisor are simple but not easy to obtain objectively. They are profit, sale, cost, experience, and brand power. The performance measures of franchisee are mostly about benefits of host country. They contain small business development, promotion of employment, introduction of new business model, and level up technology status. There are indirect benefits, like increase of tax, refinement of corporate citizenship, regional economic clustering, and improvement of international balance. In addition to those, host country gets socio-cultural change other than economic effects. It includes demographic change, social trend, customer value change, social communication, and social globalization. Sometimes it is called as westernization or McDonaldization of society. In addition, the paper reviews on theories that have been frequently applied to international franchising research, such as agent theory, resource-based view, transaction cost theory, organizational learning theory, and international expansion theories. Resource based theory is used in strategic decision based on resources, like decision about entrance and cooperation depending on resources of franchisee and franchisor. Transaction cost theory can be applied in determination of mutual trust or satisfaction of franchising players. Agent theory tries to explain strategic decision for reducing problem caused by utilizing agent, for example research on control system in franchising agreements. Organizational Learning theory is relatively new in franchising research. It assumes organization tries to maximize performance and learning of organization. In addition, Internalization theory advocates strategic decision of direct investment for removing inefficiency of market transaction and is applied in research on terms of contract. And oligopolistic competition theory is used to explain various entry modes for international expansion. Competency theory support strategic decision of utilizing key competitive advantage. Furthermore, research methodologies including qualitative and quantitative methodologies are suggested for more rigorous international franchising research. Quantitative research needs more real data other than survey data which is usually respondent's judgment. In order to verify theory more rigorously, research based on real data is essential. However, real quantitative data is quite hard to get. The qualitative research other than single case study is also highly recommended. Since international franchising has limited number of applications, scientific research based on grounded theory and ethnography study can be used. Scientific case study is differentiated with single case study on its data collection method and analysis method. The key concept is triangulation in measurement, logical coding and comparison. Finally, it provides overall research direction for international franchising after summarizing research trend in Korea. International franchising research in Korea has two different types, one is for studying Korean franchisor going overseas and the other is for Korean franchisee of foreign franchisor. Among research on Korean franchisor, two common patterns are observed. First of all, they usually deal with success story of one franchisor. The other common pattern is that they focus on same industry and country. Therefore, international franchise research needs to extend their focus to broader subjects with scientific research methodology as well as development of new theory.
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
The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of sex education on knowledge and attitude related to sex. The subjects were taken from by 199 students in 3 classes from 1st grade in H girl's junior high school as the study group, and 2 classes from 1st grade in S girl's junior high school as control group. During the survey period(September 21, 1998 to September 30, 1998), 6 times in terms of one-hour class for sex education were taught to the study group. A pre-test was executed on September 19, 1998 and the post-test on September 30. The findings were as follows. 1. According to the research, 20.1％ of the subjects have experienced sex education from parents and 89.9％ from teacher. They have mostly obtained the sex-related information from teachers(59.8％), following movie, radio, TV, or video tape(40.7％), friends(35.2％), reading materials such as books, cartoons, news papers and magazines(31.7％), parents(15.6％), siblings(7.0％), PC(1.5％) and telephone service(1.5％). 2. 27.1％ of the subjects reported that they had sex-related worry concerning from friendship with the opposite sex, following physiological phenomenon(31.5％), sex violence(11.1％), physical characteristics(7.4％), VD and contraception(5.6％), sexual impulse(5.6％), pregnancy and delivery(5.5％), and sexual behaviour(3.7％). The research showed that the adolescents usually solved their problems through the consultation with theifriends(44.4％). However, 16.7％ of the subjects were turned out not to request any solution. The other minor routes to settle their problems were written materials such as books, magazines(13.0％), parents(13.0％), movie, radio, TV, or video tape(5.5％), acquainted female elders(3.7％) and teachers(3.7％). 3. The most interesting part regarding sex was the friendship with the opposite sex(61.8％), following adolescent's emotion(55.8％), physiological differences between two genders(52.8％), AIDS(48.7％), VD(46.7％), pregnancy(45.2％), contraception(45.2％), abortion(41.7％), intercourse(41.7％), masturbation(41.2％), sex violence(41.2％) and genital structure and secondary sexual characteristics(28.6％). 4. In regard to characteristics of the subjects influencing sex-related knowledge, the higher educational career of mother, living with at least either parent and the experience of sex education by teachers were statistically significant factors(p〈0.05). 5. In regard to characteristics of the subjects influencing attitudes toward sex, the experience of sex education by parents or teachers was a statistically significant factor(p〈0.05). 6. The analysis of knowledge score comparing results before and after sex education showed that control group's score decreased from 12.5 to 12.44 while the study group's score increased from 12.33 to 21.31, which was statistically significant(p〈0.001). 7. The analysis of the attitude scores before and after sex education showed that the control group's score slightly increased from 55.57 to 56.36, while the study group's score increased from 54.79 to 61.95, which was statistically significant(p〈0.001). 8. The level of sex-related concerns of the study group after sex education marked both the increase in some items and the decrease in others. 9. Most instructive session among the sex education was the third “to be a good friend to the opposite sex”(27.0％).
The aim of this paper is to analyze the mechanics of price formation in the tramp shipping. For the purpose of this study, the main characteristics of tramp freight rates and the market is examined, and a brief examination of the nature ofthe costs of operation is given which are essential for the understanding of the functioning of shipping firms as well as for the understanding of developments in the tramp freight market. The demand and supply relationships in the market is also analysed in detail. Tramp shipping is an industry that has a market which functions under conditions that are not dissimilar to the theoretical model of perfect competition. However, it does notmean that tramp shipping market is a perfectly competitive market. It is apparent that this realworld competitive system has its imperfections, which means that the market for tramp shipping is near to being a perfectly competitive market on an internaitonal scale and it is freight are therefore subjext to the laws of supply and demand. In theory, the minimum freight rate in the short term is that at which the lowest cost vessels will lay-up in preference to operating, and is equal to the variable costs minus lay-up costs; and this would imply that in all times except those of full employment for ships there is a tendency for newer low-cost, and, probably, faster vessels to be driving the older high-cost vessels in the breaker's yards. In this case, shipowners may be reluctant to lay-up their ships becasue of obligations to crews, or because they would lose credibility with shippers or financiers, or simply because of lost prestige. Mainly, however, the decision is made on strictly economic grounds. When, for example, the total operating costs minus the likely freight earnings are greater than the cost of taking the ship out of service, maintaining it, and recommissioning it, then a ship may be considered for laying-up; shipowners will, in other words, run the ships at freight earnings below operating costs by as much as the cost of laying them up. As described above, the freight rates fixed on the tramp shipping market are subject to the laws of supply and demand. In other words, the basic properties of supply and demand are of significance so far as price or rate fluctuations in the tramp freight market are concerned. In connection with the same of the demand for tramp shipping services, the following points should be brone in mind: (a) That the magnitude of demand for sea transport of dry cargoes in general and for tramp shipping services in particular is increasing in the long run. (b) That owning to external factors, the demand for tramp shipping services is capable of varying sharphy at a given going of time. (c) The demad for the industry's services tends to be price inelastic in the short run. On the other hand the demand for the services offered by the individual shipping firm tends as a rule to be infinitely price elastic. In the meantime, the properties of the supply of the tramp shipping facilities are that it cannot expand or contract in the short run. Also, that in the long run there is a time-lag between entrepreneurs' decision to expand their fleets and the actual time of delivery of the new vessels. Thus, supply is inelastic and not capable of responding to demand and price changes at a given period of time. In conclusion, it can be safely stated that short-run changes in freight rates are a direct result of variations in the magnitude of demand for tramp shipping facilities, whilest the average level of freight rates is brought down to relatively low levels over prolonged periods of time.
The supply chain management (SCM) systems have emerged as strong managerial tools for manufacturing firms in enhancing competitive strength. Despite of large investments in the SCM systems, many companies are not fully realizing the promised benefits from the systems. A review of literature on adoption, implementation and success factor of IOS (inter-organization systems), EDI (electronic data interchange) systems, shows that this issue has been examined from multiple theoretic perspectives. And many researchers have attempted to identify the factors which influence the success of system implementation. However, the existing studies have two drawbacks in revealing the determinants of systems implementation success. First, previous researches raise questions as to the appropriateness of research subjects selected. Most SCM systems are operating in the form of private industrial networks, where the participants of the systems consist of two distinct groups: focus companies and vendors. The focus companies are the primary actors in developing and operating the systems, while vendors are passive participants which are connected to the system in order to supply raw materials and parts to the focus companies. Under the circumstance, there are three ways in selecting the research subjects; focus companies only, vendors only, or two parties grouped together. It is hard to find researches that use the focus companies exclusively as the subjects probably due to the insufficient sample size for statistic analysis. Most researches have been conducted using the data collected from both groups. We argue that the SCM success factors cannot be correctly indentified in this case. The focus companies and the vendors are in different positions in many areas regarding the system implementation: firm size, managerial resources, bargaining power, organizational maturity, and etc. There are no obvious reasons to believe that the success factors of the two groups are identical. Grouping the two groups also raises questions on measuring the system success. The benefits from utilizing the systems may not be commonly distributed to the two groups. One group's benefits might be realized at the expenses of the other group considering the situation where vendors participating in SCM systems are under continuous pressures from the focus companies with respect to prices, quality, and delivery time. Therefore, by combining the system outcomes of both groups we cannot measure the system benefits obtained by each group correctly. Second, the measures of system success adopted in the previous researches have shortcoming in measuring the SCM success. User satisfaction, system utilization, and user attitudes toward the systems are most commonly used success measures in the existing studies. These measures have been developed as proxy variables in the studies of decision support systems (DSS) where the contribution of the systems to the organization performance is very difficult to measure. Unlike the DSS, the SCM systems have more specific goals, such as cost saving, inventory reduction, quality improvement, rapid time, and higher customer service. We maintain that more specific measures can be developed instead of proxy variables in order to measure the system benefits correctly. The purpose of this study is to find the determinants of SCM systems success in the perspective of vendor companies. In developing the research model, we have focused on selecting the success factors appropriate for the vendors through reviewing past researches and on developing more accurate success measures. The variables can be classified into following: technological, organizational, and environmental factors on the basis of TOE (Technology-Organization-Environment) framework. The model consists of three independent variables (competition intensity, top management support, and information system maturity), one mediating variable (collaboration), one moderating variable (government support), and a dependent variable (system success). The systems success measures have been developed to reflect the operational benefits of the SCM systems; improvement in planning and analysis capabilities, faster throughput, cost reduction, task integration, and improved product and customer service. The model has been validated using the survey data collected from 122 vendors participating in the SCM systems in Korea. To test for mediation, one should estimate the hierarchical regression analysis on the collaboration. And moderating effect analysis should estimate the moderated multiple regression, examines the effect of the government support. The result shows that information system maturity and top management support are the most important determinants of SCM system success. Supply chain technologies that standardize data formats and enhance information sharing may be adopted by supply chain leader organization because of the influence of focal company in the private industrial networks in order to streamline transactions and improve inter-organization communication. Specially, the need to develop and sustain an information system maturity will provide the focus and purpose to successfully overcome information system obstacles and resistance to innovation diffusion within the supply chain network organization. The support of top management will help focus efforts toward the realization of inter-organizational benefits and lend credibility to functional managers responsible for its implementation. The active involvement, vision, and direction of high level executives provide the impetus needed to sustain the implementation of SCM. The quality of collaboration relationships also is positively related to outcome variable. Collaboration variable is found to have a mediation effect between on influencing factors and implementation success. Higher levels of inter-organizational collaboration behaviors such as shared planning and flexibility in coordinating activities were found to be strongly linked to the vendors trust in the supply chain network. Government support moderates the effect of the IS maturity, competitive intensity, top management support on collaboration and implementation success of SCM. In general, the vendor companies face substantially greater risks in SCM implementation than the larger companies do because of severe constraints on financial and human resources and limited education on SCM systems. Besides resources, Vendors generally lack computer experience and do not have sufficient internal SCM expertise. For these reasons, government supports may establish requirements for firms doing business with the government or provide incentives to adopt, implementation SCM or practices. Government support provides significant improvements in implementation success of SCM when IS maturity, competitive intensity, top management support and collaboration are low. The environmental characteristic of competition intensity has no direct effect on vendor perspective of SCM system success. But, vendors facing above average competition intensity will have a greater need for changing technology. This suggests that companies trying to implement SCM systems should set up compatible supply chain networks and a high-quality collaboration relationship for implementation and performance.
While the use of internet is routine nowadays, users receive and share information through a variety of media. Through the use of internet, information delivery media is diversifying from traditional media of one-way communication, such as newspaper, TV, and radio, into media of two-way communication. In contrast of traditional media, blogs enable individuals to directly upload and share news, which can be considered to have a differential speed of information diffusion than news media that convey information unilaterally. Therefore this Study focused on the difference between online news and social media blogs. Moreover, there are variations in the speed of information diffusion because that information closely related to one person boosts communications between individuals. We believe that users' standard of evaluation would change based on the types of information. As well, the speed of information diffusion would change based on the level of proximity. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the differences in information diffusion based on the types of media. And then information is segmentalized and an examination is done to see how information diffusion differentiates based on the types of information. This study used the Bass diffusion model, which has been frequently used because this model has higher explanatory power than other models by explaining diffusion of market through innovation effect and imitation effect. Also this model has been applied a lot in other information diffusion related studies. The Bass diffusion model includes an innovation effect and an imitation effect. Innovation effect measures the early-stage impact, while the imitation effect measures the impact of word of mouth at the later stage. According to Mahajan et al. (2000), Innovation effect is emphasized by usefulness and ease-of-use, as well Imitation effect is emphasized by subjective norm and word-of-mouth. Also, according to Lee et al. (2011), Innovation effect is emphasized by mass communication. According to Moore and Benbasat (1996), Innovation effect is emphasized by relative advantage. Because Imitation effect is adopted by within-group influences and Innovation effects is adopted by product's or service's innovation. Therefore, ours study compared online news and social media blogs to examine the differences between media. We also choose different types of information including entertainment related information "Psy Gentelman", Current affair news "Earthquake in Sichuan, China", and product related information "Galaxy S4" in order to examine the variations on information diffusion. We considered that users' information proximity alters based on the types of information. Hence, we chose the three types of information mentioned above, which have different level of proximity from users' standpoint, in order to examine the flow of information diffusion. The first conclusion of this study is that different media has similar effect on information diffusion, even the types of media of information provider are different. Information diffusion has only been distinguished by a disparity between proximity of information. Second, information diffusions differ based on types of information. From the standpoint of users, product and entertainment related information has high imitation effect because of word of mouth. On the other hand, imitation effect dominates innovation effect on Current affair news. From the results of this study, the flow changes of information diffusion is examined and be applied to practical use. This study has some limitations, and those limitations would be able to provide opportunities and suggestions for future research. Presenting the difference of Information diffusion according to media and proximity has difficulties for generalization of theory due to small sample size. Therefore, if further studies adopt to a request for an increase of sample size and media diversity, difference of the information diffusion according to media type and information proximity could be understood more detailed.
Trust has been studied extensively in psychology, economics, and sociology, and its importance has been emphasized not only in marketing, but also in business disciplines in general. Unlike past relationships between suppliers and buyers, which take considerable advantage of private networks and may involve unethical business practices, partnerships between suppliers and buyers are at the core of success for industrial marketing amid intense global competition in the 21st century. A high level of mutual cooperation occurs through an exchange relationship based on trust, which brings long-term benefits, competitive enhancements, and transaction cost reductions, among other benefits, for both buyers and suppliers. In spite of the important role of trust, existing studies in buy-supply situations overlook the role of trust and do not systematically analyze the effect of trust on relational performance. Consequently, an in-depth study that determines the relation of trust to the relational performance between buyers and suppliers of business services is absolutely needed. Business services in this study, which include those supporting the manufacturing industry, are drawing attention as the economic growth engine for the next generation. The Korean government has selected business services as a strategic area for the development of manufacturing sectors. Since the demands for opening business services markets are becoming fiercer, the competitiveness of the business service industry must be promoted now more than ever. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the mutual trust between buyers and suppliers on relational performance. Specifically, this study proposed a theoretical model of trust-relational performance in the transactions of business services and empirically tested the hypotheses delineated from the framework. The study suggests strategic implications based on research findings. Empirical data were collected via multiple methods, including via telephone, mail, and in-person interviews. Sample companies were knowledge-based companies supplying and purchasing business services in Korea. The present study collected data on a dyadic basis. Each pair of sample companies includes a buying company and its corresponding supplying company. Mutual trust was traced for each pair of companies. This study proposes a model of trust-relational performance of buying-supplying for business services. The model consists of trust and its antecedents and consequences. The trust of buyers is classified into trust toward the supplying company and trust toward salespersons. Viewing trust both at the individual level and the organizational level is based on the research of Doney and Cannon (1997). Normally, buyers are the subject of trust, but this study supposes that suppliers are the subjects. Hence, it uniquely focused on the bilateral perspective of perceived risk. In other words, suppliers, like buyers, are the subject of trust since transactions are normally bilateral. From this point of view, suppliers' trust in buyers is as important as buyers' trust in suppliers. The suppliers' trust is influenced by the extent to which it trusts the buying companies and the buyers. This classification of trust using an individual level and an organization level is based on the suggestion of Doney and Cannon (1997). Trust affects the process of supplier selection, which works in a bilateral manner. Suppliers are actively involved in the supplier selection process, working very closely with buyers. In addition, the process is affected by the extent to which each party trusts its partners. The selection process consists of certain steps: recognition, information search, supplier selection, and performance evaluation. As a result of the process, both buyers and suppliers evaluate the performance and take corrective actions on the basis of such outcomes as tangible, intangible, and/or side effects. The measurement of trust used for the present study was developed on the basis of the studies of Mayer, Davis and Schoorman (1995) and Mayer and Davis (1999). Based on their recommendations, the three dimensions of trust used for the study include ability, benevolence, and integrity. The original questions were adjusted to the context of the transactions of business services. For example, a question such as "He/she has professional capabilities" has been changed to "The salesperson showed professional capabilities while we talked about our products." The measurement used for this study differs from those used in previous studies (Rotter 1967; Sullivan and Peterson 1982; Dwyer and Oh 1987). The measurements of the antecedents and consequences of trust used for this study were developed on the basis of Doney and Cannon (1997). The original questions were adjusted to the context of transactions in business services. In particular, questions were developed for both buyers and suppliers to address the following factors: reputation (integrity, customer care, good-will), market standing (company size, market share, positioning in the industry), willingness to customize (product, process, delivery), information sharing (proprietary information, private information), willingness to maintain relationships, perceived professionalism, authority empowerment, buyer-seller similarity, and contact frequency. As a consequential variable of trust, relational performance was measured. Relational performance is classified into tangible effects, intangible effects, and side effects. Tangible effects include financial performance; intangible effects include improvements in relations, network developing, and internal employee satisfaction; side effects include those not included either in the tangible or intangible effects. Three hundred fifty pairs of companies were contacted, and one hundred five pairs of companies responded. After deleting five company pairs because of incomplete responses, one hundred five pairs of companies were used for data analysis. The response ratio of the companies used for data analysis is 30% (105/350), which is above the average response ratio in industrial marketing research. As for the characteristics of the respondent companies, the majority of the companies operate service businesses for both buyers (85.4%) and suppliers (81.8%). The majority of buyers (76%) deal with consumer goods, while the majority of suppliers (70%) deal with industrial goods. This may imply that buyers process the incoming material, parts, and components to produce the finished consumer goods. As indicated by their report of the length of acquaintance with their partners, suppliers appear to have longer business relationships than do buyers. Hypothesis 1 tested the effects of buyer-supplier characteristics on trust. The salesperson's professionalism (t=2.070, p<0.05) and authority empowerment (t=2.328, p<0.05) positively affected buyers' trust toward suppliers. On the other hand, authority empowerment (t=2.192, p<0.05) positively affected supplier trust toward buyers. For both buyers and suppliers, the degree of authority empowerment plays a crucial role in the maintenance of their trust in each other. Hypothesis 2 tested the effects of buyerseller relational characteristics on trust. Buyers tend to trust suppliers, as suppliers make every effort to contact buyers (t=2.212, p<0.05). This tendency has also been shown to be much stronger for suppliers (t=2.591, p<0.01). On the other hand suppliers trust buyers because suppliers perceive buyers as being similar to themselves (t=2.702, p<0.01). This finding confirmed the results of Crosby, Evans, and Cowles (1990), which reported that suppliers and buyers build relationships through regular meetings, either for business or personal matters. Hypothesis 3 tested the effects of trust on perceived risk. It has been found that for both suppliers and buyers the lower is the trust, the higher is the perceived risk (t=-6.621, p<0.01 for buyers; t=-2.437, p<0.05). Interestingly, this tendency has been shown to be much stronger for buyers than for suppliers. One possible explanation for this higher level of perceived risk is that buyers normally perceive higher risks than do suppliers in transactions involving business services. For this reason, it is necessary for suppliers to implement risk reduction strategies for buyers. Hypothesis 4 tested the effects of trust on information searching. It has been found that for both suppliers and buyers, contrary to expectation, trust depends on their partner's reputation (t=2.929, p<0.01 for buyers; t=2.711, p<0.05 for suppliers). This finding shows that suppliers with good reputations tend to be trusted. Prior experience did not show any significant relationship with trust for either buyers or suppliers. Hypothesis 5 tested the effects of trust on supplier/buyer selection. Unlike buyers, suppliers tend to trust buyers when they think that previous transactions with buyers were important (t=2.913 p<0.01). However, this study did not show any significant relationship between source loyalty and the trust of buyers in suppliers. Hypothesis 6 tested the effects of trust on relational performances. For buyers and suppliers, financial performance reportedly improved when they trusted their partners (t=2.301, p<0.05 for buyers; t=3.692, p<0.01 for suppliers). It is interesting that this tendency was much stronger for suppliers than it was for buyers. Similarly, competitiveness was reported to improve when buyers and suppliers trusted their partners (t=3.563, p<0.01 for buyers; t=3.042, p<0.01 for suppliers). For suppliers, efficiency and productivity were reportedly improved when they trusted buyers (t=2.673, p<0.01). Other performance indices showed insignificant relationships with trust. The findings of this study have some strategic implications. First and most importantly, trust-based transactions are beneficial for both suppliers and buyers. As verified in the study, financial performance can be improved through efforts to build and maintain mutual trust. Similarly, competitiveness can be increased through the same kinds of effort. Second, trust-based transactions can facilitate the reduction of perceived risks inherent in the purchasing situation. This finding has implications for both suppliers and buyers. It is generally believed that buyers perceive higher risks in a highly involved purchasing situation. To reduce risks, previous studies have recommended that suppliers devise risk-reducing tactics. Moving beyond these recommendations, the present study uniquely focused on the bilateral perspective of perceived risk. In other words, suppliers are also susceptible to perceived risks, especially when they supply services that require very technical and sophisticated manipulations and maintenance. Consequently, buyers and suppliers must solve problems together in close collaboration. Hence, mutual trust plays a crucial role in the problem-solving process. Third, as found in this study, the more authority a salesperson has, the more he or she can be trusted. This finding is very important with regard to tactics. Building trust is a long-term assignment; however, when mutual trust has not been developed, suppliers can overcome the problems they encounter by empowering a salesperson with the authority to make certain decisions. This finding applies to suppliers as well.
In recent years, one of the major reasons for the fierce competition amongst firms is that they strive to increase their own market shares and customer acquisition rate in the same market with similar and apparently undifferentiated products in terms of quality and perceived benefit. Because of this change in recent marketing environment, the differentiated after-sales service and diversified promotion strategies have become more important to gain competitive advantage. Price promotion is the favorite strategy that most retailers use to achieve short-term sales increase, induce consumer's brand switch, in troduce new product into market, and so forth. However, if marketers apply or copy an identical price promotion strategy without considering the characteristic differences in product and consumer preference, it will cause serious problems because discounted price itself could make people skeptical about product quality, and the changes of perceived value might appear differently depending on other factors such as consumer involvement or brand attitude. Previous studies showed that price promotion would certainly increase sales, and the discounted price compared to regular price would enhance the consumer's perceived values. On the other hand, discounted price itself could make people depreciate or skeptical about product quality, and reduce the consumers' positivity bias because consumers might be unsure whether the current price promotion is the retailer's best price offer. Moreover, we cannot say that discounted price absolutely enhances the consumer's perceived values regardless of product category and purchase situations. That is, the factors that affect consumers' value perceptions and buying behavior are so diverse in reality that the results of studies on the same dependent variable come out differently depending on what variable was used or how experiment conditions were designed. Majority of previous researches on the effect of price-comparison advertising have used consumers' buying behavior as dependent variable. In order to figure out consumers' buying behavior theoretically, analysis of value perceptions which influence buying intentions is needed. In addition, they did not combined the independent variables such as brand loyalty and price discount rate together. For this reason, this paper tried to examine the moderating effect of brand loyalty on relationship between the different levels of discounting rate and buyers' value perception. And we provided with theoretical and managerial implications that marketers need to consider such variables as product attributes, brand loyalty, and consumer involvement at the same time, and then establish a differentiated pricing strategy case by case in order to enhance consumer's perceived values properl. Three research concepts were used in our study and each concept based on past researches was defined. The perceived acquisition value in this study was defined as the perceived net gains associated with the products or services acquired. That is, the perceived acquisition value of the product will be positively influenced by the benefits buyers believe they are getting by acquiring and using the product, and negatively influenced by the money given up to acquire the product. And the perceived transaction value was defined as the perception of psychological satisfaction or pleasure obtained from taking advantage of the financial terms of the price deal. Lastly, the brand loyalty was defined as favorable attitude towards a purchased product. Thus, a consumer loyal to a brand has an emotional attachment to the brand or firm. Repeat purchasers continue to buy the same brand even though they do not have an emotional attachment to it. We assumed that if the degree of brand loyalty is high, the perceived acquisition value and the perceived transaction value will increase when higher discount rate is provided. But we found that there are no significant differences in values between two different discount rates as a result of empirical analysis. It means that price reduction did not affect consumer's brand choice significantly because the perceived sacrifice decreased only a little, and customers are satisfied with product's benefits when brand loyalty is high. From the result, we confirmed that consumers with high degree of brand loyalty to a specific product are less sensitive to price change. Thus, using price promotion strategy to merely expect sale increase is not recommendable. Instead of discounting price, marketers need to strengthen consumers' brand loyalty and maintain the skimming strategy. On the contrary, when the degree of brand loyalty is low, the perceived acquisition value and the perceived transaction value decreased significantly when higher discount rate is provided. Generally brands that are considered inferior might be able to draw attention away from the quality of the product by making consumers focus more on the sacrifice component of price. But considering the fact that consumers with low degree of brand loyalty are known to be unsatisfied with product's benefits and have relatively negative brand attitude, bigger price reduction offered in experiment condition of this paper made consumers depreciate product's quality and benefit more and more, and consumer's psychological perceived sacrifice increased while perceived values decreased accordingly. We infer that, in the case of inferior brand, a drastic price-cut or frequent price promotion may increase consumers' uncertainty about overall components of product. Therefore, it appears that reinforcing the augmented product such as after-sale service, delivery and giving credit which is one of the levels consisting of product would be more effective in reality. This will be better rather than competing with product that holds high brand loyalty by reducing sale price. Although this study tried to examine the moderating effect of brand loyalty on relationship between the different levels of discounting rate and buyers' value perception, there are several limitations. This study was conducted in controlled conditions where the high involvement product and two different levels of discount rate were applied. Given the presence of low involvement product, when both pieces of information are available, it is likely that the results we have reported here may have been different. Thus, this research results explain only the specific situation. Second, the sample selected in this study was university students in their twenties, so we cannot say that the results are firmly effective to all generations. Future research that manipulates the level of discount along with the consumer involvement might lead to a more robust understanding of the effects various discount rate. And, we used a cellular phone as a product stimulus, so it would be very interesting to analyze the result when the product stimulus is an intangible product such as service. It could be also valuable to analyze whether the change of perceived value affects consumers' final buying behavior positively or negatively.