• Title/Summary/Keyword: e-participation research

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A Study on Ontology and Topic Modeling-based Multi-dimensional Knowledge Map Services (온톨로지와 토픽모델링 기반 다차원 연계 지식맵 서비스 연구)

  • Jeong, Hanjo
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.21 no.4
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    • pp.79-92
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    • 2015
  • Knowledge map is widely used to represent knowledge in many domains. This paper presents a method of integrating the national R&D data and assists of users to navigate the integrated data via using a knowledge map service. The knowledge map service is built by using a lightweight ontology and a topic modeling method. The national R&D data is integrated with the research project as its center, i.e., the other R&D data such as research papers, patents, and reports are connected with the research project as its outputs. The lightweight ontology is used to represent the simple relationships between the integrated data such as project-outputs relationships, document-author relationships, and document-topic relationships. Knowledge map enables us to infer further relationships such as co-author and co-topic relationships. To extract the relationships between the integrated data, a Relational Data-to-Triples transformer is implemented. Also, a topic modeling approach is introduced to extract the document-topic relationships. A triple store is used to manage and process the ontology data while preserving the network characteristics of knowledge map service. Knowledge map can be divided into two types: one is a knowledge map used in the area of knowledge management to store, manage and process the organizations' data as knowledge, the other is a knowledge map for analyzing and representing knowledge extracted from the science & technology documents. This research focuses on the latter one. In this research, a knowledge map service is introduced for integrating the national R&D data obtained from National Digital Science Library (NDSL) and National Science & Technology Information Service (NTIS), which are two major repository and service of national R&D data servicing in Korea. A lightweight ontology is used to design and build a knowledge map. Using the lightweight ontology enables us to represent and process knowledge as a simple network and it fits in with the knowledge navigation and visualization characteristics of the knowledge map. The lightweight ontology is used to represent the entities and their relationships in the knowledge maps, and an ontology repository is created to store and process the ontology. In the ontologies, researchers are implicitly connected by the national R&D data as the author relationships and the performer relationships. A knowledge map for displaying researchers' network is created, and the researchers' network is created by the co-authoring relationships of the national R&D documents and the co-participation relationships of the national R&D projects. To sum up, a knowledge map-service system based on topic modeling and ontology is introduced for processing knowledge about the national R&D data such as research projects, papers, patent, project reports, and Global Trends Briefing (GTB) data. The system has goals 1) to integrate the national R&D data obtained from NDSL and NTIS, 2) to provide a semantic & topic based information search on the integrated data, and 3) to provide a knowledge map services based on the semantic analysis and knowledge processing. The S&T information such as research papers, research reports, patents and GTB are daily updated from NDSL, and the R&D projects information including their participants and output information are updated from the NTIS. The S&T information and the national R&D information are obtained and integrated to the integrated database. Knowledge base is constructed by transforming the relational data into triples referencing R&D ontology. In addition, a topic modeling method is employed to extract the relationships between the S&T documents and topic keyword/s representing the documents. The topic modeling approach enables us to extract the relationships and topic keyword/s based on the semantics, not based on the simple keyword/s. Lastly, we show an experiment on the construction of the integrated knowledge base using the lightweight ontology and topic modeling, and the knowledge map services created based on the knowledge base are also introduced.

A Preliminary Study on Setting Philosophy and Curriculum Development in Nursing Education (간호교육 철학정립 및 교육과정 개발을 위한 기초조사)

  • 정연강;김윤회;양광희;한경자;한상임
    • Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.162-188
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    • 1988
  • The purpose of this study is to guide the direction of the Korean nursing education to analysize ⑴ the philosophy and objectives ⑵ curriculum, and ⑶ educational environment. This analysis is based on the data from 50 nursing schools (14 4-year colleges and 35 3-year colleges) The survey was conducted from Dec. 1986 through Jan. 1987 by mail. 1) Educational philosophy and objectives 10 4-year colleges and 8 3-year college program have curricular philosoph. Most popular curricular philosophies are human beings, health, nursing, nursology, nursing education, nurses role in the present and in the future. 10 nursing schools mentioned that human being is the subject to interact with : environment physically, mentally and socially. 2 schools mentioned that health is the state of functioning well physically, mentally and socially. 13 schools mentioned that the nursing is the dynamic act to maintain and to promote the highest possible level of health. 4 schools mentioned that the nursology is an applied science. 4 schools mentioned that nursing education is the process to induce the behavioural changes based on the individual ability. There is different opinion about the nurses' role between 4-year college and 3-year college. In the responses from 4-year colleges they focus on the leadership in effective changes, self-regulating and self-determining responsibilities, applying the new technology, continuing education, and participation in research to further nursing knowledge. In the responses from 3-year colleges, they focus on the education in college, primary health care nursing, direct care provider and public health education. Among 50 respondents 40 schools have educational goals which can be divided into two categories. One is to establish the moral and the other is to develop the professionalism. 2) Curriculm The analsis of curriculum is only based on the data from the 4-year colleges because the most of 3-year colleges follow the curriculum guideline set by the Ministry of Education. a) Comparison of the credits in cultural subject and in nursing major. The average required credit for graduation is 154.6 and the median credit is the range of 140-149. The average credit of cultural subjects is 43.4. In detail, the average number of credit of required course and elective courses are 24.1 and 19.3 respectively. The average credit for major subject is 111.2. In detail, the average credit for required courses and electives course are 100.9 and 10.4 respectively. In 5 colleges, students are offered even on elective course b) Comparison of the credit by class. The average earned credits are as follows : 41.1 in freshman, 400 in sophormore 38.3 in junior and 32.4 in senior. Cultural subjects are studied in early phases. c) Comparison of the compulsory and elective cultural subject by institute. The range of credit is 7-43 in compulsory cultural subjects and there are lot of differences among institutions. While all respondents require liberal arts as compulsary subjects, few respondents lists social science, natural science and behavioral science as required subjects. Social science-related subjects are frequently chosen as cultural subjects d) Distribution of creditsin cultural subjects by institute. The liberal art subjects are taught in 20 institute. English and physical education courses are taught in all instituions. The social science subjects are taught in 15 colleges and the basic Psycology and the Basic sociology are the most popular subjects. The natural science subjects are taught in 7 colleges and Biology and Chemistry are the most popular subjects among them. e) Distribution of credits in major basic courses by institute. Most of the institutes select Anatomy, Microbiology, Physiology, biochemistry and Pathology as basic major courses. f) Comparison of the required and elective courses for nursing major by institutions. Subjects and credit ranges in major are varing by institute. More than half of the respondents select the following subjects as required major subjects. (1) Adults Health Nursing and Practice (19.5 credits) (2) Mother and Child Care and Practice (8.9 credits) (3) Community Health Care and Practice (8.5 credits) (4) Psychiatric Nursing Care and Practice (8.1 credits) (5) Nursing Management and Practice (3.9 credits) (6) Fundamental of Nursing, Nursing Research and Health Assessment and Practice. Three institutions select Introduction to nursing, Rehabilitation Nursing, School Nursing, Public Health Nursing, Nursing English, Communication, Human Development as electives in nursing major. 3) Educational environment a) Nursing institution There are forty-three 3-year colleges and seventeen 4-year colleges and 81.4% of which are private b) Number of students and faculty 19.2% of the students are in 4-year colleges and 80.8% of the students are in 3-year colleges. In 4-year colleges, the number of nursing faculty members is in the other of assistant professor, instructor and professor. In 3-year colleges, the orderiis lecturer, associate professor, full time instructor and assistant professor. In 4-year colleges, 18.8 students are allocated per nursing faculty and in 3-year colleges, 33.1 students are allocated per nursing faculty. c) Clinical practices 66.7% of the 4-year colleges practice over 1201 hours in clinic and 28.5% of 3-year colleges practice over 1201 hours in clinic. In 4-year colleges, 11.5 students are allocated per nursing faculty and in 3-year colleges,17 students are allocated per nursing faculty The survey shows no difference in the procedure between 4-year colleges and 3-year colleges but 3-year colleges choose the more variety practicing site such as special hospital and community health clinic. d) Audiovisual facilities The survey shows a lot of difference in audiovisual facilities among institution and 3-year colleges are less equipped than 4-year colleges.

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Differential Levels of Governance and Its Impact on Urban Park Management and Users' Satisfaction - The Case of Sheffield District Parks, UK - (도시공원관리 거버넌스 구축정도에 따른 이용자 만족도 차이 - 영국 셰필드 지구공원을 대상으로 -)

  • Nam, Jinvo;Kim, Hyun
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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    • v.47 no.4
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    • pp.50-60
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    • 2019
  • In the late 1980s, a financial crisis and Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) in green space services brought with it a profound impact on the quality of parks in the UK. Such government projects, e.g. Urban Task Force (1999) and Public Parks Assessment (2001), aimed to raise the awareness of the severity of the declining standards of urban parks. Since the late 1990s, the UK governments (The New Labour (1997-2010) and The Conservative Government (2010-2019)), have often adopted community-led governance schemes to enhance the quality of parks and address problems derived from the financial crisis. Accordingly, community groups, notably 'Friends of', enlarged their involvement in the decision-making process of park management. However, there is little empirical evidence concerning the impact of community-led governance on park management, in particular, the effect on the users' perceptions of park use. This study explored the context of community-led park management to reclassify the level of build-up of governance underlined by 'A Ladder of Citizen Participation'. In addition, questionnaire surveys were conducted around two Sheffield district parks, which are located in deprived areas. As a result, community involvement in the status quo of UK urban park management has changed its form of governance based on the extent of involvement in the decision-making process. The forms of governance could be categorised in three levels: general, active, and predominant governance, where the extents of decision-making and sharing responsibility vary. The results obtained through the questionnaires show that one park (active governance), which has a stronger tendency of sharing responsibility to get involved in park management, had better contribution to park management and positive impacts on users' satisfaction than the other park (general governance). The findings highlight that stronger governance in partnerships with the non-public sectors can shed light on current and future park management through a shift in sharing responsibility for park management.

Analysis of Perceptions of Student Start-up Policies in Science and Technology Colleges: Focusing on the KAIST case (과기특성화대학 학생창업정책에 대한 인식분석: KAIST 사례를 중심으로)

  • Tae-Uk Ahn;Chun-Ryol Ryu;Minjung Baek
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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    • v.19 no.2
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    • pp.197-214
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    • 2024
  • This study aimed to investigate students' perceptions at science and technology specialized universities towards entrepreneurship support policies and to derive policy improvement measures by applying a bottom-up approach to reflect the requirements of the policy beneficiaries, i.e., the students. Specifically, the research explored effective execution strategies for student entrepreneurship support policies through a survey and analysis of KAIST students. The findings revealed that KAIST students recognize the urgent need for improvement in sharing policy objectives with the student entrepreneurship field, reflecting the opinions of the campus entrepreneurship scene in policy formulation, and constructing an entrepreneurship-friendly academic system for nurturing student entrepreneurs. Additionally, there was a highlighted need for enhancement in the capacity of implementing agencies, as well as in marketing and market development capabilities, and organizational management and practical skills as entrepreneurs within the educational curriculum. Consequently, this study proposes the following improvement measures: First, it calls for enhanced transparency and accessibility of entrepreneurship support policies, ensuring students clearly understand policy objectives and can easily access information. Second, it advocates for student-centered policy development, where students' opinions are actively incorporated to devise customized policies that consider their needs and the actual entrepreneurship environment. Third, there is a demand for improving entrepreneurship-friendly academic systems, encouraging more active participation in entrepreneurship activities by adopting or refining academic policies that recognize entrepreneurship activities as credits or expand entrepreneurship-related courses. Based on these results, it is expected that this research will provide valuable foundational data to actively support student entrepreneurship in science and technology specialized universities, foster an entrepreneurial spirit, and contribute to the creation of an innovation-driven entrepreneurship ecosystem that contributes to technological innovation and social value creation.

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Problems and Improvement Measures of Private Consulting Firms Working on Rural Area Development (농촌지역개발 민간컨설팅회사의 실태와 개선방안)

  • Kim, Jung Tae
    • Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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    • v.21 no.2
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    • pp.1-28
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    • 2014
  • Private consulting firms that are currently participating in rural area development projects with a bottom-up approach are involved in nearly all areas of rural area development, and the policy environment that emphasizes the bottom-up approach will further expand their participation. Reviews of private consulting firms, which started out with high expectations in the beginning, are now becoming rather negative. Expertise is the key issue in the controversy over private consulting firms, and the analysis tends to limit the causes of the problems within firms. This study was conducted on the premise that the fixation on cause and structure results in policy issues in the promotion process. That is because the government authorities are responsible for managing and supervising the implementation of policies, not developing the policies. The current issues with consulting firms emerged because of the hasty implementation of private consulting through the government policy trend without sufficient consideration, as well as the policy environment that demanded short-term outcomes even though the purpose of bottom-up rural area development lies in the ideology of endogenous development focused on the changes in residents' perceptions. Research was conducted to determine how the problems of private consulting firms that emerged and were addressed in this context influenced the consulting market, using current data and based on the firms' business performance. In analyzing the types, firms were divided into three groups: top performers including market leaders (9), excellent performers (36), and average performers (34). An analysis of the correlation between the business performance of each type and managerial resources such as each firm's expertise revealed that there was only a correlation between human resources and regional development in excellent performers, and none was found with the other types. These results imply that external factors other than a firm's capabilities (e.g., expertise) play a significant role in the standards of selecting private consulting firms. Thus, government authorities must reflect on their error of hastily adopting private consulting firms without sufficient consideration and must urgently establish response measures.

암환자 인식에 관한 연구 - 간호사ㆍ의사를 중심으로

  • Jo, In-Hyang
    • Korean Journal of Hospice Care
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    • v.2 no.1
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    • pp.58-74
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    • 2002
  • This paper constitutes a descriptive investigation and used a structured questionnaire to investigate nurses' and doctors' recognition of cancer patients. The subjects were extracted from the medical personnel working at the internal medicine, the surgery ward, the obstetrics and gynecology department, the pediatrics department, the cancer ward, and the emergency room of five general hospitals located in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province. The research lasted from August, 2001 to September 2001. Total 137 nurses and 65 doctors were included and made out the questionnaires directly distributed by the investigator. The study tool was also developed by the investigator and consisted of such items as the demographic and social characteristics, the medical personnel's recognition degree of cancer and cancer patients, their recognition of the management of cancer patients, and their participation in a hospice. The results were analyzed using the SPSS Window program in terms of technological statistics, ranks, t-test, and ANOVA. The reliability was represented in Cronbach' α=.75. The nurses' and doctors' recognition degree of cancer and cancer patients had an overall average of 3.86 at the 5 point-scale. The items that received an average of 4.0 or more included 'Medical personnel should explain about the cancer cure plans to the cancer patient and his or her family', 'A patient whose case has been diagnosed as a terminal cancer should be notified of it, 'If I were a cancer patient, I would want to get informed of it,' and 'Cancer shall be conquered whenever it is'. In the meantime, the items that received an average of 3.0 or less was 'My relationship with the cancer patient's family has gotten worse since I announced his or her impending death.' And according to the general characteristics and the difference test, the recognition degree of cancer and cancer patient was high among the subgroups of nurses, females, married persons, who were in their 30s, who had a family member that was a cancer patient, and who received a hospice education. The biggest number of the nurses and doctors saw 'a gradual approach over several days'(68.8%) as a method to tell a cancer patient about his or her cancer diagnosis or impending death. Those who usually tell tragic news were the physician in charge(62.8%), the family members or relatives(32.1%) and the clergymen(3.8%) in the order. The greatest number of them recommended a cancer patient's home as the place where he or she should face death because they thought 'it would stabilize his or her mentality'(91.9%) while a number of them recommended the hospital because they 'should give the psychological satisfaction to the patient'(40%) or 'should try their best until the last moment of the patient's death'(30%). A majority of the medical personnel regarded 'smoking or drinking' and 'diet' as the causes of cancer. The biggest symptom of a cancer patient was 'pain' and the pain management of a cancer patient was mostly impeded by the 'excessive fear of drug addiction, tolerance to drugs and side effects of drugs' by medical personnel, the patient, and his or her family. The most frequently adopted treatment plan of a terminal cancer patient was 'to do whatever the patient or his or her family wants' to resort to a hospice' and 'to continue active treatment efforts' in the order. The biggest reasons why a terminal cancer patient went to see a doctor were 'pain alleviation' 'control of symptoms other than pain(intravenous supply)' and 'incapability of the patient's family' in the order. Terminal cancer patients placed their major concern in 'spiritual(religious) matter' 'emotional matters' their family' 'existence' and 'physical matters' in the order. 113(58.5%) of the whole medical personnel answered they 'would recommend' an alternative treatment to a terminal cancer patient mostly because they assumed it would 'stabilize the patient's mentality.' Meanwhile, 80(41.5%) of them chose 'not to recommend it mostly due to the unverified effects and high cost of it(78.7%). A majority of them, I. e. 190(94.1%) subjects said they 'would recommend' a hospice to a terminal cancer patient mostly because they thought it would help the patient to 'mentally prepare'(66.6%) Only 17.3% of them, however, had received a hospice education, most of which was done through the hospital duty education(41.4%) and volunteer training(34.5%). The follows are results of this study: 1. The nurses and the doctors turned out to be still passive and experience confusion in dealing with a cancer patient despite their great sense of responsibility for him or her. 2.Nurses and Doctors realize the need of a hospice, but an extremely small number of them participate in a hospice education or performance. Thus, a whole recognition of a hospice should be changed, for which purpose a hospice education for nurses and doctors should be provided. 3.Terminal cancer patients preferred their home to a hospital as the place to face their impending death because they felt it would bring 'mental stability.' And most of nurses and doctors think it would be unnecessary for them to be hospitalized just for control of their symptoms. Accordingly a terminal cancer patient can be cared at home, and a home hospice care needs to be activated.

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A Study on Experimental Construction of Community Garden - A Case Study on Rooftop of SAHA Disabled Welfare House - (커뮤니티 가든 조성을 위한 실험 연구 - 사하 장애인복지관 옥상을 대상으로 -)

  • Kim, Seung-Hwan;Yoon, Sung-Yung;Cha, Min-Jun;Yoo, yeon-seo;Cho, Ji-Young;Kim, Yoon-Sun
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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    • v.40 no.2
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    • pp.24-37
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    • 2012
  • In this study, Community Garden of various national and international practices trends to an advanced research, the concept of community garden participated with a group operation out of initiative to produce safety food while securing space for the community, ensuring the area that has gone through a new form of active secure urban green space plan, urban renewal movement was defined as the mean. Furthermore, for the purpose of improving the poor welfare environment by attempting to experimentally make a community garden of a disabled welfare house rooftop and how to target its planning and construction process, partnership involvement, business processes have been investigated, such as cost sharing. The whole process including a budget for development of this case was conducted by the Busan Green Trust. Standard Chartered (SC) First Bank's 50% fund share by community chest, participation of volunteers, support of Busan City and Saba-gu, outside of that, sharing parts or trial to participate by diverse partnership of enterprise, public corporation and laboratory, these are the key in developing community garden's model. Established community garden places resulted food production to users of welfare center for the disabled, participating urban agricultural experience program, horticultural therapy, complex community chapter and cultural center. Furthermore, we could find the meaning of rooftop community garden in the point that it is a low cost garden by applying movable and unmovable planters. This study is profitable for improving urban environment, ensuring community chapter and urban green areas, regenerating a city to develop experimental community garden model by using a welfare house rooftop.

An Empirical Study in Relationship between Franchisor's Leadership Behavior Style and Commitment by Focusing Moderating Effect of Franchisee's Self-efficacy (가맹본부의 리더십 행동유형과 가맹사업자의 관계결속에 관한 실증적 연구 - 가맹사업자의 자기효능감의 조절효과를 중심으로 -)

  • Yang, Hoe-Chang;Lee, Young-Chul
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.15 no.1
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    • pp.49-71
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    • 2010
  • Franchise businesses in South Korea have contributed to economic growth and job creation, and its growth potential remains very high. However, despite such virtues, domestic franchise businesses face many problems such as the instability of franchisor's business structure and weak financial conditions. To solve these problems, the government enacted legislation and strengthened franchise related laws. However, the strengthening of laws regulating franchisors had many side effects that interrupted the development of the franchise business. For example, legal regulations regarding franchisors have had the effect of suppressing the franchisor's leadership activities (e.g. activities such as the ability to advocate the franchisor's policies and strategies to the franchisees, in order to facilitate change and innovation). One of the main goals of the franchise business is to build cooperation between the franchisor and the franchisee for their combined success. However, franchisees can refuse to follow the franchisor's strategies because of the current state of franchise-related law and government policy. The purpose of this study to explore the effects of franchisor's leadership style on franchisee's commitment in a franchise system. We classified leadership styles according to the path-goal theory (House & Mitchell, 1974), and it was hypothesized and tested that the four leadership styles proposed by the path-goal theory (i.e. directive, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented leadership) have different effects on franchisee's commitment. Another purpose of this study to explore the how the level of franchisee's self-efficacy influences both the franchisor's leadership style and franchisee's commitment in a franchise system. Results of the present study are expected to provide important theoretical and practical implications as to the role of franchisor's leadership style, as restricted by government regulations and the franchisee's self-efficacy, which could be needed to improve the quality of the long-term relationship between the franchisor and franchisee. Quoted by Northouse(2007), one problem regarding the investigation of leadership is that there are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are people who have tried to define it. But despite the multitude of ways in which leadership has been conceptualized, the following components can be identified as central to the phenomenon: (a) leadership is a process, (b) leadership involves influence, (c) leadership occurs in a group context, and (d) leadership involves goal attainment. Based on these components, in this study leadership is defined as a process whereby franchisor's influences a group of franchisee' to achieve a common goal. Focusing on this definition, the path-goal theory is about how leaders motivate subordinates to accomplish designated goals. Drawing heavily from research on what motivates employees, path-goal theory first appeared in the leadership literature in the early 1970s in the works of Evans (1970), House (1971), House and Dessler (1974), and House and Mitchell (1974). The stated goal of this leadership theory is to enhance employee performance and employee satisfaction by focusing on employee motivation. In brief, path-goal theory is designed to explain how leaders can help subordinates along the path to their goals by selecting specific behaviors that are best suited to subordinates' needs and to the situation in which subordinates are working (Northouse, 2007). House & Mitchell(1974) predicted that although many different leadership behaviors could have been selected to be a part of path-goal theory, this approach has so far examined directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented leadership behaviors. And they suggested that leaders may exhibit any or all of these four styles with various subordinates and in different situations. However, due to restrictive government regulations, franchisors are not in a position to change their leadership style to suit their circumstances. In addition, quoted by Northouse(2007), ssubordinate characteristics determine how a leader's behavior is interpreted by subordinates in a given work context. Many researchers have focused on subordinates' needs for affiliation, preferences for structure, desires for control, and self-perceived level of task ability. In this study, we have focused on the self-perceived level of task ability, namely, the franchisee's self-efficacy. According to Bandura (1977), self-efficacy is chiefly defined as the personal attitude of one's ability to accomplish concrete tasks. Therefore, it is not an indicator of one's actual abilities, but an opinion of the extent of how one can use that ability. Thus, the judgment of maintain franchisee's commitment depends on the situation (e.g., government regulation and policy and leadership style of franchisor) and how it affects one's ability to mobilize resources to deal with the task, so even if people possess the same ability, there may be differences in self-efficacy. Figure 1 illustrates the model investigated in this study. In this model, it was hypothesized that leadership styles would affect the franchisee's commitment, and self-efficacy would moderate the relationship between leadership style and franchisee's commitment. Theoretically, quoted by Northouse(2007), the path-goal approach suggests that leaders need to choose a leadership style that best fits the needs of subordinates and the work they are doing. According to House & Mitchell (1974), the theory predicts that a directive style of leadership is best in situations in which subordinates are dogmatic and authoritarian, the task demands are ambiguous, and the organizational rule and procedures are unclear. In these situations, franchisor's directive leadership complements the work by providing guidance and psychological structure for franchisees. For work that is structured, unsatisfying, or frustrating, path-goal theory suggests that leaders should use a supportive style. Franchisor's Supportive leadership offers a sense of human touch for franchisees engaged in mundane, mechanized activity. Franchisor's participative leadership is considered best when a task is ambiguous because participation gives greater clarity to how certain paths lead to certain goals; it helps subordinates learn what actions leads to what outcome. Furthermore, House & Mitchell(1974) predicts that achievement-oriented leadership is most effective in settings in which subordinates are required to perform ambiguous tasks. Marsh and O'Neill (1984) tested the idea that organizational members' anger and decline in performance is caused by deficiencies in their level of effort and found that self-efficacy promotes accomplishment, decreases stress and negative consequences like depression and emotional instability. Based on the extant empirical findings and theoretical reasoning, we posit positive and strong relationships between the franchisor's leadership styles and the franchisee's commitment. Furthermore, the level of franchisee's self-efficacy was thought to maintain their commitment. The questionnaires sent to participants consisted of the following measures; leadership style was assessed using a 20 item 7-point likert scale developed by Indvik (1985), self-efficacy was assessed using a 24 item 6-point likert scale developed by Bandura (1977), and commitment was assessed using a 6 item 5-point likert scale developed by Morgan & Hunt (1994). Questionnaires were distributed to Korean optical franchisees in Seoul. It took about 20 days to complete the data collection. A total number of 140 questionnaires were returned and complete data were available from 137 respondents. Results of multiple regression analyses testing the relationships between the each of the four styles of leadership shown by the franchisor as independent variables and franchisee's commitment as the dependent variable showed that the relationship between supportive leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.13, p<.001),and the relationship between participative leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.07, p<.001)were significant. However, when participants divided into high and low self-efficacy groups, results of multiple regression analyses showed that only the relationship between achievement-oriented leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.14, p<.001) was significant in the high self-efficacy group. In the low self-efficacy group, the relationship between supportive leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.17, p<.001),and the relationship between participative leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.10, p<.001) were significant. The study focused on the franchisee's self-efficacy in order to explore the possibility that regulation, originally intended to protect the franchisee, may not be the most effective method to maintain the relationships in a franchise business. The key results of the data analysis regarding the moderating role of self-efficacy between leadership behavior style as proposed by path-goal and commitment theory were as follows. First, this study proposed that franchisor should apply the appropriate type of leadership behavior to strengthen the franchisees commitment because the results demonstrated that supportive and participative leadership styles by the franchisors have a positive influence on the franchisee's level of commitment. Second, it is desirable for franchisor to validate the franchisee's efforts, since the franchisee's characteristics such as self-efficacy had a substantial, positive effect on the franchisee's commitment as well as being a meaningful moderator between leadership and commitment. Third, the results as a whole imply that the government should provide institutional support, namely to put the franchisor in a position to clearly identify the characteristics of their franchisees and provide reasonable means to administer the franchisees to achieve the company's goal.

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Changes in Agricultural Extension Services in Korea (한국농촌지도사업(韓國農村指導事業)의 변동(變動))

  • Fujita, Yasuki;Lee, Yong-Hwan;Kim, Sung-Soo
    • Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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    • v.7 no.1
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    • pp.155-166
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    • 2000
  • When the marcher visited Korea in fall 1994, he was shocked to see high rise apartment buildings around the capitol region including Seoul and Suwon, resulting from rising demand of housing because of urban migration followed by second and third industrial development. After 6 years in March 2000, the researcher witnessed more apartment buildings and vinyl house complexes, one of the evidences of continued economic progress in Korea. Korea had to receive the rescue finance from International Monetary Fund (IMF) because of financial crisis in 1997. However, the sign of recovery was seen in a year, and the growth rate of Gross Domestic Products (GDP) in 1999 recorded as high as 10.7 percent. During this period, the Korean government has been working on restructuring of banks, enterprises, labour and public sectors. The major directions of government were; localization, reducing administrative manpower, limiting agricultural budgets, privatization of public enterprises, integration of agricultural organization, and easing of various regulations. Thus, the power of central government shifted to local government resulting in a power increase for city mayors and county chiefs. Agricultural extension services was one of targets of government restructuring, transferred to local governments from central government. At the same time, the number of extension offices was reduced by 64 percent, extension personnel reduced by 24 percent, and extension budgets reduced. During the process of restructuring, the basic direction of extension services was set by central Rural Development Administration Personnel management, technology development and supports were transferred to provincial Rural Development Administrations, and operational responsibilities transferred to city/county governments. Agricultural extension services at the local levels changed the name to Agricultural Technology Extension Center, established under jurisdiction of city mayor or county chief. The function of technology development works were added, at the same time reducing the number of educators for agriculture and rural life. As a result of observations of rural areas and agricultural extension services at various levels, functional responsibilities of extension were not well recognized throughout the central, provincial, and local levels. Central agricultural extension services should be more concerned about effective rural development by monitoring provincial and local level extension activities more throughly. At county level extension services, it may be desirable to add a research function to reflect local agricultural technological needs. Sometimes, adding administrative tasks for extension educators may be helpful far farmers. However, tasks such as inspection and investigation should be avoided, since it may hinder the effectiveness of extension educational activities. It appeared that major contents of the agricultural extension service in Korea were focused on saving agricultural materials, developing new agricultural technology, enhancing agricultural export, increasing production and establishing market oriented farming. However these kinds of efforts may lead to non-sustainable agriculture. It would be better to put more emphasis on sustainable agriculture in the future. Agricultural extension methods in Korea may be better classified into two approaches or functions; consultation function for advanced farmers and technology transfer or educational function for small farmers. Advanced farmers were more interested in technology and management information, while small farmers were more concerned about information for farm management directions and timely diffusion of agricultural technology information. Agricultural extension service should put more emphasis on small farmer groups and active participation of farmers in these groups. Providing information and moderate advice in selecting alternatives should be the major activities for consultation for advanced farmers, while problem solving processes may be the major educational function for small farmers. Systems such as internet and e-mail should be utilized for functions of information exchange. These activities may not be an easy task for decreased numbers of extension educators along with increased administrative tasks. It may be difficult to practice a one-to-one approach However group guidance may improve the task to a certain degree.

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