• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.17-29
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• 2006

Purpose: This research aimed to investigate the actual condition and satisfaction of volunteer activity in Australian hospital. Methods: Data was collected by self reported questionnaire from 101 volunteers and analyzed by frequency and percentage, t-test, ANOVA and Sheffe and Pearson's correlation coefficients using SPSS 12.0. Results: 1. Years involved in volunteer work were $5{\sim}10$ years (32.7%), above 10 years (30.7%), $2{\sim}3$ years (11.9%) and $3{\sim}5$ years (10.9%). Types of volunteer work were physical care (32.7%), physical and emotional care (14.9%), and others (18.8%). Types of allocation of tasks were by volunteer coordination (55.7%), and by volunteer preference and consent between volunteer and coordinator (both respectively, 20.5%). Main reasons for volunteer work were to help sick people (61.4%) and to make good use of leisure time (22.8%). Routes to start volunteer work were from his (her) own inquiries (43.4%), from hearing from other volunteers (30.7%) and from mass media (13.1%). 80.2% of volunteers had received some kinds of training or preparation for volunteer work. Suitability of volunteer's skill and ability to voluntary work were 'very well' (74.0%) and 'mostly well' (18.0%). Reimbursements or benefits received for volunteer work were token or lunch or group outing (31.7%), and token and lunch or group outing (19.8%). Evaluation frequency for volunteer work was occasionally (372%), frequently (30.9%), always (17.0%) and never (14.9%). Relationship with volunteer work coordinator was very good (85.0%). The relationship with other volunteers was very good (81.2%). The relationship with hospital staffs was very good (69.7%) and mostly good (21.2%). Family and friend's support for volunteer work was very good (83.2%). 2 The mean score of satisfaction for the hospital volunteer activity was $3.09{\pm}0.49\;(range:\;1{\sim}4)$. The highest score domain was 'social contact', $3.48{\pm}0.61$, and the lowest was 'social exchange', $1.65{\pm}0.63$. An item of the highest score was 'I have an opportunity to help other people' ($3.83{\pm}0.40$), and the lowest score item was 'I will receive compensation for volunteer work I have done ($1.10{\pm}0.78$).' 3. The satisfaction from hospital volunteer activity was shown by significant difference according to sex (t=2.038, P=0.044), marital status (F=3.806, P=0.013), years involved in volunteer work (F=3.326), nam reason to do volunteer work (F=2.707, P=0.035), receive any training or preparation for volunteer work (t=-1.982, 0=0.050), frequency of evaluation for volunteer work (F=7.877, P=0.000), suitability of volunteer's skill and ability to voluntary work (t=2.712, P=0.049), relationship with volunteer work coordinators (F=-2.517, P=0.013), relation with hospital staffs (F=5.202, P=0.007), and support of their volunteer work by their family and friends (t=-3.394, P=0.001). Conclusion: The satisfaction of hospice volunteer activity was moderate. The satisfaction for hospice volunteer activity was shown by significant difference according to sex (t=2.038, P=0.044), marital status (F=3.806, P=0.013), years involved in volunteer work (F=3.326), main reason to do volunteer work (F=2.707, P=0.035), receive any training or preparation for volunteer work (t=-1.982, 0=0.050), frequency of evaluation for volunteer work (F=7.877, P=0.000), suitability of volunteer's skill and ability to voluntary work (t=2.712, P=0.049), relationship with volunteer work coordinator (F=-2.517, P=0.013), relation with hospital staffs (F=5.202, P=0.007), and family and friend's support for volunteer work (t=-3.394, P=0.001). Therefore, it is necessary to consider various factors to improve the satisfaction of voluntary work.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.247-269
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• 2007

In recent years, one of the major reasons for the fierce competition amongst firms is that they strive to increase their own market shares and customer acquisition rate in the same market with similar and apparently undifferentiated products in terms of quality and perceived benefit. Because of this change in recent marketing environment, the differentiated after-sales service and diversified promotion strategies have become more important to gain competitive advantage. Price promotion is the favorite strategy that most retailers use to achieve short-term sales increase, induce consumer's brand switch, in troduce new product into market, and so forth. However, if marketers apply or copy an identical price promotion strategy without considering the characteristic differences in product and consumer preference, it will cause serious problems because discounted price itself could make people skeptical about product quality, and the changes of perceived value might appear differently depending on other factors such as consumer involvement or brand attitude. Previous studies showed that price promotion would certainly increase sales, and the discounted price compared to regular price would enhance the consumer's perceived values. On the other hand, discounted price itself could make people depreciate or skeptical about product quality, and reduce the consumers' positivity bias because consumers might be unsure whether the current price promotion is the retailer's best price offer. Moreover, we cannot say that discounted price absolutely enhances the consumer's perceived values regardless of product category and purchase situations. That is, the factors that affect consumers' value perceptions and buying behavior are so diverse in reality that the results of studies on the same dependent variable come out differently depending on what variable was used or how experiment conditions were designed. Majority of previous researches on the effect of price-comparison advertising have used consumers' buying behavior as dependent variable. In order to figure out consumers' buying behavior theoretically, analysis of value perceptions which influence buying intentions is needed. In addition, they did not combined the independent variables such as brand loyalty and price discount rate together. For this reason, this paper tried to examine the moderating effect of brand loyalty on relationship between the different levels of discounting rate and buyers' value perception. And we provided with theoretical and managerial implications that marketers need to consider such variables as product attributes, brand loyalty, and consumer involvement at the same time, and then establish a differentiated pricing strategy case by case in order to enhance consumer's perceived values properl. Three research concepts were used in our study and each concept based on past researches was defined. The perceived acquisition value in this study was defined as the perceived net gains associated with the products or services acquired. That is, the perceived acquisition value of the product will be positively influenced by the benefits buyers believe they are getting by acquiring and using the product, and negatively influenced by the money given up to acquire the product. And the perceived transaction value was defined as the perception of psychological satisfaction or pleasure obtained from taking advantage of the financial terms of the price deal. Lastly, the brand loyalty was defined as favorable attitude towards a purchased product. Thus, a consumer loyal to a brand has an emotional attachment to the brand or firm. Repeat purchasers continue to buy the same brand even though they do not have an emotional attachment to it. We assumed that if the degree of brand loyalty is high, the perceived acquisition value and the perceived transaction value will increase when higher discount rate is provided. But we found that there are no significant differences in values between two different discount rates as a result of empirical analysis. It means that price reduction did not affect consumer's brand choice significantly because the perceived sacrifice decreased only a little, and customers are satisfied with product's benefits when brand loyalty is high. From the result, we confirmed that consumers with high degree of brand loyalty to a specific product are less sensitive to price change. Thus, using price promotion strategy to merely expect sale increase is not recommendable. Instead of discounting price, marketers need to strengthen consumers' brand loyalty and maintain the skimming strategy. On the contrary, when the degree of brand loyalty is low, the perceived acquisition value and the perceived transaction value decreased significantly when higher discount rate is provided. Generally brands that are considered inferior might be able to draw attention away from the quality of the product by making consumers focus more on the sacrifice component of price. But considering the fact that consumers with low degree of brand loyalty are known to be unsatisfied with product's benefits and have relatively negative brand attitude, bigger price reduction offered in experiment condition of this paper made consumers depreciate product's quality and benefit more and more, and consumer's psychological perceived sacrifice increased while perceived values decreased accordingly. We infer that, in the case of inferior brand, a drastic price-cut or frequent price promotion may increase consumers' uncertainty about overall components of product. Therefore, it appears that reinforcing the augmented product such as after-sale service, delivery and giving credit which is one of the levels consisting of product would be more effective in reality. This will be better rather than competing with product that holds high brand loyalty by reducing sale price. Although this study tried to examine the moderating effect of brand loyalty on relationship between the different levels of discounting rate and buyers' value perception, there are several limitations. This study was conducted in controlled conditions where the high involvement product and two different levels of discount rate were applied. Given the presence of low involvement product, when both pieces of information are available, it is likely that the results we have reported here may have been different. Thus, this research results explain only the specific situation. Second, the sample selected in this study was university students in their twenties, so we cannot say that the results are firmly effective to all generations. Future research that manipulates the level of discount along with the consumer involvement might lead to a more robust understanding of the effects various discount rate. And, we used a cellular phone as a product stimulus, so it would be very interesting to analyze the result when the product stimulus is an intangible product such as service. It could be also valuable to analyze whether the change of perceived value affects consumers' final buying behavior positively or negatively.