• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.68-90
• /
• 2007

Nurse staffing level is an important factor that influences the quality of health service and patient outcomes. This study was carried out to examine the current state of acute hospital nurse staffing and find out factors that affect the nurse staffing level. Nurse staffing of individual hospitals was measured using the number of registered nurses per 100 beds. Descriptive and multiple regression analyses were conducted using 592 acute care hospitals' data. Regression model included structure factors such as referral level, ownership, medical and general staffing, and financial outcome factors such as occupancy rate, inpatient and outpatient revenues. Market characteristics included strength of competition, supply of nurses, and income and health status level of consumers. The average number of nurses per 100 beds was 28 and showed a great variation according to the referral level. Regression model explained this variation as much as 76.87%. Hospital structure variables which affecting the hospital nurse staffing level positively were ICU bed ratio, the staffing level of specialist, training doctor and employees except doctor and nursing personnel, while the negative factor was nurse aid staffing level. General hospitals employed more nurses than hospitals. Among outcome characteristics, occupancy rate and the amount of health insurance inpatient revenue affected positively on the hospital nurse staffing level. The more supply of the new nurse and the higher consumer income and health status in the medical service markets, the more nurses were employed by the medical institutes. According to the study result, hospitals employed more nurses when they had more financial incentive by increasing nurses. This means appropriate hospital incentive policy and regulation policy, which hospital violate nurse staffing level have to pay penality, should be needed. Clarifying job description between nurses and nurse aids and the reentry program for unemployed experienced nurses will be helpful to increase nurse staffing level.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.165-187
• /
• 2015

In this paper, we tested if the sewage subsidy from Korean Water Management Fund discourage sewage fee increase by Korean local governments, and consequently hinder water quality improvement. To examine this counter-incentive effect of Water manage Fund sewage subsidy, we estimated the effect of sewage subsidy on the ratio of sewage fee revenue to environmental treatment facilities' operation cost of local governments in 2009-12, using two-stage least square estimation. We found that the sewage subsidy has negative effect on the sewage fee revenue to sewage operation cost ratio. But, the statistical significance of this effect was sensitive to model specification. And the size was too small to conclude that the counter-incentive effect was economically significant.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartC
• /
• v.19C no.2
• /
• pp.145-148
• /
• 2012

In a distributed streaming system using an advanced coding scheme that encodes a video into multiple substreams, the capacity of the system depends on the amount of contribution of participating peers. Thus, an incentive mechanism for peers to contribute voluntarily is needed to increase system capacity. In addition, since peers are not only a provider but also a consumer in the system (i.e. prosumer), the overall capacity of the system must be allocated fairly among the peers while it must be allocated in a way that can maximize the net quality of experience of peers to increase system efficiency. In this paper, we propose a substream allocation method to solve the problems taking an optimization approach. Unlike the other optimization approaches, the proposed method is verified quantitatively in a simulation study that it can use the capacity of video streaming system efficiently while allocating fair amount of substreams among peers because it considers explicitly the prosumer characteristics of peers.

• Journal of Korea Trade
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.77-100
• /
• 2023

Purpose - Using the Model of Goal-Directed Behavior (MGB), this study identifies the critical factors that influence consumer intention to purchase an electric vehicle (EV). This study also provides differentiated policy implications to the Korean and Chinese governments and EV-related companies for the expansion of the EV market in both countries by comparing consumers' perceptions of EV purchase intentions. Design/methodology - Our extended MGB model adds to the standard model consideration of financial incentives, perceived risks, and environmental concerns. An online survey was conducted of Korean and Chinese consumers. Based on the collected responses, all tested hypotheses were verified using PLS-SEM (Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling). Differences in the path analysis results between Korea and China were compared and verified using Henseler's MGA (multi-group analysis), the parametric test, and the Welch-Satterthwaite test. Findings - The most critical factor that influences the intent to purchase an EV in consumers from both countries is personal desire. PBC and SN were identified as the critical factors that respectively increase personal desire in Korea and China. In addition, in Korea, among the three factors EC, FIP, and PR, environmental concerns were found to have the most significant impact on attitudes and purchase intention. In contrast, in China, economic factors (specifically financial incentives) had greater importance than environmental issues. Originality/value - This study has academic contributions in that it presents a new research model that includes financial incentive policies, environmental concerns, and perceived risk variables based on the MGB to explore consumers' purchase intentions. This study can also make a practical contribution in that it provides some meaningful implications to the governments and EV-related companies of both countries based on the differences in the analysis results of the Korean and Chinese markets.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.28-39
• /
• 2016

Since 2002, Korea Government has introduced Green Standard for Energy and Environmental Design Certification for reducing GHG emission in building area. However, total number of G-SEED Certification is only around 1% of total number of approved apartment buildings despite the various boosting policies. In this situation, most boosting policies and policy improvement researches are leaning toward the supplier's aspect. However, comprehensive relation and dynamics between consumer and supplier has to be considered because housing market is operated by market participants' mutual interaction. Therefore, this research presents system dynamics models based on decision making analysis of consumer and supplier in G-SEED Certification apartment building market. Then, this research evaluate the validity of boosting policies using the model. The proposed analysis can assist government to make next G-SEED Certification boosting policy.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.58-75
• /
• 1998

The hospital is characterized by it's remarkable labor industry and human resources input by unit. Recently, the administrative personnel are recognized as important staff to provide a hospital guidance to consumer and also easiness for consumer's visit to hospital. The objectives of this study is to find the performance of the administrative personnel in hospitals. The unit of analysis is the hospitals and data was collected form 144 staffs in 5 hospitals. Self administered questionnaire was given to analyze the general characteristics of staft such as age, sex, education, experience, and performance level in terms of frequency, ability, necessity of tasks. The major findings are as follows: 1. The 5 major tasks such as general affairs, insurance related affairs, hospital statistics, admission/discharge, and analysis of treatment cost were analyzed. Performance level of these tasks were not showed consistent level. It means that the same task was showed both high level performance and low level one. 2. The higher rates of performance level, ability and necessity were found, below 29 years of age, junior college graduates and university hospital than that of general one. 3. Factors mostly affected to performances were found as characteristics of hospital, age and education. 4. Concerning the various manpower management, On the job training, incentive mechanism and colose relationship among units were somewhat lack. In conclusion, most responded administrative personnel have performed actively in dealing with their tasks. however, the performance level and ability of the same task were showed differently, it means that such routine works were not standardized. Therefore, standardization and specification of tasks should be developed to strength the performance. Finally, this study is the first attempt to find out the performance of the administrative staffs and the study results imply that further study could be neeed to promote the performance of administrative personnel efficiently and effectively.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2011.05a
• /
• pp.76.1-76.1
• /
• 2011

With the growing penetration of distributed generation including from renewable sources, smart grid power system is needed to address the reliability problem. One important feature of smart grid is demand response. In order to design a demand response program, it is indispensable to understand how consumer reacts upon the change of electricity price. In this paper, we construct an econometrics model to estimate the hourly price elasticity of demand. This panel model utilizes the hourly load data obtained from KEPCO for the period from year 2005 to 2009. The hourly price elasticity of demand is found to be statistically significant for all the sample under investigation. The samples used for this analysis is from the past historical data under the price structure of three different time zones for each season. The result of the analysis of this time of use pricing structure would allow the policy maker design an appropriate incentive program. This study is important in the sense that it provides a basic research information for designing future demand response programs.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
• /
• v.3 no.3
• /
• pp.85-101
• /
• 2000

The purpose of this study is to test whether prices of personal computers reflect their varying degrees of non-marketable characteristics including after-sales service. This purpose is carried out using the hedonic price model. In this paper, we estimated 74 functional forms of hedonic price model using the quadratic Box-Cox transformation function and selected one based on the three criteria: expected signs, the statistical significance of estimated coefficients, and goodness of fit in terms of root-mean-square-percentage-error. In this study, we found hat as the after-sales service level increases the price of the personal computer increases. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that the less after-sales service offered with a personal computer, the less consumers are willing to pay for the personal computer, when all else remain constant. This finding shows that since the market works indirectly to influence pricing, the need to rely on consumer protection legislation to guarantee after-sales service is lessened. This study also found that after-sales service supported by each personal computer producer is not a free service, thus produces have a profit incentive for providing after-sales service.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
• /
• v.58 no.3
• /
• pp.455-461
• /
• 2009

This paper proposes Direct Load Control(DLC) operation scheme using a bidding system and the methodology to value proper quantity decided by the DLC program, which is a kind of resources for stabilization of electricity market price during peak times by managing consumer electricity demand. Since DLC program in Korea is based on the contract with the customers participating in this program, it is difficult to anticipate voluntary participation. That is, incentive for participants in DLC program is insufficient. To cope with this point, it is necessary to develop a new market mechanism and market compatible operation scheme for DLC programs. DLC market mechanism is deemed to be equipped with iterative bidding system, independent operation from energy market, and interactive with bidding information on energy market. With this market mechanism, it is important to find the optimal operation point of DLC allowing for the factors of stabilizing the electricity market price and compensating DLC implementation. This paper focuses on the mathematical approaches for the bid-based DLC operation scheme and examines several scenarios for the following technical justifications: 1) stabilization of electricity market price during peak times, 2) elasticity of demand.

• Knowledge Management Research
• /
• v.16 no.3
• /
• pp.149-169
• /
• 2015

In this study, we try to understand the role of online social recommendation and the similarity of preferences between the recommender and the recommendee on consumer decisions in the framework of the two stage purchase decision-making process. Applying construal level theory to our context, we expect that the role of social recommendation and the similarity of preferences would vary over the stages in the two-stage decision making process. To test our hypotheses, we collected the data through an incentive compatible experiment, and analyzed the data with nested logit model. As a result, we found that the role of online social recommendation varies over the stages. Consumers take recommendation from similar others at the stage of consideration set formation, but no longer consider it at the stage of final choice. Consumers take recommendation from dissimilar others at the stage of consideration set formation. At the stage of final choice, however, consumers avoid choosing the option recommended by dissimilar others. The results of our study enrich the understanding about the role of social recommendation, and have implication to marketing practitioners who attempt to make online social recommendation system more efficient.