• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.1-30
• /
• 2010

Customers often experience waiting for buying service. Managing customers' waiting time is important for service providers since customers who are dissatisfied with waiting, secede from a service place at last. Not a few studies have been done to solve waiting time problem and improve customers' waiting experience. Hui & Tse(1996) identify evaluation factors in customers' behavioral mechanism as customers wait. That is, customers experience perceived waiting time, waiting acceptability and emotional response to the wait when they wait. Since customers evaluate the wait using these factors, service provider should manage these factors in order to minimize customers' dissatisfaction. Therefore, this study explores that evaluation factors of waiting are influenced by customers' situational and experiential characteristics, which include customer loyalty, transaction importance for customer and waiting expectation level. Those situational and experiential characteristics are usually given to service providers so they can't control these at waiting point. The major findings derived from two exploratory studies can be summarized as follows. First, according to the result from the study 1 (restaurant setting), customers' transaction importance has the greatest positive influence on waiting experience. The results show restaurant service provider could prevent customers' separation effectively through strategies which raise customers' transaction importance, like giving special coupons for important events. Second, in study 2 (amusement part setting) customer loyalty has large positive impact on waiting experience as well as transaction importance. This results show that service provider could minimize customers' dissatisfaction using strategies which raise customer loyalty continuously. This results show customer perceives waiting experience differently according to characteristics of service place and service itself. Therefore, service provider should grasp the unique customers' situational and experiential characters for each service and service place. It could provide an effective strategy for waiting time management. Third, the study finds transaction importance and waiting expectation level have direct influence customers' waiting experience as independent variables, while existing studies treated them as moderators. Customer loyalty which has not been incorporated in previous waiting time research is known to affect waiting experience. It suggests that marketing strategy which builds up customer loyalty for long period of time is also quite effective, compared to short term tactics to help customers endure waiting time. Fourth, this study reveals the importance of actual waiting time along with perceived waiting time. So far most studies only focus on customers' perceived waiting time. Especially, this study incorporates the concept of patient limit on waiting time to investigate effect of actual waiting time. The results show that there were various responses to the wait depending on how actual waiting time exceeds individual's patent limit on waiting time or not, even though customers wait about the same period of time. Finally, using structural equation model, conceptual path between behavioral responses is verified. As customer perceives waiting time, then she decides whether she can endure it or not, and then her emotional response occurs. This result are somewhat different from Hui & Tse(1996)'s study. The study also includes theoretical contributions as well as practical implications.

• The Korean Journal of Pesticide Science
• /
• v.5 no.3
• /
• pp.1-11
• /
• 2001

New technologies will have a large impact on the discovery of new herbicide site of action. Genomics, combinatorial chemistry, and bioinformatics help take advantage of serendipity through tile sequencing of huge numbers of genes or the synthesis of large numbers of chemical compounds. There are approximately $10^{30}\;to\;10^{50}$ possible molecules in molecular space of which only a fraction have been synthesized. Combining this potential with having access to 50,000 plant genes in the future elevates tile probability of discovering flew herbicidal site of actions. If 0.1, 1.0 or 10% of total genes in a typical plant are valid for herbicide target, a plant with 50,000 genes would provide about 50, 500, and 5,000 targets, respectively. However, only 11 herbicide targets have been identified and commercialized. The successful design of novel herbicides depends on careful consideration of a number of factors including target enzyme selections and validations, inhibitor designs, and the metabolic fates. Biochemical information can be used to identify enzymes which produce lethal phenotypes. The identification of a lethal target site is an important step to this approach. An examination of the characteristics of known targets provides of crucial insight as to the definition of a lethal target. Recently, antisense RNA suppression of an enzyme translation has been used to determine the genes required for toxicity and offers a strategy for identifying lethal target sites. After the identification of a lethal target, detailed knowledge such as the enzyme kinetics and the protein structure may be used to design potent inhibitors. Various types of inhibitors may be designed for a given enzyme. Strategies for the selection of new enzyme targets giving the desired physiological response upon partial inhibition include identification of chemical leads, lethal mutants and the use of antisense technology. Enzyme inhibitors having agrochemical utility can be categorized into six major groups: ground-state analogues, group specific reagents, affinity labels, suicide substrates, reaction intermediate analogues, and extraneous site inhibitors. In this review, examples of each category, and their advantages and disadvantages, will be discussed. The target identification and construction of a potent inhibitor, in itself, may not lead to develop an effective herbicide. The desired in vivo activity, uptake and translocation, and metabolism of the inhibitor should be studied in detail to assess the full potential of the target. Strategies for delivery of the compound to the target enzyme and avoidance of premature detoxification may include a proherbicidal approach, especially when inhibitors are highly charged or when selective detoxification or activation can be exploited. Utilization of differences in detoxification or activation between weeds and crops may lead to enhance selectivity. Without a full appreciation of each of these facets of herbicide design, the chances for success with the target or enzyme-driven approach are reduced.

• The Korean Journal of Pesticide Science
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.350-358
• /
• 2013

Both 13-week and 1-year studies in dog were required for pesticide registration in domestic pesticide control authority. It is raising issue up whether to request 1-year dog study of pesticides using non-food crop. So at this investigation, relevant toxicity test to establish acceptable daily intake (ADI), target organs, difference of no-observed adverse-effect levels (NOAELs) in 13-week and 1-year of 166 active ingredients are analyzed. The data were evaluated to determine if the 13-week dog study and the long term studies in two rodent species (mice and rats) without 1-year dog study were sufficient for the identification of NOAELs and lowest observed adverse effect levels (LOAELs) for the derivation of ADI. Toxicity end points and dose response data from 13 week and 1-year studies were compared. The analysis showed that 68 ADIs of the 166 pesticides were established from dog studies. Major target organs of dog studies were liver in 49 cases, body weight change in 21 cases, cholinesterase inhibition in 16 cases, and alteration in hematology in 14 cases. Similarity of target organ in 13-week and 1-year was 73%. 22 of 40 pesticides had similar critical effects regardless of duration and had NOAELs within a difference of 1.5-fold of each other. For the remaining 18 pesticides, 14 items had lower NOAELs in the 1-year study than 13-week study primarily due to dose selection and spacing. In only 10% of the cases were additional toxic effects identified in the 1-year study that were not observed in the 13-week study.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.41-61
• /
• 2020

China's rapid development and commercialization of high-tech technologies in the fourth industrial revolution has led to effective technology exchanges between Korean and Chinese firms becoming more important to Korea's mid-term and long-term industrial development. However, there is still a lack of empirical research on how technology exchanges between Korean and Chinese firms proceed and their effectiveness. In response, this study conducted a social network analysis based on text mining data of Korea-China business technology exchange and cooperation articles introduced in the news from 2018 to March 2020 on the current status and effects of Korea-China technology exchanges related to the fourth industrial revolution, and conducted a regression analysis how network centrality effect on the firm performance. According to the results, most of the Korean major electronic firms are actively networking with Chinese firms and institutions, showing high centrality in the centrality index. Korean telecommunication firms showed high betweenness centrality and subgraph centrality, and Korean Internet service providers and broadcasting contents firms showed high eigenvector centrality. In addition, Chinese firms showed higher betweenness centrality than Korean firms, and Chinese service firms showed higher closeness centrality than manufacturing firms. As a result of regression analysis, this network centrality had a positive effect on firm performance. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first to analyze the impact of the technical cooperation between Korean and Chinese firms under the fourth industrial revolution context. This study has theoretical implications that suggested the direction of social network analysis-based empirical research in global firm cooperation. Also, this study has practical implications that the guidelines for network analysis in setting the direction of technical cooperation between Korea and China by firms or governments.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.65-88
• /
• 2004

In general, empowerment is defined as the motivational concept of autonomy and self-efficacy. Recently, the concept of empowerment is applied to improve organizational staff's job satisfaction and organizational commitment in many organizations. Empower-ment in service organizations, i.e., hospitals, has certainly generated more publicity than any other organizations. The objectives of this study are, first, to measure the degree of hospital employees' empowerment using Spreitzer(1995)'s empowerment theory, second, to analyze the causal relationship of organizational and job characteristics, a degree of empowerment, and organizational performance(job satisfaction and organizational commitment), and third, to offer the strategy for the improvement of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Spreitzer insists that the empowerment is composed of 4 dimensions(meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact). And he argues that various work-related characteristics is a direct cause of empowerment and the indirect cause of job satisfaction and organizational commitment, mediated by the empowerment latent variable. In order to perform this study, data were collected by self-administered questionnaires from hospital employees working in administrative department of 3 university hospitals in Inchon and Kyunggi-Do region. The number of cases is 181(response rate; 86%). The Collected data were analyzed with SPSS Ver. 10.0 and AMOSV Ver. 4.0. First, to test validity of variables, the factor analysis was used. Second, to test reliability, Cronbach's alpha coefficients was calculated. Cronbach's alpha of empowerment variable is 0.8323 showing that there's no problem in regard to the internal consistency. Also the Cronbach's alpha of other variables are 0.8301 of the degree of perceived control, 0.6705 of job characteristics, O.8787 of compensation, 0.9254 of job satisfaction, and 0.8389 of organizational commitment, respectively. Among the questions of job characteristics, two survey questions are deleted due to lowering the reliability. Third, to test multicollinearity and correlation of variables, the correlation analysis was performed. There was no problem of multicollinearity. Finally structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis was conducted to find the causal relationship of organizational and job Characteristics, empowerment, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The 16 variables are included for the SEM analysis. The major results of this study are as follows: First, in the case of model fitness, the condition of x$^2$ statistic(92.187) is not fully satisfied, but the indices of GFI(0.912), AGFI(0.863), NFI(0.917) and CFI(0.928) are partially satisfied, which needs to upper 0.90. Second, in the result of hypotheses testing, all hypotheses are accepted and have a positive effect in 95% or 99% confidence interval(P<0.05 or P<0.001) except the effect of compensation variable on empowerment(P=0.082). Third, in regard to the direct, indirect, and total effect of variables, the direct effect of perceived control, task characteristics, and compensation on job satisfaction are 0.728, 2.264, 0.328 and on organizational commitment are 0.094, 1.411, 0.418, respectively. Also the indirect effect of perceived control, task characteristics, and compensation on job satisfaction are 0.311, 0.196, 0.028 and on organizational commitment are 0.210, 0.132, 0.019, respectively. Thus, these findings imply that various work-related factors are direct effect of empowerment and indirect effect of result variables, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Also These results showed that the workplace empowerment is significant mediating factor of employee's job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.66-94
• /
• 2004

The objective of this study is to examine how to maximize the efficiency of hospital management by minimizing the unit cost of hospital operation. For this purpose, this paper proposes to develop a model of the profit maximization based on the cost minimization dictum using the statistical tools of arriving at the maximum likelihood values. The preliminary survey data are collected from the annual statistics and their analyses published by Korea Health Industry Development Institute and Korean Hospital Association. The maximum likelihood value statistical analyses are conducted from the information on the cost (function) of each of 36 hospitals selected by the random stratified sampling method according to the size and location (urban or rural) of hospitals. We believe that, although the size of sample is relatively small, because of the sampling method used and the high response rate, the power of estimation of the results of the statistical analyses of the sample hospitals is acceptable. The conceptual framework of analyses is adopted from the various models of the determinants of hospital costs used by the previous studies. According to this framework, the study postulates that the unit cost of hospital operation is determined by the size, scope of service, technology (production function) as measured by capacity utilization, labor capital ratio and labor input-mix variables, and by exogeneous variables. The variables to represent the above cost determinants are selected by using the step-wise regression so that only the statistically significant variables may be utilized in analyzing how these variables impact on the hospital unit cost. The results of the analyses show that the models of hospital cost determinants adopted are well chosen. The various models analyzed have the (goodness of fit) overall determination (R2) which all turned out to be significant, regardless of the variables put in to represent the cost determinants. Specifically, the size and scope of service, no matter how it is measured, i. e., number of admissions per bed, number of ambulatory visits per bed, adjusted inpatient days and adjusted outpatients, have overall effects of reducing the hospital unit costs as measured by the cost per admission, per inpatient day, or office visit implying the existence of the economy of scale in the hospital operation. Thirdly, the technology used in operating a hospital has turned out to have its ramifications on the hospital unit cost similar to those postulated in the static theory of the firm. For example, the capacity utilization as represented by the inpatient days per employee tuned out to have statistically significant negative impacts on the unit cost of hospital operation, while payroll expenses per inpatient cost has a positive effect. The input-mix of hospital operation, as represented by the ratio of the number of doctor, nurse or medical staff per general employee, supports the known thesis that the specialized manpower costs more than the general employees. The labor/capital ratio as represented by the employees per 100 beds is shown to have a positive effect on the cost as expected. As for the exogeneous variable's impacts on the cost, when this variable is represented by the percent of urban 100 population at the location where the hospital is located, the regression analysis shows that the hospitals located in the urban area have a higher cost than those in the rural area. Finally, the case study of the sample hospitals offers a specific information to hospital administrators about how they share in terms of the cost they are incurring in comparison to other hospitals. For example, if his/her hospital is of small size and located in a city, he/she can compare the various costs of his/her hospital operation with those of other similar hospitals. Therefore, he/she may be able to find the reasons why the cost of his/her hospital operation has a higher or lower cost than other similar hospitals in what factors of the hospital cost determinants.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
• /
• v.43 no.5
• /
• pp.705-715
• /
• 2010

The adoption of carbon foot print system is being activated mostly in the developed countries as one of the long-term response towards tightened up regulations and standards on carbon emission in the agricultural sector. The Korean Ministry of Environment excluded the primary agricultural products from the carbon foot print system due to lack of LCI (life cycle inventory) database in agriculture. Therefore, the research on and establishment of LCI database in the agriculture for adoption of carbon foot print system is urgent. Development of LCA (life cycle assessment) methodology for application of LCA to agricultural environment in Korea is also very important. Application of LCA methodology to agricultural environment in Korea is an early stage. Therefore, this study was carried out to find out the effect of lettuce cultivation on agricultural environment by establishing LCA methodology. Data collection of agricultural input and output for establishing LCI was carried out by collecting statistical data and documents on income from agro and livestock products prepared by RDA. LCA methodology for agriculture was reviewed by investigating LCA methodology and LCA applications of foreign countries. Results based on 1 kg of lettuce production showed that inputs including N, P, organic fertilizers, compound fertilizers and crop protectants were the main sources of major emission factor during lettuce cropping process. The amount of inputs considering the amount of active ingredients was required to estimate the actual quantity of the inputs used. Major emissions due to agricultural activities were $N_2O$ (emission to air) and ${NO_3}^-$/${PO_4}^-$ (emission to water) from fertilizers, organic compounds from pesticides and air pollutants from fossil fuel combustion in using agricultural machines. The softwares for LCIA (life cycle impact assessment) and LCA used in Korea are 'PASS' and 'TOTAL' which have been developed by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy and the Ministry of Environment. However, the models used for the softwares are the ones developed in foreign countries. In the future, development of models and optimization of factors for characterization, normalization and weighting suitable to Korean agricultural environment need to be done for more precise LCA analysis in the agricultural area.

• Journal of the Korean Society of School Health
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.109-129
• /
• 1999

AIDS is worldwide problem. It has threatens societies and is potentially a big problem among youth. UNAIDS has warned that collective global responses are necessary; with half of the newly infected being children and young people in 1998, educating youth below age 24 is essential. Because of both their unexpected, strong sexual activities and an easjer tendency to change their behavior than adults, UNAIDS emphasizes the importance of prevention education for youth. In Korea, 4 cases of HIV infection have officially been reported among high school students. Considering the potential seriousness of HIV infection among youth, the Korean AntiAIDS Federation (KAAF) began an education programme for Korean youth (middle & high school pupils) as one intervention method in 1993. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of the education programs performed and to develop a better programme. The intervention method used in this study was mainly a lecture in a big or small auditorium or through broadcasting systems using audio-visual teaching aids. The period of this survey was from Nov. 10 to Dec. 26. in 1998. The subjects surveyed were 792 pupils who were sampled from 12 different middle and high schools in Seoul by a two-stage cluster sampling. Self-recording the structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Data were analyzed by using a paired t-test to compare the knowledge difference before and after the interrention method. A chi-square test to compare the consciousness difference between pre-post-education results was used, and an ANOVA was ased to compare the knowledge difference among the selected groups. Major results of this study are summarized as follows: (1) AIDS knowledge significantly changed after AIDS prevention education. (2) The direct lecture in a big or small auditorium is more effective than an indirect lecture through a broadcasting system or through audio-visual teaching aids. (3) Those who had not seen obscene materials (e.g. pornography films, magazines etc.) acguired much more knowledge than others after AIDS prevention education. (4) Those who had no girlfriend/or boyfriend acquired much more knowledge than the others after AIDS prevention education. (5) As to the attitudes toward chastity, more girls than boys and students who had not seen obscene materials rather than those who already had were liable to support the state ment: "all should remain chase" and their consciousness on "being chaste" changed much more than that of others after intervention. (6) As to the individual evaluation of lectures, 23.1% shows "very good", 44.1% "good", 26.9% "normar" '-' thus, the positive evaluation was to 94.2%. The negative response was 5.8%. (7) As to the desire for AIDS education sponsored by KAAF in the future, more than 90.5% showed a positive reaction. (8) As to the educators in future education methods, pupils wanted lecturers from outside their schood. (9) Students from vocational high schools have seen obscene materials much more than other groups and the percentage of those who had a girlfriend/or boyfriend was higher than that of the others as wello. (10) 90% of those who watched obscene materials responded that they experienced these materials while at middle school and 100% before reaching the second grade of high school. (11) The number of boys who have experienced obscene materials is twice as many as that of girls. (12) The percentage of boys who have a girlfriend is much higher than the percentage of girls who have a boyfriend. (13) Among those who have friends of the opposite sex, 11.1% say that they hare had sexual contact and 20.8% hare experienced kissing and caressing.

• Korean journal of communication and information
• /
• v.32
• /
• pp.49-73
• /
• 2006

During the past decades, public opinion polls have become an ubiquitous tool for probing the complexity of people's beliefs and attitudes on a wide variety of issues. Especially since the late 1970s, the use of polls by news organizations has increased dramatically. Along with the proliferation of traditional polls, in the past few years pollsters and news organizations have come to recognize the advantages of online polls. Increasingly there has been more effort to take the pulse of the public through the Internet. With the Internet's rapid growth during the past years, advocates of online polling often emphasize the relative advantages over traditional polls. Researchers from Harris Black International Ltd., for example, argue that "Internet polling is less expensive and faster and offers higher response rates than telephone surveys." Moreover, since many of the newer online polls draw respondents from large databases of registered Internet users, results of online polls have become more balanced. A series of Harris Black online polls conducted during the 1998 gubernatorial and senatorial elections, for example, has accurately projected the winners in 21 of the 22 races it tracked. Many researchers, however, severely criticize online polls for not being representative of the larger population. Despite the often enormous number of participants, Internet users who participate in online polls tend to be younger, better educated and more affluent than the general population. As Traugott pointed out, the people polled in Internet surveys are a "self selected" group, and thus "have volunteered to be part of the test sample, which could mean they are more comfortable with technology, more informed about news and events ... than Americans who aren't online." The fact that users of online polls are self selected and demographically very different from Americans who have no access to the Internet is likely to influence the estimates of what the majority of people think about social or political issues. One of the goals of this study is therefore to analyze whether people perceive traditional and online public opinion polls differently. While most people might not differentiate sufficiently between traditional random sample polls and non representative online polls, some audiences might perceive online polls as more useful and representative. Since most online polls allow some form of direct participation, mostly in the form of an instant vote by mouse click, and often present their findings based on huge numbers of respondents, consumers of these polls might perceive them as more accurate, representative or reliable than traditional random sample polls. If that is true, perceptions of public opinion in society could be significantly distorted for those who rely on or participate in online polls. In addition to investigating how people perceive random sample and online polls, this study focuses on the perceived impact of public opinion polls. Similar to these past studies, which focused on how public opinion polls can influence the perception of mass opinion, this study will analyze how people perceive the effects of polls on themselves and other people. This interest springs from prior studies of the "third person effect," which have found that people often tend to perceive that persuasive communications exert a stronger influence on others than on themselves. While most studies concerned with the political effects of public opinion polls show that exit polls and early reporting of election returns have only weak or no effects on the outcome of election campaigns, some empirical findings suggest that exposure to polls can move people's opinions both toward and away from perceived majority opinion. Thus, if people indeed believe that polls influence others more than themselves, perceptions of majority opinion could be significantly altered because people might anticipate that others will react more strongly to poll results.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.41 no.1
• /
• pp.19-30
• /
• 2020

To understand the impact of typhoons on Gamji gravel beach Taejongdae in Busan, we carried out beach profiling using a VRS-GPS system and a Drone photogrammetry for the typhoons 'Kong-rey' invaded in October 2018 and 'Danas' in July 2019. In addition, grain sizes are analyzed to investigate the overall distribution pattern of gravels on the beach, and the beach topography is surveyed periodically to confirm the recovery rate of the beach. Grain-size analysis reveals that mean gravel sizes, in general, become finer from -6.2Φ to -5.4Φ towards the east in the seashore line direction. Variation in mean sizes is obviously observed in the cross-shore direction. Gravels in the swash zone are relatively fine about -4.5Φ in size and equant in shape, whereas the coarse and oblate gravels ranged from -5Φ to -6Φ are found in the berm. Gamji gravel beach particularly has two lines of berms: a lower berm situated facing beach and an upper berm about 10 m landward. After the typhoon Kong-rey passed by, about 1.4 m of severe erosion in upper berm occurred, and the berm eventually disappeared. On the backshore of the upper berm about 50 cm of erosion took place so that the elevation became lower. However, tangible erosion was not observed in the lower berm. When typhoon Danas hit, rated as mild storm, both upper and lower berm were eroded out. However, about 50 cm of deposition occurred only in the backshore. Only three days later, the new lower berm was formed, meaning that sedimentation rate must be high. This result indicates that Gamji gravel beach is recovered very fast from erosion caused by the typhoons when it is under the fair-weather condition even though beach morphology changes dramatically in a short period of time. Gravel beach is estimated to be or evaluated very resilient to typhoon erosion.