• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.683-696
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• 2015

This study measures patients' meal satisfaction according to the type of operation (self-operation and contract operation) and identifies improvement areas. A survey was conducted using 183 contract operation patients and 60 self-operation patients receiving general meals. The mean score for satisfaction for the whole sample was 3.42 (self-operation = 3.51; contract operation = 3.39), and self-operation satisfaction was significantly higher than contract operation satisfaction. Mean scores were 2.98 for food, 3.26 for menu composition, 3.57 for sanitation, 3.78 for distribution meal services, and 3.50 for menu information. Self-operation showed a higher satisfaction level than the contract operation in food and menu composition. The ccontract operation showed a higher level of satisfaction than self-operation in sanitation, distribution meal services, and menu information. In terms of feeling dissatisfaction with meal services, both groups showed the highest dissatisfaction with food and menus, and both groups agreed on food and menus that required the greatest improvement. Based on the results, contract operation managers should develop and apply menus considering their preferences. Dietitians of self-operation strengthen communication between meal service staff and patients by carrying out periodic and systematic service education on self-operation.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.46
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• pp.236-262
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• 2001

This discovery-oriented study explored 31 social workers' perceptions of discrepancies between explicit and implicit rules in their work places that are supposed to affect the quality of social work services, and identified eight categories of dilemmas: (a) confused accountability or purpose, (b) ambiguous principle, (c) improper authority, (d) confused role of social workers, (e) conflict between ideal and reality, (f) confused work ethics, (g) confused boundary of workers' rights, and (h) binds. These eight categories revealed the real philosophy and purposes of social work agencies, work ethics and values prevalent among social work agencies, agencies' orientation toward clients, and the conditions of social support from the society in large. Instead of searching for discrete variables as separately responsible for inefficient social work services, this approach probed malfunctioning implicit rules in a holistic context to see if inefficient or ineffective provision of social work services is a logical response to a much larger and deeper nexus. Insight into discrepant rules does not solely ensure the improvement of social work practice in the field, particularly if their identification is simply used as another opportunity to blame and avoid self-responsibility. However, such discrepancies between implicit and explicit rules are real enough to the staff workers and agency administrators that they may want to begin the dialogue of contradictory rules as a way of sanctioning discussion of previously forbidden topics. This study provided the ground-work for the dialogue.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.9
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• pp.499-504
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• 2020

Service quality of any institution is a pull factor for attracting and retaining the customer. The present study examines the customer satisfaction level toward the quality of service offered by the Islamic banks in Oman. It also aims to find out which dimension influences customer satisfaction more concerning the other dimension chosen for the study. To fulfil the need of the study, a structured questionnaire is distributed amongst 100 customers of Islamic banks. The random stratified sampling technique is used for the collection of the data. The collected data is analyzed using the correlation and the multiple linear regression techniques. The result of the study indicates that timely service provided by the banking personnel has a mean score of 4.57, bank staff readiness to serve the customer has a mean score of 4.36, and the security of the banking operation has a mean score of 4.37 occupies the highest rank in their respective dimension chosen for the study. The study reveals that all three dimensions of quality of service represented by Services Reliability, Services Responsiveness and Services Security have a positive and significant correlation with customer satisfaction. The regression results also indicate that all three dimensions influence customer satisfaction of the Islamic banks.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.148-173
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• 2000

This thesis is a kind of case report on the managerial difficulties and strategies to overcome them for the rural hospitals in Korea. We examined environmental situations and SWOT(Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) of the hospitals, and suggested some strategies to improve the hospital business through analysing secondary data and brief survey to staffs and patients at 3 case hospitals. Among the strategies were included establishment of their identity as community hospitals, positioning towards high-touch services rather than high-tech services to improve their competence. For this positioning, patient satisfaction should be emphasized to make rapport with the residents in the community, and a few service areas should be selected and strengthened. Emergency care and geriatric health services are recommended to be covered strongly, because rural hospitals are usually the one and only hospital in the region and rural communities have aged population structure. In addition to these, networking is necessary among rural hospitals nationwide and with local clinics and tertiary hospitals near urban areas. And also, complementary role division with community health post should be developed to lessen the competitive relationship between public and private sectors. To support these strategies, fresh organizational culture should be built up to make hospital staff creative and enthusiastic on their job. Finally, inducement of governmental assistance will be necessary to make the environment advantageous to the rural hospitals.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.3
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• pp.257-285
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• 1999

Korea Postal Service(KPS) nowadays lies in competitive environment with alternative business such as door-to-door delivery service. Customers began to complain about postal service quality and ask the government to reform a public firm through management innovation. But, Korea Postal Service has not met the break-even point between it's revenue and expenditure because the service is under the government system and cannot independently make major decisions on products, pricing, services, personnel management, financial policies and etc. The objective of this study is to provide marketing planners and practitioners with some guidelines when they establish marketing strategies and to help marketers on theories and practical instructions about postal service marketing when they interact with customers. I. A field survey on both customer satisfaction and internal staff satisfaction was conducted to get some ideas for the marketing strategy planning. II. Practical guidelines and instructions were made for marketers to communicate with customers in various areas such as pricing, product, service demand, marketing channel, promotion, and etc. III. Some suggestions on marketing policies for planners and mangers in the marketing strategy were described including personnel resource as well as physical resource. IV. Special issues on small packet market and direct mail market were discussed and some alternative solutions were proposed. V. Database marketing strategy was emphasized to get new business opportunities such as direct mail, and to provide differential services to customers as much as their contribution into the profitability for KPS. VI. Cyber Post Office should be constructed on Internet to provide new services which are combined with physical material flow and information technologies.

• Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.199-215
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• 2015

The objective of this study is to investigate and compare the situation of the informationization of public libraries between 2012 and 2014. Data were collected two times in both 2012 and 2014 using Internet survey. Survey contents were general information situation, softwares, digital service room, RFID, digital contents, mobile service, integrated digital services. Results show that library informationization went for demonstration effect for local residents, staff for library informationization was insufficient, KOLAS was still needed to be upgraded, and most of public libraries were insufficient for future digital services. As improvement plans, there are the development of next generation integrated system, expansion of mobile web and app service, and increasing digital contents. For further study, it provides a study of the use of digital contents and equipment on public libraries.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.31-48
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• 2014

The concept of Health Related Quality of Life and its determinants have evolved since the 1980s. Although many researchers have published articles of technology usage in hospitals and the installation of technology based healthcare system, the research about applying the information technology to improve the patients' perceived quality of healthcare services is still limited. In general, services are deeds, processes and performances that are essentially concerns of the consumer. The healthcare service quality depends on tangible factors, such as equipments, facilities, and the quality of hospital staff and also the intangible ones. The main purpose of this work is to establish new model and find out the contribution of information technology to enhance the patients' perceived quality of healthcare service. We attempted to examine the main information technology related factors in 3 aspects, namely quality of information, the technology accessibility and the community that can improve patients' perceived quality of healthcare services. Offline and online questionnaires were used to measure the patients' perceived quality and were distributed to 384 people in 2 countries, Laos and South Korea. A principle component analysis and multiple regressions were used to verify our model. Results show that the use of information technology has partial positive effect on patient-physician interaction in both countries. However, patient knowledge and patient autonomy which are the 2 dimensions of patient-physician interaction has significant positive effect on patients' perceived quality of healthcare service.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.343-351
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• 2000

The Korean government enacted the National Health Promotion Act in January, 1995 and proclaimed its regulations and rules in September 1995, which became the basis of the national health policy. The health promotion programs consist of education for health, prevention of diseases, improvement of nutrition, and practice of healthy life style as defined in that Act. The Community Health Act was amended in 1995, which included implementing nutrition services in community health centers. The purpose of this report is to summerize the nutrition services conducted in 32 community health centers. the main nutritional activities were as follows : 1) nutritional guidance by counseling and education for pregnant or lactating women, infants, preschool children, and those with chronic diseases, 2) collection, analysis, and interpretation of data collected from the community, on background conditions and target population for the assessment of community needs, 3) evaluation of nutritional status of population in the community 4) nutritional guidance for mass feeding in different institution including schools and welfare institutions. In order to meet the government's expectations and desires, the community health centers have made continuous efforts to put nutritional activities into practice in the community. However, there are constraints, such as relative staff shortages, lack of funds, and information which hampers the nutritional activities.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.437-453
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• 2006

To analyze dental hygienists and other manpower at dental care service institutions where a dental coordinator was working among about 200 dental care service institutions in Seoul, Gyeonggi Province, and Incheon as of June 2005 for contents of training for dental coordinators, opinions of qualification of dental coordinators, present and future services provided by dental coordinators, and awareness of dental coordinators and to provide basic data about future services, roles, and cultivation of dental coordinators, a survey was conducted and 216 copies returned were analyzed, obtaining the following results. 1. 83.8 percent needed an educational program for dental coordinators as an educational content; 41.7% had awareness of the educational content; and 83.8 percent insisted that over the intermediate level of curricula should be taken. Dental coordinator cultivation institutions identified included the institution under the control of the Korean Dental Hygienists Association and the education center for the department of dental hygiene; 76.9% insisted that an appropriate qualifying examination should be necessary. They suggested the central government department and the local government as a certification institution; 39.4% insisted that financial support for the education should be provided by financing education alone. Only 28.7% experienced dental coordinator education and 73.1% hoped to serve as a dental coordinator. They were found to expect a rise in payment(64.4%) and in the title(46.8%) after completion of the educational program. 2. 66.2% saw a dental hygienist as the most appropriate for a dental coordinator; clinical career (39.4%) and practical capacity(29.2%) were suggested as requirements for a dental coordinator; and a period of over three years(47.2%) was suggested for appropriate dental career. 3. Dental coordinators' present services included 'reservation management' for customer management, 'staff service training' for organization management, 'understanding of customer reception attitudes and actions' for self-management, 'hospital information management' for hospital marketing, 'acceptance' for hospital affairs management, and 'hospital environment management' for hospital facilities management; their future services included 'acquisition of ability to use a foreign language' for self-management, followed by 'staff service training' for organization management, 'training and counseling' for customer management, 'acquisition of counseling capacity' for self-management, 'complaining customer reception' for customer management, and 'marketing strategy implementation' for hospital marketing. 4. After comparing dental hygienists and other manpower in terms of dental coordinators' future services, dental hygienists showed interest in 'acquisition of ability to use a foreign language,' 'staff service training,' 'complaining customer reception,' and 'acquisition of counseling capacity' while other manpower showed interest in 'acquisition of ability to use a foreign language,' 'document data management,' 'acquisition of basic service manner,' 'acquisition of counseling capacity,' 'manpower management,' 'establishment and evaluation of a marketing strategy,' and 'education and counseling.' 5. As for awareness of dental coordinators, they were thought of as helpful in improving image of a dental clinic; it was found that continuous training should be necessary to develop dental coordinators' capacity; dental coordinators' services should be important and contribute to patients' qualitative satisfaction.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.186-198
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• 2000

The quality of the management of sanitation in food service establishments (school lunch programs, hospital patient food services, and commercial catering food services) in Korea was reviewed and evaluated, and ten strategies fur future improvement were suggested. They were: (1) An increase of qualified manpower and improvement of the professional training of the staff; (2) Obtaining special facilities exclusively for food service; (3) Improvement of facilities especially the kitchens; (4) Improvement of policy fur procuring raw materials and being assured of their quality by designing some standards and specifications for the raw materials to be purchased; (5) Production and use accurate and reliable kitchen apparatus and instruments; (6) An increase of the laboratory apparatus and instruments for inspection and evaluation of the sanitary level of raw materials and food service environments; (7) Enforced improvement of personal hygiene of the staff; (8) Use of a variety of methods in sanitary education and training; (9) Actively inspect the quality of imported foods; (10) Strengthening the research and accumulation of background data regarding sanitation management. There is a long process from the production of food to eating. The cooking process is the ultimate end of preparation of food before eating. This process sometimes increases the occurrence of food-borne diseases if we mishandle the food, even we obtained safe food. The process can also remove health hazards and reduce the risk from the hazards if we handle the food well although we have unsafe foods. This means the cooking process is a major key to preventing food-borne diseases. The concepts of hazard analysis critical control point (HACCP) should be applied and practiced in food service establishments in Korea as soon as possible.