• 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.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2007.03a
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• pp.289-298
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• 2007

The development of construction industry has led to the increase in the number of criteria imposed by project clients for selecting contractors. For example, clients often request tenderers to satisfy various conditions such as tight programme, financial strength, managerial ability, relevant work experiences, technical strength, high workmanship standard, safety requirement, quality specification, and yet others. This trend has attracted research interests of devising various methods for helping project clients to assess contractors' bids. For example, in recent development, the Works Bureau of the Hong Kong Government has introduced two mechanisms in tender evaluation for various public work contracts, namely, the Marking Scheme effective from June 2002 and the Formula Approach effective from November 2002 [1], [2]. These approaches evaluate a contractor's tender by considering collectively its tender price and performance attributes, the latter including contractor experience, past performance, technical resources and technical content of his proposal. The tender with the highest combined price and performance score (CPPS) will be normally recommended for acceptance. It appears, however, that there is little existing research in helping contractors to identify a competition strategy that enables the contractor to offer his most competitive bid collectively taking into account his resource capacities and project client's multiple performance criteria. This paper examines the factors affecting contractor's competition strategy to compete for works in Hong Kong. The understanding about the factors will contribute to identifying effective competition strategy. The data used for the analysis were collected from Hong Kong construction industry. The research findings may provide valuable references for investigating effective competition strategies in other construction industries outside the region.

• 한국디지털정책학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.311-331
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• 2004

This paper addresses the democracy-oriented regulatory and legal requirements that e-democracy impacts. It demonstrates that the structure of the political system also plays a significant role in the decision to develop an e-voting application. The short term perspective of the questions put before the electorate obliterate the long term perspective in which many policy problems have to be seen. A well-designed e-voting system should produce an audit trail that is even stronger than that of conventional systems (including paper-based systems). Remote Internet voting systems pose significant risk to the integrity of the voting process, and should not be fielded for use in public elections until substantial technical and social science issues are addressed. Conclusively the paper focuses on the specific attributes an electronic voting (polling place) system should respect and ensure such as transparency, verifiability, accountability, security and accuracy in relation to the constitutional requirements such as General, Free. Equal, Secret, Direct and Democratic.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.29-44
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• 2004

Obtaining and fully understanding the true requirements of customers is hard task. However, successful use of quality function deployment(QFD) depends on capturing customers' requirements and reflecting them during the design of a product. One of common mistakes in QFD is to perform analysis using an inconsistent house of quality(HoQ) chart. This article presents a model for prioritizing customer attributes and design characteristics in order to make a product more attractive to customers. The proposed model modifies the analytic hierarchical process(AHP) with simple pairwise comparison. Our exploration using of QFD identifies how practitioners maintain consistency, whist quantifying HoQ speedily from the customer's perspectives. This paper also identifies and justifies an alternative position on QFD that is supported by statistical examples.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2007.10c
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• pp.10-13
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• 2007

System requirements (SRs), which describe the technical attributes to be satisfied by a desired system, serve as a fundamental guideline for system development. Standard methods and processes to define SRs are suggested in systems engineering literature. But in practice, we encounter many difficulties in defining and managing SRs since there are few experiences on development of complex systems in accordance with systems engineering processes of development. In this paper, to expanding SRs management experiences in a working-level, we reviewed problems occured in SRs defining process in 'Urban MAGLEV Train Project', and analyzed our activities to adjust and solve the problems.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.345-366
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• 2001

Evaluating environmental impacts of regional development projects has critical importance in environmental management aspect. This paper uses multi-attribute utility theory as a basis for obtaining a value index to assess the environmental impacts and applies the theory to a specific Korean case study. To structure and quantify basic values for the assessment, we elicited important attributes, then refined and structured them into a hierarchy. An environmental multi-attribute index is constructed as a multi-attribute utility function, based on value judgments provided by a group of technical experts, policy makers, and a decision-maker at Korean Ministry of Environment. The implications of the results are also discussed. We found that the work and results can provide valuable insights for assessment of environmental consequences.

• KIEAE Journal
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.45-52
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• 2004

The purpose of this research was to identify the structural characteristics of open housing typologically and systematically. The main method of this study was content analysis and literature review on open housing. This study found that the typological analysis on terminology and the details of the constituents concerning structural patterns in open housing indicated that the main approaches were classified into three criteria such as 'Organization Element', 'Construction Element', and 'Equipment Element'. Organization Element was classified into 'Main Dwelling Unit Area and its Form', 'Room Organization Method', 'Relationship with the Main Dwelling Unit's External Constituents', and 'Combination Method of Support and Infill'. Construction Element was classified into 'Method of Structure' and 'Structural Element Technology'. Equipment Element was classified into 'Method of Using Duct' and 'Wet Zone Method'. The attributes were determined based on these classifications. The results of this study can be used to construct an evaluation tool and further to develop a framework in understanding open housing. Technical research should be conducted on the variables that affect the flexibility of space.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.73-81
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• 2009

This paper discusses the changing roles of tutors when engaging with e-learning of engineering basic design courses. Understanding the importance of these roles and identifying necessary tutoring skills are the two main keys to the success of e-learning solutions. Since online tutors play a critical role in e-learning, they must be equipped with an appropriate set of skills and attributes. The roles of e-tutors involve the social, organizational, intellectual, and technical tasks.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.101-110
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• 1999

QFD is a market driven design and development methodology for products and services to meet or exceed customer's needs and expectations, This method enables to specify clearly the customer's needs and then evaluate the product capability in terms of its impact on meeting those needs. Process of satisfying customers begins with effectively soliciting their different needs and wants which may be non-technical and imprecise in nature. Although the HoQ is a comprehensive tool for showing the relationships between attributes, it lacks the flexibility to deal with the inherent inexactness and vagueness in the voice of customer. In this paper, fuzzy theory is introduced to overcome this limitation. Qualitative customer requirements are interpreted quantitative data through fuzzy inference procedure, and then target value is determined.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.69-88
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• 2010

This paper explores the determinants of the innovation impact of publicly funded R&D projects along three broad dimensions, namely project, firm and market-related factors. In addition to these factors we examine the attributes of the research result per se and aspects of the commercialization process. The observations from empirical and qualitative analyses are based on R&D projects funded by the Fifth and Sixth Research Framework Programmes of the European Union. Firm size, prior experience, innovation culture, the nature of the project itself, explicit intension to commercialize, consortium management and strategy are the factors with the strongest effect on project success, defined in terms of product/process innovation and/or technical knowledge creation. The paper provides important implications for the organization, objectives, and management of public programmes that fund R&D and for project and participant selection.