• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.97-114
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• 1996

INSTRODUCTION Service quality is, unlike goods quality, an abstract and elusive constuct. Service quality and its requirements are not easily understood by consumers, and also present some critical research problems. However, quality is very important to marketers and consumers in that it has many strategic benefits in contributing to profitability of marketing activities and consumers' problem-solving activities. Moreover, despite the phenomenal growth of medical service sector, few researchers have attempted to define and model medical service quality. Especially, little research has focused on the evaluation of medical service quality and patient satisfaction from the perspectives of both the provider and the patient. As competition intensifies and patients are demanding higher quality of medical service, medical service quality and patient satisfaction has emerged as a critical research topic. The major purpose of this article is to explore the concept of medical service quality and its evaluation from both nurse and patient perspectives. This article attempts to achieve its purpose by (1)classfying critical service attibutes into threecategories(satisfiers, hygiene factors, and performance factors). (2)measuring the relative importance of need criteria, (3)evaluating SERVPERF model and SERVQUAL model in medical service sector, and (4)identifying the relationship between perceived quality and overall patient satisfaction. METHOD Data were gathered from a sample of 217 patients and 179 nurses in Seoul-area general hospitals. From the review of previous literature, 50 survey items representing various facets of the medical service quality were developed to form a questionnaire. A five-point scale ranging from "Strongly Agree"(5) to "Strongly Disagree"(1) accompanied each statement(expectation statements, perception statements, and importance statements). To measure overall satisfaction, a seven-point scale was used, ranging from "Very Satisfied"(7) to "Very Dissatisfied"(1) with no verbal labels for scale points 2 through 6 RESULTS In explaining the relationship between perceived performance and overall satisfaction, only 31 variables out of original 50 survey items were proven to be statistically significant. Hence, a penalty-reward analysis was performed on theses 31 critical attributes to find out 17 satisfiers, 8 hygiene factors, and 4 performance factors in patient perspective. The role(category) of each service quality attribute in relation to patient satisfaction was com pared across two groups, that is, patients and nurses. They were little overlapped, suggesting that two groups had different sets of 'perceived quality' attributes. Principal components factor analyses of the patients' and nurses' responses were performed to identify the underlying dimensions for the set of performance(experience) statements. 28 variables were analyzed by using a varimax rotation after deleting three obscure variables. The number of factors to be extracted was determined by evaluating the eigenvalue scores. Six factors wereextracted, accounting for 57.1% of the total variance. Reliability analysis was performed to refine the factors further. Using coefficient alpha, scores of .84 to .65 were obtained. Individual-item analysis indicated that all statements in each of the factors should remain. On 26 attributes of 31 critical service quality attributes, there were gaps between actual patient's importance of need criteria and nurse perceptions of them. Those critical attributes could be classified into four categories based on the relative importance of need criteria and perceived performance from the perspective of patient. This analysis is useful in developing strategic plans for performance improvement. (1) top priorities(high importance and low performance) (in this study)- more health-related information -accuracy in billing - quality of food - appointments at my convenience - information about tests and treatments - prompt service of business office -adequacy of accommodations(elevators, etc) (2) current strengths(high importance and high performance) (3)unnecessary strengths(low importance and high performance) (4) low priorities(low importance and low performance) While 26 service quality attributes of SERPERF model were significantly related to patient satisfation, only 13 attributes of SERVQUAL model were significantly related. This result suggested that only experience-based norms(SERVPERF model) were more appropriate than expectations to serve as a benchmark against which service experiences were compared(SERVQUAL model). However, it must be noted that the degree of association to overall satisfaction was not consistent. There were some gaps between nurse percetions and patient perception of medical service performance. From the patient's viewpoint, "personal likability", "technical skill/trust", and "cares about me" were most significant positioning factors that contributed patient satisfaction. DISCUSSION This study shows that there are inconsistencies between nurse perceptions and patient perceptions of medical service attributes. Also, for service quality improvement, it is most important for nurses to understand what satisfiers, hygiene factors, and performance factors are through two-way communications. Patient satisfaction should be measured, and problems identified should be resolved for survival in intense competitive market conditions. Hence, patient satisfaction monitoring is now becoming a standard marketing tool for healthcare providers and its role is expected to increase.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.2099-2107
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• 2011

Despite the PB diffusion introduced as a strategic competitive factor from the change of a retailing business, the study of PB perceived quality in a customer aspect is poor. Therefore, this study led the influential factors to retailer attribute and product attribute through overall analysis. Also, the study found the influential attributes affecting the perceived quality and analysed the influential power linking to customer satisfaction and preference through the perceived quality. The examined results of the study have known that each attribute links to customer satisfaction via the only perceived quality. The strategic PB sales advantage should be achieved as giving customers the overall perceived quality, and has shown that it can increase the customer preference for PB.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.22 no.8
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• pp.1099-1110
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• 1998

The perceived quality is a concept considered from the consumer's perspective. So it is differ from the objective determination of product quality. Thus the consumer perception of quality is a subjective judgement of an individual and an overall feeling on the characteristics which includes the product's reliability, performance and so on. In terms of product perception, consumers utilize the product cues in evaluating the product's quality before the purchase and the cues reflecting the quality can be classifisied into intrinsic and extrinsic ones. When the quality perception is limited to the purchase situation, purchase decision dependent on surrogate indicators such as price, are inclined to increase due to the lack of information. Therefore in this study the perceived quality of apparel is controled to the purchase situation in order to examine the consumer's reaction to the price cues and for the convenience of the exploratory investigation. As a result of the empirical study, consumers show differences in quality and value perceptions to the product with the same price depending on the perception whether the price is high or low. The apparel quality evaluation process goes through the steps of "product attributes - perceived quality - perceived value - purchase intention".

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.893-903
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• 2009

Smart clothing represents the future of both the textile/clothing industry and electronic industry and has an effort to make electronic devices a genuine part of our daily life. The researches about technologies innovation and application of smart clothing can be found in previous studies. But consumer researches about perception or attitude toward smart clothing can be hardly found. Therefore, we proposed a conceptual framework that explores the impact of perceived risks on perceived attributes to adopt smart clothing. In addition, we compared differences of this framework among three counties. Korea, U.S. and Spain. Based on the literature review and hypotheses development, a research model was constructed. After data analysis using Amos 7.0, the results can be concluded as following: First, the influences of psychological risk among Korea, U.S. and Spain are same. Psychological risk has negative effect on relative advantage and complexity, but has positive effect on trialability. Second, loss risk was found to have nothing to do with relative advantage. But it negatively influences complexity for Korean consumers and positively influences trialability for both Korean and American consumers. Third, the influences of performance risk for different consumers are different. At last, based on our discussion, some implications were also concluded.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.29-41
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• 2023

In landscape studies, the concept of naturalness was vast in its categories from physical space to cognitive systems, making it difficult to define terms at once. Therefore, this study summarized the concept and evaluation attributes of 'naturalness' used in the literature through systematic review (SR), and identified the scope of individual attributes that constitute the meaning of naturalness. In addition, the individual attributes classified in previous studies were identified as the meaning chain, one of the cognitive linguistic research methods, and applied to papers targeting naturalness among domestic landscape studies to organize a polysemous meaning system. Meaning chain is a suitable method for grasping words whose meaning expands in a chain due to family resemblance around prototypical meaning, and the dimension is classified according to the classification of naturalness evaluation items and a multi-semantic chain system of naturalness concepts discussed in domestic academia. The results of the study are as follows. First, the attributes of naturalness extracted through foreign landscape literature were classified into four areas: nature perceived as wilderness, nature as non-artificiality, nature as visual landscape, and nature as experience, and 13 detailed attributes. Second, these detailed attributes are generally consistent with domestic landscape studies, but their specific cases were different, and a Korean context was presented in perception of time accumulation, also they suggested that there may be a mutual conflict between naturalness attributes.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.149-170
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• 2023

This study analyzed the factors influencing users' intention to use the Metaverse by applying the extended technology acceptance model. In other words, the factors affecting users' intention to use the Metaverse were defined as technical characteristics (telepresence, interoperability, seamlessness, concurrence, and economy flow) and personal characteristics (social influence and perceived enjoyment) from the perspective of the Extended Technology Acceptance Model. For this purpose, a survey was conducted among men and women of various ages ranging from teenagers to 60s, and the data collected from 327 participants were analyzed using SPSS 22.0 and Smart PLS 4.0. The results showed that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, which are antecedents of the Extended Technology Acceptance Model, influence the intention to use Metaverse, and perceived ease of use influences perceived usefulness. Telepresence, interoperability and economy flow were found to have a positive effect on perceived usefulness, and interoperability, seamlessness and concurrence were found to have a positive effect on perceived ease of use. In addition, social influence and perceived enjoyment had a positive effect on intention to use the Metaverse. This study is significant in that it empirically analyzed the factors of users' acceptance of the Metaverse, which is attracting attention as a new platform that will bring significant changes to our daily lives and platform consumption environments.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Fundamentals of Nursing
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.145-154
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• 2019

Purpose: This study was done to analyze and clarify the concept of empathy in nursing. Methods: Using the concept analysis framework of Walker & Avant 68 articles about empathy were selected for this study. Results: Defining attributes of empathy included recognizing others' perspective and thought, understanding others' emotion, and communicating with them. The antecedents of empathy included contact with patients, respect and trust for patients, a certain level of cognitive ability, and communication skills. Consequences of empathy were increasing patient self-understanding, self-awareness as a therapeutic subject and improving quality of nursing. The concept was clarified through presentation of model, borderline, related, and contrary cases. Conclusion: The results of this study are meaningful in that the concept and attributes of empathy are explored in the area of nursing. Also, based on results of this study, development of standardized tools to measure patient-perceived empathy and measure the three attributes of empathy is recommended as well as the development of educational programs to enhance empathy.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.63-68
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• 2022

Given the competition between different tourist destinations to attract domestic and international tourists it is absolutely vital to examine their website efficacy on specific attributes. This study employs one of the recently developed multi-criteria decision-making method the Best-Worst Method to assess the state government official tourism website across four Indian states known for their tourism potential- Himachal Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan on specific attributes provided by the widely acknowledged WebQual instrument. Information Fit-to-Task and Trust emerged as the most important criterion. Relative advantage and Innovation the least important. The results of the study are easily interpretable and visual. They offer both an individual and comparative analysis of the perceived website efficacy on specific attributes to facilitate tourism stakeholders and website administrators to strategize and make their digital presence effective and competitive.

• Design Convergence Study
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.333-345
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• 2016

Recently, an intelligent product in which information and robotic technologies are applied to an existing common product, called a mother product has been developed. In order to develop intelligent products which could be accepted by users, various intelligent product design methods have been introduced considering various interaction aspects or intelligent parts to be made. However, as an intelligent product is originated in a mother product, intelligent product design methods based on product attributes need to be explored. In this study, the impact of intelligent product types by product attributes on users' acceptance was investigated by comparing hedonic intelligent products and utilitarian intelligent products. An experiment was executed with child slippers as a case. As a result, participants evaluated utilitarian intelligent products more positively than hedonic intelligent products. They showed higher purchase intention and willingness to pay toward utilitarian intelligent products than hedonic intelligent products. In the case of child slippers, even though the hedonic attributes could be expected as they are child products, utilitarian attributes were perceived as much more important than hedonic attributes as the child slippers are related to the floor noise which is a severe social problem.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.379-393
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• 2015

This study proposes a new way to investigate purchasing behavior for preschool children's clothes using an ethnographic research method. The study consisted of 16 subjects composed of preschool children (aged 6 and 7) and their mothers. The analysis results are as follows. First, the in-depth interviews, indicated 14 attributes that mothers considered when purchasing children's clothes. Next, the result of conducting component analysis for consideration attributes indicated that the order of importance of attributes for mothers' opinions varied partially for some attributes (such as price) that depended on if the child was being raised only by the mother or with the help of another person. Second, in the accompanied shopping for the preschool children's clothes, the result of identifying the differences between the perception of consideration attributes and shopping behaviors confirmed some differences between consideration attributes recognized in the interviews and attributes practically considered when purchasing. Housewives (who were the mothers of girls) said that materials and comfort were the most important in the interviews; however, employed mothers of girls perceived design to be the most important attribute. The mothers of girls assessed design as an important attribute that they could never concede. Third, the children's opinions were found to partially influence mothers' purchasing behavior in the purchase of preschool children's clothes. Preschool children expressed their opinions on wearability and design in the process of wearing clothes at home or buying them outside; subsequently, mothers recognized children's opinions and reflected them in their practical purchases.