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The Association of Dual Job on Dental Hygienists' Job Satisfaction (치과위생사의 직무만족도와 동시일자리(부업)의 관련성)

  • Mi-Sook Yoon;Go-eun Kim;Han-A Cho
    • Journal of Korean Dental Hygiene Science
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    • v.6 no.2
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    • pp.51-64
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    • 2023
  • Background: This study was conducted to determine the association with dual jobbing on dental hygienists' job satisfaction and to identify the factors that lead to dual jobs. Methods: This study was an online survey of 110 currently employed dental hygienists conducted during the month of May 2022. To determine job satisfaction, we used the 20-item Korea-Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (K-MSQ). Survey questions related to dual job were adapted and supplemented from the dual job survey instrument for dental hygienists to identify intention to dual job and future intention to dual job. Descriptive statistics, independent t-test, ANOVA and Scheffe's post hoc analysis, and multiple logistic regression were performed. Results: The dual job rate and future dual job rate of the participants in this study were about 27% and 47%, respectively. The means for Intrinsic job satisfaction, Extrinsic job satisfaction, and job satisfaction were 3.44, 3.15, and 3.36, respectively. It was statistically significant that extrinsic job satisfaction increased with increasing position, and intrinsic job satisfaction, extrinsic job satisfaction, and job satisfaction increased with increasing salary. Those currently working dual jobs cited "self-actualization" as a reason for doing so, and those who intended to work dual jobs in the future cited "not being paid enough in their primary job" as a reason. We found that a one-unit increase in intrinsic job satisfaction and job satisfaction increases the odds of future intention to dual job by about 1.07 and 1.05 times, respectively (p<0.05). Conclusion: This study confirmed the influence of dental hygienists' job satisfaction on intention to dual job and future intention to dual job, and self-actualization was found to be the main factor. Therefore, the consideration of dual jobs in the future will affect the improvement of dental hygienists as professionals and the reduction of turnover through better working conditions.

The Effects of the Computer Aided Innovation Capabilities on the R&D Capabilities: Focusing on the SMEs of Korea (Computer Aided Innovation 역량이 연구개발역량에 미치는 효과: 국내 중소기업을 대상으로)

  • Shim, Jae Eok;Byeon, Moo Jang;Moon, Hyo Gon;Oh, Jay In
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.23 no.3
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    • pp.25-53
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    • 2013
  • This study analyzes the effect of Computer Aided Innovation (CAI) to improve R&D Capabilities empirically. Survey was distributed by e-mail and Google Docs, targeting CTO of 235 SMEs. 142 surveys were returned back (rate of return 60.4%) from companies. Survey results from 119 companies (83.8%) which are effective samples except no-response, insincere response, estimated value, etc. were used for statistics analysis. Companies with less than 50billion KRW sales of entire researched companies occupy 76.5% in terms of sample traits. Companies with less than 300 employees occupy 83.2%. In terms of the type of company business Partners (called 'partners with big companies' hereunder) who work with big companies for business occupy 68.1%. SMEs based on their own business (called 'independent small companies') appear to occupy 31.9%. The present status of holding IT system according to traits of company business was classified into partners with big companies versus independent SMEs. The present status of ERP is 18.5% to 34.5%. QMS is 11.8% to 9.2%. And PLM (Product Life-cycle Management) is 6.7% to 2.5%. The holding of 3D CAD is 47.1% to 21%. IT system-holding and its application of independent SMEs seemed very vulnerable, compared with partner companies of big companies. This study is comprised of IT infra and IT Utilization as CAI capacity factors which are independent variables. factors of R&D capabilities which are independent variables are organization capability, process capability, HR capability, technology-accumulating capability, and internal/external collaboration capability. The highest average value of variables was 4.24 in organization capability 2. The lowest average value was 3.01 in IT infra which makes users access to data and information in other areas and use them with ease when required during new product development. It seems that the inferior environment of IT infra of general SMEs is reflected in CAI itself. In order to review the validity used to measure variables, Factors have been analyzed. 7 factors which have over 1.0 pure value of their dependent and independent variables were extracted. These factors appear to explain 71.167% in total of total variances. From the result of factor analysis about measurable variables in this study, reliability of each item was checked by Cronbach's Alpha coefficient. All measurable factors at least over 0.611 seemed to acquire reliability. Next, correlation has been done to explain certain phenomenon by correlation analysis between variables. As R&D capabilities factors which are arranged as dependent variables, organization capability, process capability, HR capability, technology-accumulating capability, and internal/external collaboration capability turned out that they acquire significant correlation at 99% reliability level in all variables of IT infra and IT Utilization which are independent variables. In addition, correlation coefficient between each factor is less than 0.8, which proves that the validity of this study judgement has been acquired. The pair with the highest coefficient had 0.628 for IT utilization and technology-accumulating capability. Regression model which can estimate independent variables was used in this study under the hypothesis that there is linear relation between independent variables and dependent variables so as to identify CAI capability's impact factors on R&D. The total explanations of IT infra among CAI capability for independent variables such as organization capability, process capability, human resources capability, technology-accumulating capability, and collaboration capability are 10.3%, 7%, 11.9%, 30.9%, and 10.5% respectively. IT Utilization exposes comprehensively low explanatory capability with 12.4%, 5.9%, 11.1%, 38.9%, and 13.4% for organization capability, process capability, human resources capability, technology-accumulating capability, and collaboration capability respectively. However, both factors of independent variables expose very high explanatory capability relatively for technology-accumulating capability among independent variable. Regression formula which is comprised of independent variables and dependent variables are all significant (P<0.005). The suitability of regression model seems high. When the results of test for dependent variables and independent variables are estimated, the hypothesis of 10 different factors appeared all significant in regression analysis model coefficient (P<0.01) which is estimated to affect in the hypothesis. As a result of liner regression analysis between two independent variables drawn by influence factor analysis for R&D capability and R&D capability. IT infra and IT Utilization which are CAI capability factors has positive correlation to organization capability, process capability, human resources capability, technology-accumulating capability, and collaboration capability with inside and outside which are dependent variables, R&D capability factors. It was identified as a significant factor which affects R&D capability. However, considering adjustable variables, a big gap is found, compared to entire company. First of all, in case of partner companies with big companies, in IT infra as CAI capability, organization capability, process capability, human resources capability, and technology capability out of R&D capacities seems to have positive correlation. However, collaboration capability appeared insignificance. IT utilization which is a CAI capability factor seemed to have positive relation to organization capability, process capability, human resources capability, and internal/external collaboration capability just as those of entire companies. Next, by analyzing independent types of SMEs as an adjustable variable, very different results were found from those of entire companies or partner companies with big companies. First of all, all factors in IT infra except technology-accumulating capability were rejected. IT utilization was rejected except technology-accumulating capability and collaboration capability. Comprehending the above adjustable variables, the following results were drawn in this study. First, in case of big companies or partner companies with big companies, IT infra and IT utilization affect improving R&D Capabilities positively. It was because most of big companies encourage innovation by using IT utilization and IT infra building over certain level to their partner companies. Second, in all companies, IT infra and IT utilization as CAI capability affect improving technology-accumulating capability positively at least as R&D capability factor. The most of factor explanation is low at around 10%. However, technology-accumulating capability is rather high around 25.6% to 38.4%. It was found that CAI capability contributes to technology-accumulating capability highly. Companies shouldn't consider IT infra and IT utilization as a simple product developing tool in R&D section. However, they have to consider to use them as a management innovating strategy tool which proceeds entire-company management innovation centered in new product development. Not only the improvement of technology-accumulating capability in department of R&D. Centered in new product development, it has to be used as original management innovative strategy which proceeds entire company management innovation. It suggests that it can be a method to improve technology-accumulating capability in R&D section and Dynamic capability to acquire sustainable competitive advantage.

A Study of Intangible Cultural Heritage Communities through a Social Network Analysis - Focused on the Item of Jeongseon Arirang - (소셜 네트워크 분석을 통한 무형문화유산 공동체 지식연결망 연구 - 정선아리랑을 중심으로 -)

  • Oh, Jung-shim
    • Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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    • v.52 no.3
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    • pp.172-187
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    • 2019
  • Knowledge of intangible cultural heritage is usually disseminated through word-of-mouth and actions rather than written records. Thus, people assemble to teach others about it and form communities. Accordingly, to understand and spread information about intangible cultural heritage properly, it is necessary to understand not only their attributes but also a community's relational characteristics. Community members include specialized transmitters who work under the auspices of institutions, and general transmitters who enjoy intangible cultural heritage in their daily lives. They converse about intangible cultural heritage in close relationships. However, to date, research has focused only on professionals. Thus, this study focused on the roles of general transmitters of intangible cultural heritage information by investigating intangible cultural heritage communities centering around Jeongseon Arirang; a social network analysis was performed. Regarding the research objectives presented in the introduction, the main findings of the study are summarized as follows. First, there were 197 links between 74 members of the Jeongseon Arirang Transmission Community. One individual had connections with 2.7 persons on average, and all were connected through two steps in the community. However, the density and the clustering coefficient were low, 0.036 and 0.32, respectively; therefore, the cohesiveness of this community was low, and the relationships between the members were not strong. Second, 'Young-ran Yu', 'Nam-gi Kim' and 'Gil-ja Kim' were found to be the prominent figures of the Jeongseon Arirang Transmission Community, and the central structure of the network was concentrated around these three individuals. Being located in the central structure of the network indicates that a person is popular and ranked high. Also, it means that a person has an advantage in terms of the speed and quantity of the acquisition of information and resources, and is in a relatively superior position in terms of bargaining power. Third, to understand the replaceability of the roles of Young-ran Yu, Nam-gi Kim, and Gil-ja Kim, who were found to be the major figures through an analysis of the central structure, structural equivalence was profiled. The results of the analysis showed that the positions and roles of Young-ran Yu, Nam-gi Kim, and Gil-ja Kim were unrivaled and irreplaceable in the Jeongseon Arirang Transmission Community. However, considering that these three members were in their 60s and 70s, it seemed that it would be necessary to prepare measures for the smooth maintenance and operation of the community. Fourth, to examine the subgroup hidden in the network of the Jeongseon Arirang Transmission Community, an analysis of communities was conducted. A community refers to a subgroup clearly differentiated based on modularity. The results of the analysis identified the existence of four communities. Furthermore, the results of an analysis of the central structure showed that the communities were formed and centered around Young-ran Yu, Hyung-jo Kim, Nam-gi Kim, and Gil-ja Kim. Most of the transmission TAs recommended by those members, students who completed a course, transmission scholarship holders, and the general members taught in the transmission classes of the Jeongseon Arirang Preservation Society were included as members of the communities. Through these findings, it was discovered that it is possible to maintain the transmission genealogy, making an exchange with the general members by employing the present method for the transmission of Jeongseon Arirang, the joint transmission method. It is worth paying attention to the joint transmission method as it overcomes the demerits of the existing closed one-on-one apprentice method and provides members with an opportunity to learn their masters' various singing styles. This study is significant for the following reasons: First, by collecting and examining data using a social network analysis method, this study analyzed phenomena that had been difficult to investigate using existing statistical analyses. Second, by adopting a different approach to the previous method in which the genealogy was understood, looking at oral data, this study analyzed the structures of the transmitters' relationships with objective and quantitative data. Third, this study visualized and presented the abstract structures of the relationships among the transmitters of intangible cultural heritage information on a 2D spring map. The results of this study can be utilized as a baseline for the development of community-centered policies for the protection of intangible cultural heritage specified in the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. To achieve this, it would be necessary to supplement this study through case studies and follow-up studies on more aspects in the future.

Developing a Scale for Measuring the Corporate Social Responsibility Activities of Korea Corporation: Focusing on the Consumers' Awareness (한국형 기업의 사회적 책임활동 측정을 위한 척도 개발 연구: 소비자 인식을 중심으로)

  • Park, Jongchul;Kim, Kyungjin;Lee, Hanjoon
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.12 no.2
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    • pp.27-52
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    • 2010
  • It is not new that today's business organizations are expected to exhibit ethical and moral management and to carry out social responsibility as a good corporate citizen. Since South Korea emerged as a newly industrialized country during the 1980s, Korean corporations have become active in carrying out their social responsibility as a good corporate citizen to society. In spite of the short history of corporate social responsibility, Korean companies have actively participated in corporate philanthropy. Corporations' significant donations to various social causes, no-lay-off policies, corporate volunteerism and green marketing are evidences of their commitment to corporate citizenship. Corporate social responsibility is now an essential management practice whereby corporation can strengthen its sustainable value creation processes by enhancing the trust assets underlying the relationships between the business and the stakeholders. Much of the conceptual work in the area of corporate social responsibility(CSR) has originated from researches conducted in the management field. Carroll(1979) proposed that corporations have four types of social responsibilities: economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibility. Most past research has investigated CSR and its impact on consumers' attitudes toward the corporations and corporate performances. Although there exists a large body of literature on how consumers perceive and respond to CSR, the majority of past studies were conducted in the United States. The stability and applicability of past findings need to be tested across different national/cultural settings, especially since corporate social responsibility is a reflection of implicit conformation with the expectations and criticism that society may have toward a corporation(Matten and Moon, 2004). In this study, we explored whether people in Korea perceive CSR of Korean corporations in the same four dimensions as done in the United States and what were the measurement items tapping each of these four dimensions. In order to investigate the dimensions of CSR and the measurement items for CSR perceived by Korean people, nine focus group interviews were conducted with several stakeholder groups(two with undergraduate students, two with graduate students, three with general consumers, and two with NGO groups). Scripts from the interviews revealed that the Korean stakeholders perceived four types of CSR which are the same as those proposed by Carroll(1979). However we found CSR issues unique to Korean corporations. For example for the economic responsibility, Korean people mentioned that the corporation needed to contribute to the economic development of the country by generating corporate profits. For the legal responsibility, Koreans included the "corporation need to follow the consumer protection law." For the ethical responsibility, they considered that the corporation needed to not promote false advertisement. In addition, Koreans thought that an ethical company should do transparent management. For the philanthropic responsibility, people in Korea thought that a corporation needed to return parts of its profits to the society for the betterment of society. The 28 items were developed based on the results of the nine focus group interviews, while considering the scale developed by Maignan and Ferrell(2001). Following the procedure proposed by Churchill(1979), we started by developing an item poll consisting of 28 items and purified the initial pool of items through exploratory, confirmatory factor analyses. 176 samples were sued for this analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed on the 28 items in order to verify the underlying four factor structure. Study 1 provided new measurement items for tapping the Korean CSR dimensions, which can be useful for the future studies exploring the effects of CSR on Korean consumers' attitudes toward the corporations and corporate performances. And we found the CSR scale(17 items) has good reliability, discriminant validity and nomological validity. Economic Responsibility: "XYZ company continuously improves the quality of our products", "XYZ company has a procedure in place to respond to customer complaint", "XYZ company contributes to the economic development of our country by generating profits", "XYZ company is eager to hire people". Legal Responsibility: "XYZ company's products meet legal standards", "XYZ company seeks to comply with all laws regulating hiring and employee benefits", "XYZ company honors contractual obligations to its suppliers", "XYZ company's managers try to comply with the law related to the business operation". Ethical Responsibility: "XYZ company has a comprehensive code of conduct", "XYZ company does not promote a false or misleading advertisement", "XYZ company seems to conduct a transparent business", "XYZ company does a fair business with its suppliers or sub-contractors". Philanthropic Responsibility: "XYZ company encourages partnerships with local businesses and schools", "XYZ company supports sports and cultural activities", "XYZ company gives adequate contributions to charities considering its business size", "XYZ company encourages employees to support our community". Study 2 was condusted for comprehensive validity. 655 samples were used for this anlysis. Collected samples were tested by factor analysis and Crnbach's Alpha coefficiednts and were found to be satisfactory in terms of validity and reliability. Furthermore, fitness of the measurement model was tested by using conformatory factor analysis. χ2=880.73(df=160), GFI=0.891, AGFI=0.854, NFI=0.908, NNFI=0.913, RMR=0.059, RMESA=0.070. We hope that CSR scale could greatly facilitate research on Corporate social resposibility, it is by no means the final answer.

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Information Privacy Concern in Context-Aware Personalized Services: Results of a Delphi Study

  • Lee, Yon-Nim;Kwon, Oh-Byung
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.20 no.2
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    • pp.63-86
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    • 2010
  • Personalized services directly and indirectly acquire personal data, in part, to provide customers with higher-value services that are specifically context-relevant (such as place and time). Information technologies continue to mature and develop, providing greatly improved performance. Sensory networks and intelligent software can now obtain context data, and that is the cornerstone for providing personalized, context-specific services. Yet, the danger of overflowing personal information is increasing because the data retrieved by the sensors usually contains privacy information. Various technical characteristics of context-aware applications have more troubling implications for information privacy. In parallel with increasing use of context for service personalization, information privacy concerns have also increased such as an unrestricted availability of context information. Those privacy concerns are consistently regarded as a critical issue facing context-aware personalized service success. The entire field of information privacy is growing as an important area of research, with many new definitions and terminologies, because of a need for a better understanding of information privacy concepts. Especially, it requires that the factors of information privacy should be revised according to the characteristics of new technologies. However, previous information privacy factors of context-aware applications have at least two shortcomings. First, there has been little overview of the technology characteristics of context-aware computing. Existing studies have only focused on a small subset of the technical characteristics of context-aware computing. Therefore, there has not been a mutually exclusive set of factors that uniquely and completely describe information privacy on context-aware applications. Second, user survey has been widely used to identify factors of information privacy in most studies despite the limitation of users' knowledge and experiences about context-aware computing technology. To date, since context-aware services have not been widely deployed on a commercial scale yet, only very few people have prior experiences with context-aware personalized services. It is difficult to build users' knowledge about context-aware technology even by increasing their understanding in various ways: scenarios, pictures, flash animation, etc. Nevertheless, conducting a survey, assuming that the participants have sufficient experience or understanding about the technologies shown in the survey, may not be absolutely valid. Moreover, some surveys are based solely on simplifying and hence unrealistic assumptions (e.g., they only consider location information as a context data). A better understanding of information privacy concern in context-aware personalized services is highly needed. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to identify a generic set of factors for elemental information privacy concern in context-aware personalized services and to develop a rank-order list of information privacy concern factors. We consider overall technology characteristics to establish a mutually exclusive set of factors. A Delphi survey, a rigorous data collection method, was deployed to obtain a reliable opinion from the experts and to produce a rank-order list. It, therefore, lends itself well to obtaining a set of universal factors of information privacy concern and its priority. An international panel of researchers and practitioners who have the expertise in privacy and context-aware system fields were involved in our research. Delphi rounds formatting will faithfully follow the procedure for the Delphi study proposed by Okoli and Pawlowski. This will involve three general rounds: (1) brainstorming for important factors; (2) narrowing down the original list to the most important ones; and (3) ranking the list of important factors. For this round only, experts were treated as individuals, not panels. Adapted from Okoli and Pawlowski, we outlined the process of administrating the study. We performed three rounds. In the first and second rounds of the Delphi questionnaire, we gathered a set of exclusive factors for information privacy concern in context-aware personalized services. The respondents were asked to provide at least five main factors for the most appropriate understanding of the information privacy concern in the first round. To do so, some of the main factors found in the literature were presented to the participants. The second round of the questionnaire discussed the main factor provided in the first round, fleshed out with relevant sub-factors. Respondents were then requested to evaluate each sub factor's suitability against the corresponding main factors to determine the final sub-factors from the candidate factors. The sub-factors were found from the literature survey. Final factors selected by over 50% of experts. In the third round, a list of factors with corresponding questions was provided, and the respondents were requested to assess the importance of each main factor and its corresponding sub factors. Finally, we calculated the mean rank of each item to make a final result. While analyzing the data, we focused on group consensus rather than individual insistence. To do so, a concordance analysis, which measures the consistency of the experts' responses over successive rounds of the Delphi, was adopted during the survey process. As a result, experts reported that context data collection and high identifiable level of identical data are the most important factor in the main factors and sub factors, respectively. Additional important sub-factors included diverse types of context data collected, tracking and recording functionalities, and embedded and disappeared sensor devices. The average score of each factor is very useful for future context-aware personalized service development in the view of the information privacy. The final factors have the following differences comparing to those proposed in other studies. First, the concern factors differ from existing studies, which are based on privacy issues that may occur during the lifecycle of acquired user information. However, our study helped to clarify these sometimes vague issues by determining which privacy concern issues are viable based on specific technical characteristics in context-aware personalized services. Since a context-aware service differs in its technical characteristics compared to other services, we selected specific characteristics that had a higher potential to increase user's privacy concerns. Secondly, this study considered privacy issues in terms of service delivery and display that were almost overlooked in existing studies by introducing IPOS as the factor division. Lastly, in each factor, it correlated the level of importance with professionals' opinions as to what extent users have privacy concerns. The reason that it did not select the traditional method questionnaire at that time is that context-aware personalized service considered the absolute lack in understanding and experience of users with new technology. For understanding users' privacy concerns, professionals in the Delphi questionnaire process selected context data collection, tracking and recording, and sensory network as the most important factors among technological characteristics of context-aware personalized services. In the creation of a context-aware personalized services, this study demonstrates the importance and relevance of determining an optimal methodology, and which technologies and in what sequence are needed, to acquire what types of users' context information. Most studies focus on which services and systems should be provided and developed by utilizing context information on the supposition, along with the development of context-aware technology. However, the results in this study show that, in terms of users' privacy, it is necessary to pay greater attention to the activities that acquire context information. To inspect the results in the evaluation of sub factor, additional studies would be necessary for approaches on reducing users' privacy concerns toward technological characteristics such as highly identifiable level of identical data, diverse types of context data collected, tracking and recording functionality, embedded and disappearing sensor devices. The factor ranked the next highest level of importance after input is a context-aware service delivery that is related to output. The results show that delivery and display showing services to users in a context-aware personalized services toward the anywhere-anytime-any device concept have been regarded as even more important than in previous computing environment. Considering the concern factors to develop context aware personalized services will help to increase service success rate and hopefully user acceptance for those services. Our future work will be to adopt these factors for qualifying context aware service development projects such as u-city development projects in terms of service quality and hence user acceptance.

A study on the improvement of distribution system by overseas agricultural investment (해외농업투자에 따른 유통체계 개선방안에 관한 연구)

  • Sun, Il-Suck;Lee, Dong-Ok
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.8 no.3
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    • pp.17-26
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    • 2010
  • Recently concerns have been raised due to the unbalanced supply of crops: the price of crops has been unstable and at one point the price went up so high that the word Agflation(agriculture+ inflation) was coined. Korea, in particular, is a small-sized country and needs to secure the stable supply of crops by investing in the produce importation at a national level. Investment in foreign produce importation is becoming more important as a measure for sufficient supply of crops, limited supply of domestic crops, weakened farming conditions worldwide, as well as recent changes in the use of crops due to the development of bio-fuels, influence of carbon emission on crops, the price increase in crops, and influx of foreign hot money. However, there are many problems with investing in foreign produce importation: lack of support from the government; lack of farming information and technology; difficulty in securing the capital; no immediate pay-off from the investment and insufficient management. Although foreign produce is originally more price-competitive than domestic produce, it loses its competiveness in the process of importation (due to high tariffs) and poor distribution system, which makes it difficult to sell in Korea. Therefore, investment in foreign produce importation is being questioned for feasibility; to make it possible, foreign produce must maintain the price-competitiveness. Especially, harvest of agricultural products depends on natural and geographical conditions of each country and those products have indigenous properties, so distribution system according to import and export of agricultural products should be treated more carefully than that of other industries. Distribution costs are differentiated into each item and include cost of sorting and wrapping, cost of wrapping materials, cost of domestic transport, cost of international transport and cost of clearing customs for import and export. So transporting and storing agricultural products generates considerable costs compared with other products. Also, due to upgrade of dietary life, needs for stability, taste and visible quality toward food including agricultural products are being raised and wrong way of storage causes decomposition of food and loss of freshness, making the storage more difficult than that in room temperature, so storage and transport in distribution of agricultural products needs specialty. In addition, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. However, existing distribution system of agricultural products is exposed to various problems including problems in distribution channel, making distribution and strategy for distribution and those problems are as follows. First, in case of investment in overseas agricultural industry, stable supply of the products is difficult because areas of production are dispersed widely and influenced by outer factors due to including overseas distribution channels. Also, at the aspect of quality, standardization of products is difficult, distribution system is quite complicated and unreasonable due to long distribution channels according to international trade and financial and institutional support is not enough. Especially, there are quite a lot of ineffective factors including multi level distribution process, dramatic gap between production cost and customer's cost, lack of physical distribution facilities and difficulties in storage and transport due to lack of wrapping containers. Besides, because import and export of agricultural products has been manages under the company's own distribution according to transaction contract between manufacturers and exporting company, efficiency is low due to excessive investment in fixed costs and lack of specialty in dealing with agricultural products causes fall of value of products, showing the limit to lose price-competitiveness. Especially, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. Second, among tangible and intangible services which promote the efficiency of the whole distribution, a function building distribution environment which includes distribution information, system for standard and inspection, distribution finance, system for diversification of risks, education and training, distribution administration and tax system is wanted. In general, such a function building distribution environment is difficult to be changed and supplement innovatively because its effect compared with investment does not appear immediately despite of its necessity. Especially, in case of distribution of agricultural products, as a function of collecting and distributing is performed individually through various channels, the importance of distribution information and standardization is getting more focus due to the problem of repetition of work and lack of specialty. Also, efficient management of distribution is quite difficult due to lack of professionals in distribution, so support to professional education is needed. Third, though effort to keep self-sufficiency ratio of staple food, rice is regarded as important at the government level, level of dependency on overseas of others crops is high. Therefore, plan for stable securing food resources aside from staple food is also necessary. Especially, governmental organizations of agricultural products distribution in Korea are production-centered and have unreasonable structure whose function at the aspect of distribution and consumption is quite insufficient. And development of new distribution channels which can deal with changes in distribution environment and they do not achieve actual results of strategy for distribution due to non-positive strategy for price distribution. That is, it implies the possibility that base for supply will become vulnerable because it does not mediate appropriate interests on total distribution channels such as manufacturers, wholesale dealers and vendors by emphasizing consumer protection excessively in the distribution of agricultural products. Therefore, this study examined fundamental concept and actual situation for our investment to overseas agriculture, drew necessities, considerations, problems, etc. of overseas agricultural investment and suggested improvements at the level of distribution for price competitiveness of agricultural products cultivated in overseas under five aspects; government's indirect support, distribution's modernization and distribution information function's strengthening, government's political support for distribution facility, transportation route, load and unloading works' improvement, price competitiveness' securing, professional manpower's cultivation by education and training, etc. Here are some suggestions for foreign produce importation. First, the government should conduct a survey on the current distribution channels and analyze the situation to establish a measure for long-term development plans. By providing each agricultural area with a guideline for planning appropriate production of crops, the government can help farmers be ready for importation, and prevent them from producing same crops all at the same time. Government can sign an MOU with the foreign government and promote the importation so that the development of agricultural resources can be stable and steady. Second, the government can establish a strategy for an effective distribution system by providing farmers and agriculture-related workers with the distribution information such as price, production, demand, market structure and location, feature of each crop, and etc. In order for such distribution system to become feasible, the government needs to reconstruct the current distribution system, designate a public organization for providing distribution information and set the criteria for level of produce quality, trade units, and package units. Third, the government should provide financial support and a policy to seek an efficient distribution channel for foreign produce to be delivered fresh: the government should expand distribution facilities (for selecting, packaging, storing, and processing) and transportation vehicles while modernizing old facilities. There should be another policy to improve the efficiency of unloading, and to lower the cost of distribution. Fourth, it is necessary to enact a new law covering exceptional cases for importing produce in order to maintain the price competitiveness; currently the high tariffs is keeping the imported produce from being distributed domestically. However, the new adjustment should be made carefully within the WTO regulations since it can create a problem from giving preferential tariffs. The government can also simplify the distribution channels in order to reduce the cost in the distribution process. Fifth, the government should educate distributors to raise the efficiency and to modernize the distribution system. It is necessary to develop human resources by educating people regarding the foreign agricultural environment, the produce quality, management skills, and by introducing some successful cases in advanced countries.

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The Impact of Justice of Layoff on Management Trust, Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment in the Hotel Corporations (호텔기업에 있어 구조조정상의 공정성 지각이 경영진의 신뢰, 직무만족 및 조직몰입에 미치는 영향)

  • Kim, Young-Soon;Ahn, Dae-Hee
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.18 no.1
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    • pp.115-139
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    • 2008
  • Since financial crisis of IMF resulted in intensive competitiveness and adverse management environment, many hotel industries have responded it with restructuring. Since this restructuring is accompanied by reduction of employees, hence comes the recognition of justice in the procedure of restructuring. When the surviving employees in the restructuring process recognize unfairness in the procedure and practical operations, organization effectiveness can not be maintained due to losing trust of their employers. In this paper I will examine the relationship between validity of restructuring and compensatory programs for layoffs and surviving employees' trust of the employers. Also I will find out the relationship between remaining employees' trust of the employers and their job satisfaction and organization commitment. Through this relationship, we can prepare an alternative to reduce negative effect of restructuring. The hypotheses of this study are proposed as follows: H1: The higher surviving employees' recognition of procedural justice in restructuring process is, the higher their trust with a manager of the company is. H2: The higher surviving employees' recognition of distributive justice in restructuring process is, the higher their trust with a manager of the company is. H3: The higher surviving employees' recognition of procedural justice in restructuring process is, the higher their job satisfaction is. H4: The higher surviving employees' recognition of distributive justice in restructuring process is, the higher their job satisfaction is. H5: The higher surviving employees' recognition of procedural justice in restructuring process is, the higher their organization commitment is. H6: The higher surviving employees' recognition of distributive justice in restructuring process is, the higher their organization commitment is. H7: The higher surviving employees' trust with a manager of the company in restructuring process is, the higher their job satisfaction is. H8: The higher surviving employees' trust with a manager of the company in restructuring process is, the higher their organization commitment is. For the purposes of this study, employees working in luxury hotels located in Seoul were targeted. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to those who consented with the investigation after explaining the purpose of the survey. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed and 450 questionnaire were returned to the researcher for analysis. 430 of the returned questionnaires were used for analysis. As for the education for this survey, 250 junior college graduates or under (58.1%), 143 college graduates (33.3%) and 37 graduate school graduates (8.6%). As for the marital status, 315 persons (73.3%) are single and 115 are married (26.7%). As for the monthly income, 49 people (11.48%) are less than 2 million won, 148 (34.4%) are between 2 million and less than 2.5 million won, 153 (35.6%) are between 2.5 million to less than 3 million won, 80 (18.6%) are more than 3 million won. As for the workplace, 293 people (68.1%) work for the F&B department, 73 (17.0%) for rooms department, 41 (9.5%) for operation/ marketing department, 23 (5.3%) for account/ general affair department. As for the period of employment, 85 people (19.8%) are less than 5 years, 150 (34.9%) are between 6 to 9 years, 143 (33.3%) are between 10 to 14 years. and 52 (3.%) are more than 15 years. An exploratory factor analysis was used to survey validity and reliability of calculating tool on perceived values. This study used correlation between individual items and whole items and Cronbach's alpha value of multiple-item scale which is usually used to assess scale and reliability. Reliability of conceptual sub-dimension was assessed by basing on repeated procedure of correlation between individual items and whole items and factor loading. 1. Verification of correlation between validity of restructuring and trust This research showed that procedural and distributive justice of restructuring affects trust positively. The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and trust is 0.719(t=10.135, p=0.000), and thereby the higher procedural justice results in higher trust. The path coefficient between distributive justice of restructuring and trust is 0.160(t=3.291, p=0.001), and thereby the higher distributive justice results in higher trust. Hence H1 and H2 are accepted. 2. Verification of correlation between validity of restructuring and job satisfaction The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and job satisfaction is 0.179(t=2.202, p=0.028), and thereby the higher procedural justice results in higher job satisfaction. The path coefficient between distributive justice of restructuring and job satisfaction is 0.074(t=1.620, p=0.105), and thereby distributive justice of restructuring has no relationship with job satisfaction. Hence H3 is accepted, but H4 is removed. 3. Verification of correlation between validity of restructuring and organization commitment The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and organization commitment is 0.188(t=2.466, p=0.014), and thereby the higher procedural justice results in higher organization commitment. The path coefficient between distributive justice of restructuring and organization commitment is 0.118(t=2.720, p=0.007), and thereby the higher distributive justice results in higher organization commitment. Hence H5 and H6 are accepted. 4. Verification of correlation between trust and job satisfaction The path coefficient between trust and job satisfaction is 0.610(t=6.736, p=0.000), and thereby the correlation has a meaningful result. Since the higher trust of the employer results in higher job satisfaction, H7 is accepted. 5. Verification of correlation between trust and organization commitment The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and job satisfaction is 0.446(t=5.547 p=0.000), and thereby the higher trust of the employer results in higher organization commitment. Hence H8 is accepted. This research aimed to help the employers of hotel industries by analyzing the effects of validity of restructuring on employees' trust, job satisfaction and organization commitment. The research found that employer's validity of restructuring has significant affects on the degree of employee's trust with a manager, thereby reducing the negative effects of restructuring and enhancing organization commitment and job satisfaction. The principal purpose of this research is to confirm the correlation between employees' perceived validity of restructuring and their trust with a manager. Also whether this correlation results in competitive edge of the company is also investigated. It is also pointed out that employees had to participated the procedure of restructuring, sharing the philosophy and reason of restructuring. This participation and furthermore compensatory methods can reduce employees' anxiety of organization operations. Variable of trust appeared to have impact on intermediation effect between perceived variable of validity and job satisfaction, organization commitment, so that increase of trust with a manager plays an crucial role in increasing organization effectiveness. Since this research did not cover whole hotel industries which underwent restructuring, it showed a limit. Unlike previous studies which dealt with validity and trust of superior bosses, this research focussed on employers. Also the organization citizenship which is not considered in this study will be dealt with in the future study.

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