• Title/Summary/Keyword: the experience method

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Consumer's Negative Brand Rumor Acceptance and Rumor Diffusion (소비자의 부정적 브랜드 루머의 수용과 확산)

  • Lee, Won-jun;Lee, Han-Suk
    • Asia Marketing Journal
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    • v.14 no.2
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    • pp.65-96
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    • 2012
  • Brand has received much attention from considerable marketing research. When consumers consume product or services, they are exposed to a lot of brand related stimuli. These contain brand personality, brand experience, brand identity, brand communications and so on. A special kind of new crisis occasionally confronting companies' brand management today is the brand related rumor. An important influence on consumers' purchase decision making is the word-of-mouth spread by other consumers and most decisions are influenced by other's recommendations. In light of this influence, firms have reasonable reason to study and understand consumer-to-consumer communication such as brand rumor. The importance of brand rumor to marketers is increasing as the number of internet user and SNS(social network service) site grows. Due to the development of internet technology, people can spread rumors without the limitation of time, space and place. However relatively few studies have been published in marketing journals and little is known about brand rumors in the marketplace. The study of rumor has a long history in all major social science. But very few studies have dealt with the antecedents and consequences of any kind of brand rumor. Rumor has been generally described as a story or statement in general circulation without proper confirmation or certainty as to fact. And it also can be defined as an unconfirmed proposition, passed along from people to people. Rosnow(1991) claimed that rumors were transmitted because people needed to explain ambiguous and uncertain events and talking about them reduced associated anxiety. Especially negative rumors are believed to have the potential to devastate a company's reputation and relations with customers. From the perspective of marketer, negative rumors are considered harmful and extremely difficult to control in general. It is becoming a threat to a company's sustainability and sometimes leads to negative brand image and loss of customers. Thus there is a growing concern that these negative rumors can damage brands' reputations and lead them to financial disaster too. In this study we aimed to distinguish antecedents of brand rumor transmission and investigate the effects of brand rumor characteristics on rumor spread intention. We also found key components in personal acceptance of brand rumor. In contextualist perspective, we tried to unify the traditional psychological and sociological views. In this unified research approach we defined brand rumor's characteristics based on five major variables that had been found to influence the process of rumor spread intention. The five factors of usefulness, source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness, encompass multi level elements of brand rumor. We also selected product involvement as a control variable. To perform the empirical research, imaginary Korean 'Kimch' brand and related contamination rumor was created and proposed. Questionnaires were collected from 178 Korean samples. Data were collected from college students who have been experienced the focal product. College students were regarded as good subjects because they have a tendency to express their opinions in detail. PLS(partial least square) method was adopted to analyze the relations between variables in the equation model. The most widely adopted causal modeling method is LISREL. However it is poorly suited to deal with relatively small data samples and can yield not proper solutions in some cases. PLS has been developed to avoid some of these limitations and provide more reliable results. To test the reliability using SPSS 16 s/w, Cronbach alpha was examined and all the values were appropriate showing alpha values between .802 and .953. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted successfully. And structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model using smartPLS(ver. 2.0) s/w. Overall, R2 of adoption of rumor is .476 and R2 of intention of rumor transmission is .218. The overall model showed a satisfactory fit. The empirical results can be summarized as follows. According to the results, the variables of brand rumor characteristic such as source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness affect argument strength of rumor. And argument strength of rumor also affects rumor intention. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived usefulness and argument strength of rumor is not significant. The moderating effect of product involvement on the relations between argument strength of rumor and rumor W.O.M intention is not supported neither. Consequently this study suggests some managerial and academic implications. We consider some implications for corporate crisis management planning, PR and brand management. This results show marketers that rumor is a critical factor for managing strong brand assets. Also for researchers, brand rumor should become an important thesis of their interests to understand the relationship between consumer and brand. Recently many brand managers and marketers have focused on the short-term view. They just focused on strengthen the positive brand image. According to this study we suggested that effective brand management requires managing negative brand rumors with a long-term view of marketing decisions.

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Emoticon by Emotions: The Development of an Emoticon Recommendation System Based on Consumer Emotions (Emoticon by Emotions: 소비자 감성 기반 이모티콘 추천 시스템 개발)

  • Kim, Keon-Woo;Park, Do-Hyung
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.24 no.1
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    • pp.227-252
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    • 2018
  • The evolution of instant communication has mirrored the development of the Internet and messenger applications are among the most representative manifestations of instant communication technologies. In messenger applications, senders use emoticons to supplement the emotions conveyed in the text of their messages. The fact that communication via messenger applications is not face-to-face makes it difficult for senders to communicate their emotions to message recipients. Emoticons have long been used as symbols that indicate the moods of speakers. However, at present, emoticon-use is evolving into a means of conveying the psychological states of consumers who want to express individual characteristics and personality quirks while communicating their emotions to others. The fact that companies like KakaoTalk, Line, Apple, etc. have begun conducting emoticon business and sales of related content are expected to gradually increase testifies to the significance of this phenomenon. Nevertheless, despite the development of emoticons themselves and the growth of the emoticon market, no suitable emoticon recommendation system has yet been developed. Even KakaoTalk, a messenger application that commands more than 90% of domestic market share in South Korea, just grouped in to popularity, most recent, or brief category. This means consumers face the inconvenience of constantly scrolling around to locate the emoticons they want. The creation of an emoticon recommendation system would improve consumer convenience and satisfaction and increase the sales revenue of companies the sell emoticons. To recommend appropriate emoticons, it is necessary to quantify the emotions that the consumer sees and emotions. Such quantification will enable us to analyze the characteristics and emotions felt by consumers who used similar emoticons, which, in turn, will facilitate our emoticon recommendations for consumers. One way to quantify emoticons use is metadata-ization. Metadata-ization is a means of structuring or organizing unstructured and semi-structured data to extract meaning. By structuring unstructured emoticon data through metadata-ization, we can easily classify emoticons based on the emotions consumers want to express. To determine emoticons' precise emotions, we had to consider sub-detail expressions-not only the seven common emotional adjectives but also the metaphorical expressions that appear only in South Korean proved by previous studies related to emotion focusing on the emoticon's characteristics. We therefore collected the sub-detail expressions of emotion based on the "Shape", "Color" and "Adumbration". Moreover, to design a highly accurate recommendation system, we considered both emotion-technical indexes and emoticon-emotional indexes. We then identified 14 features of emoticon-technical indexes and selected 36 emotional adjectives. The 36 emotional adjectives consisted of contrasting adjectives, which we reduced to 18, and we measured the 18 emotional adjectives using 40 emoticon sets randomly selected from the top-ranked emoticons in the KakaoTalk shop. We surveyed 277 consumers in their mid-twenties who had experience purchasing emoticons; we recruited them online and asked them to evaluate five different emoticon sets. After data acquisition, we conducted a factor analysis of emoticon-emotional factors. We extracted four factors that we named "Comic", Softness", "Modernity" and "Transparency". We analyzed both the relationship between indexes and consumer attitude and the relationship between emoticon-technical indexes and emoticon-emotional factors. Through this process, we confirmed that the emoticon-technical indexes did not directly affect consumer attitudes but had a mediating effect on consumer attitudes through emoticon-emotional factors. The results of the analysis revealed the mechanism consumers use to evaluate emoticons; the results also showed that consumers' emoticon-technical indexes affected emoticon-emotional factors and that the emoticon-emotional factors affected consumer satisfaction. We therefore designed the emoticon recommendation system using only four emoticon-emotional factors; we created a recommendation method to calculate the Euclidean distance from each factors' emotion. In an attempt to increase the accuracy of the emoticon recommendation system, we compared the emotional patterns of selected emoticons with the recommended emoticons. The emotional patterns corresponded in principle. We verified the emoticon recommendation system by testing prediction accuracy; the predictions were 81.02% accurate in the first result, 76.64% accurate in the second, and 81.63% accurate in the third. This study developed a methodology that can be used in various fields academically and practically. We expect that the novel emoticon recommendation system we designed will increase emoticon sales for companies who conduct business in this domain and make consumer experiences more convenient. In addition, this study served as an important first step in the development of an intelligent emoticon recommendation system. The emotional factors proposed in this study could be collected in an emotional library that could serve as an emotion index for evaluation when new emoticons are released. Moreover, by combining the accumulated emotional library with company sales data, sales information, and consumer data, companies could develop hybrid recommendation systems that would bolster convenience for consumers and serve as intellectual assets that companies could strategically deploy.

Effect of Service Convenience on the Relationship Performance in B2B Markets: Mediating Effect of Relationship Factors (B2B 시장에서의 서비스 편의성이 관계성과에 미치는 영향 : 관계적 요인의 매개효과 분석)

  • Han, Sang-Lin;Lee, Seong-Ho
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.16 no.4
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    • pp.65-93
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    • 2011
  • As relationship between buyer and seller has been brought closer and long-term relationship has been more important in B2B markets, the importance of service and service convenience increases as well as product. In homogeneous markets, where service offerings are similar and therefore not key competitive differentiator, providing greater convenience may enable a competitive advantage. Service convenience, as conceptualized by Berry et al. (2002), is defined as the consumers' time and effort perceptions related to buying or using a service. For this reason, B2B customers are interested in how fast the service is provided and how much save non-monetary cost like time or effort by the service convenience along with service quality. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the impact of service convenience on relationship factors such as relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, and relationship performance. The purpose of this study is to find out whether service convenience can be a new antecedent of relationship quality and relationship performance. In addition, this study tries to examine how five-dimensional service convenience constructs (decision convenience, access convenience, transaction convenience, benefit convenience, post-benefit convenience) affect customers' relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, and relationship performance. The service convenience comprises five fundamental components - decision convenience (the perceived time and effort costs associated with service purchase or use decisions), access convenience(the perceived time and effort costs associated with initiating service delivery), transaction convenience(the perceived time and effort costs associated with finalizing the transaction), benefit convenience(the perceived time and effort costs associated with experiencing the core benefits of the offering) and post-benefit convenience (the perceived time and effort costs associated with reestablishing subsequent contact with the firm). Earlier studies of perceived service convenience in the industrial market are none. The conventional studies that have dealt with service convenience have usually been made in the consumer market, or they have dealt with convenience aspects in the service process. This service convenience measure for consumer market can be useful tool to estimate service quality in B2B market. The conceptualization developed by Berry et al. (2002) reflects a multistage, experiential consumption process in which evaluations of convenience vary at each stage. For this reason, the service convenience measure is good for B2B service environment which has complex processes and various types. Especially when categorizing B2B service as sequential stage of service delivery like Kumar and Kumar (2004), the Berry's service convenience measure which reflect sequential flow of service deliveries suitable to establish B2B service convenience. For this study, data were gathered from respondents who often buy business service and analyzed by structural equation modeling. The sample size in the present study is 119. Composite reliability values and average variance extracted values were examined for each variable to have reliability. We determine whether the measurement model supports the convergent validity by CFA, and discriminant validity was assessed by examining the correlation matrix of the constructs. For each pair of constructs, the square root of the average variance extracted exceeded their correlations, thus supporting the discriminant validity of the constructs. Hypotheses were tested using the Smart PLS 2.0 and we calculated the PLS path values and followed with a bootstrap re-sampling method to test the hypotheses. Among the five dimensional service convenience constructs, four constructs (decision convenience, transaction convenience, benefit convenience, post-benefit convenience) affected customers' positive relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, and relationship performance. This result means that service convenience is important cue to improve relationship between buyer and seller. One of the five service convenience dimensions, access convenience, does not affect relationship quality and performance, which implies that the dimension of service convenience is not important factor of cumulative satisfaction. The Cumulative satisfaction can be distinguished from transaction-specific customer satisfaction, which is an immediate post-purchase evaluative judgment or an affective reaction to the most recent transactional experience with the firm. Because access convenience minimizes the physical effort associated with initiating an exchange, the effect on relationship satisfaction similar to cumulative satisfaction may be relatively low in terms of importance than transaction-specific customer satisfaction. Also, B2B firms focus on service quality, price, benefit, follow-up service and so on than convenience of time or place in service because it is relatively difficult to change existing transaction partners in B2B market compared to consumer market. In addition, this study using partial least squares methods reveals that customers' satisfaction and commitment toward relationship has mediating role between the service convenience and relationship performance. The result shows that management and investment to improve service convenience make customers' positive relationship satisfaction, and then the positive relationship satisfaction can enhance the relationship commitment and relationship performance. And to conclude, service convenience management is an important part of successful relationship performance management, and the service convenience is an important antecedent of relationship between buyer and seller such as the relationship commitment and relationship performance. Therefore, it has more important to improve relationship performance that service providers enhance service convenience although competitive service development or service quality improvement is important. Given the pressure to provide increased convenience, it is not surprising that organizations have made significant investments in enhancing the convenience aspect of their product and service offering.

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Pharmacokinetic Study of Isoniazid and Rifampicin in Healthy Korean Volunteers (정상 한국인에서의 Isoniazid와 Rifampicin 약동학 연구)

  • Chung, Man-Pyo;Kim, Ho-Cheol;Suh, Gee-Young;Park, Jeong-Woong;Kim, Ho-Joong;Kwon, O-Jung;Rhee, Chong-H.;Han, Yong-Chol;Park, Hyo-Jung;Kim, Myoung-Min;Choi, Kyung-Eob
    • Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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    • v.44 no.3
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    • pp.479-492
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    • 1997
  • Background : Isoniazid(INH) and rifampicin(RFP) are potent antituberculous drugs which have made tuberculous disease become decreasing. In Korea, prescribed doses of INH and RFP have been different from those recommended by American Thoracic Society. In fact they were determined by clinical experience rather than by scientific basis. Even there has been. few reports about pharmacokintic parameters of INH and RFP in healthy Koreans. Method : Oral pharmacokinetics of INH were studied in 22 healthy native Koreans after administration of 300 mg and 400mg of INH to each same person successively at least 2 weeks apart. After an overnight fast, subjects received medication and blood samples were drawn at scheduled times over a 24-hour period. Urine collection was also done for 24 hours. Pharmacokinetics of RFP were studied in 20 subjects in a same fashion with 450mg and 600mg of RFP. Plasma and urinary concentrations of INH and RFP were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography(HPLC). Results : Time to reach peak serum concentration (Tmax) of INH was $1.05{\pm}0.34\;hrs$ at 300mg dose and $0.98{\pm}0.59\;hrs$ at 400mg dose. Half-life was $2.49{\pm}0.88\;hrs$ and $2.80{\pm}0.75\;hrs$, respectively. They were not different significantly(p > 0.05). Peak serum concentration(Cmax) after administration of 400mg of INH was $7.14{\pm}1.95mcg/mL$ which was significantly higher than Cmax ($4.37{\pm}1.28mcg/mL$) by 300mg of INH(p < 0.01). Total clearance(CLtot) of INH at 300mg dose was $26.76{\pm}11.80mL/hr$. At 400mg dose it was $21.09{\pm}8.31mL/hr$ which was significantly lower(p < 0.01) than by 300mg dose. While renal clearance(CLr) was not different among two groups, nonrenal clearance(CLnr) at 400mg dose ($18.18{\pm}8.36mL/hr$) was significantly lower than CLnr ($23.71{\pm}11.52mL/hr$) by 300mg dose(p < 0.01). Tmax of RFP was $1.11{\pm}0.41\;hrs$ at 450mg dose and $1.15{\pm}0.43\;hrs$ at 600mg dose. Half-life was $4.20{\pm}0.73\;hrs$ and $4.95{\pm}2.25\;hrs$, respectively. They were not different significantly(p > 0.05). Cmax after administration of 600mg of RFP was $13.61{\pm}3.43mcg/mL$ which was significantly higher than Cmax($10.12{\pm}2.25mcg/mL$) by 450mg of RFP(p < 0.01). CLtot of RFP at 450mg dose was $7.60{\pm}1.34mL/hr$. At 600mg dose it was $7.05{\pm}1.20mL/hr$ which was significantly lower(p < 0.05) than by 450mg dose. While CLr was not different among two groups, CLnr at 600 mg dose($5.36{\pm}1.20mL/hr$) was significantly lower than CLnr($6.19{\pm}1.56mL/hr$) by 450mg dose(p < 0.01). Conclusion : Considering Cmax and CLnr, 300mg, of INH and 450mg RFP might be sufficient doses for the treatment of tuberculosis in Koreans. But it remains to be clarified in the patients with tuberculosis.

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The Effects of Online Service Quality on Consumer Satisfaction and Loyalty Intention -About Booking and Issuing Air Tickets on Website- (온라인 서비스 품질이 고객만족 및 충성의도에 미치는 영향 -항공권 예약.발권 웹사이트를 중심으로-)

  • Park, Jong-Gee;Ko, Do-Eun;Lee, Seung-Chang
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.15 no.3
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    • pp.71-110
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    • 2010
  • 1. Introduction Today Internet is recognized as an important way for the transaction of products and services. According to the data surveyed by the National Statistical Office, the on-line transaction in 2007 for a year, 15.7656 trillion, shows a 17.1%(2.3060 trillion won) increase over last year, of these, the amount of B2C has been increased 12.0%(10.2258 trillion won). Like this, because the entry barrier of on-line market of Korea is low, many retailers could easily enter into the market. So the bigger its scale is, but on the other hand, the tougher its competition is. Particularly due to the Internet and innovation of IT, the existing market has been changed into the perfect competitive market(Srinivasan, Rolph & Kishore, 2002). In the early years of on-line business, they think that the main reason for success is a moderate price, they are awakened to its importance of on-line service quality with tough competition. If it's not sure whether customers can be provided with what they want, they can use the Web sites, perhaps they can trust their products that had been already bought or not, they have a doubt its viability(Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhotra, 2005). Customers can directly reserve and issue their air tickets irrespective of place and time at the Web sites of travel agencies or airlines, but its empirical studies about these Web sites for reserving and issuing air tickets are insufficient. Therefore this study goes on for following specific objects. First object is to measure service quality and service recovery of Web sites for reserving and issuing air tickets. Second is to look into whether above on-line service quality and on-line service recovery have an impact on overall service quality. Third is to seek for the relation with overall service quality and customer satisfaction, then this customer satisfaction and loyalty intention. 2. Theoretical Background 2.1 On-line Service Quality Barnes & Vidgen(2000; 2001a; 2001b; 2002) had invented the tool to measure Web sites' quality four times(called WebQual). The WebQual 1.0, Step one invented a measuring item for information quality based on QFD, and this had been verified by students of UK business school. The Web Qual 2.0, Step two invented for interaction quality, and had been judged by customers of on-line bookshop. The WebQual 3.0, Step three invented by consolidating the WebQual 1.0 for information quality and the WebQual2.0 for interactionquality. It includes 3-quality-dimension, information quality, interaction quality, site design, and had been assessed and confirmed by auction sites(e-bay, Amazon, QXL). Furtheron, through the former empirical studies, the authors changed sites quality into usability by judging that usability is a concept how customers interact with or perceive Web sites and It is used widely for accessing Web sites. By this process, WebQual 4.0 was invented, and is consist of 3-quality-dimension; information quality, interaction quality, usability, 22 items. However, because WebQual 4.0 is focusing on technical part, it's usable at the Website's design part, on the other hand, it's not usable at the Web site's pleasant experience part. Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhorta(2002; 2005) had invented the measure for measuring on-line service quality in 2002 and 2005. The study in 2002 divided on-line service quality into 5 dimensions. But these were not well-organized, so there needed to be studied again totally. So Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhorta(2005) re-worked out the study about on-line service quality measure base on 2002's study and invented E-S-QUAL. After they invented preliminary measure for on-line service quality, they made up a question for customers who had purchased at amazon.com and walmart.com and reassessed this measure. And they perfected an invention of E-S-QUAL consists of 4 dimensions, 22 items of efficiency, system availability, fulfillment, privacy. Efficiency measures assess to sites and usability and others, system availability measures accurate technical function of sites and others, fulfillment measures promptness of delivering products and sufficient goods and others and privacy measures the degree of protection of data about their customers and so on. 2.2 Service Recovery Service industries tend to minimize the losses by coping with service failure promptly. This responses of service providers to service failure mean service recovery(Kelly & Davis, 1994). Bitner(1990) went on his study from customers' view about service providers' behavior for customers to recognize their satisfaction/dissatisfaction at service point. According to them, to manage service failure successfully, exact recognition of service problem, an apology, sufficient description about service failure and some tangible compensation are important. Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhorta(2005) approached the service recovery from how to measure, rather than how to manage, and moved to on-line market not to off-line, then invented E-RecS-QUAL which is a measuring tool about on-line service recovery. 2.3 Customer Satisfaction The definition of customer satisfaction can be divided into two points of view. First, they approached customer satisfaction from outcome of comsumer. Howard & Sheth(1969) defined satisfaction as 'a cognitive condition feeling being rewarded properly or improperly for their sacrifice.' and Westbrook & Reilly(1983) also defined customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction as 'a psychological reaction to the behavior pattern of shopping and purchasing, the display condition of retail store, outcome of purchased goods and service as well as whole market.' Second, they approached customer satisfaction from process. Engel & Blackwell(1982) defined satisfaction as 'an assessment of a consistency in chosen alternative proposal and their belief they had with them.' Tse & Wilton(1988) defined customer satisfaction as 'a customers' reaction to discordance between advance expectation and ex post facto outcome.' That is, this point of view that customer satisfaction is process is the important factor that comparing and assessing process what they expect and outcome of consumer. Unlike outcome-oriented approach, process-oriented approach has many advantages. As process-oriented approach deals with customers' whole expenditure experience, it checks up main process by measuring one by one each factor which is essential role at each step. And this approach enables us to check perceptual/psychological process formed customer satisfaction. Because of these advantages, now many studies are adopting this process-oriented approach(Yi, 1995). 2.4 Loyalty Intention Loyalty has been studied by dividing into behavioral approaches, attitudinal approaches and complex approaches(Dekimpe et al., 1997). In the early years of study, they defined loyalty focusing on behavioral concept, behavioral approaches regard customer loyalty as "a tendency to purchase periodically within a certain period of time at specific retail store." But the loyalty of behavioral approaches focuses on only outcome of customer behavior, so there are someone to point the limits that customers' decision-making situation or process were neglected(Enis & Paul, 1970; Raj, 1982; Lee, 2002). So the attitudinal approaches were suggested. The attitudinal approaches consider loyalty contains all the cognitive, emotional, voluntary factors(Oliver, 1997), define the customer loyalty as "friendly behaviors for specific retail stores." However these attitudinal approaches can explain that how the customer loyalty form and change, but cannot say positively whether it is moved to real purchasing in the future or not. This is a kind of shortcoming(Oh, 1995). 3. Research Design 3.1 Research Model Based on the objects of this study, the research model derived is

    . 3.2 Hypotheses 3.2.1 The Hypothesis of On-line Service Quality and Overall Service Quality The relation between on-line service quality and overall service quality I-1. Efficiency of on-line service quality may have a significant effect on overall service quality. I-2. System availability of on-line service quality may have a significant effect on overall service quality. I-3. Fulfillment of on-line service quality may have a significant effect on overall service quality. I-4. Privacy of on-line service quality may have a significant effect on overall service quality. 3.2.2 The Hypothesis of On-line Service Recovery and Overall Service Quality The relation between on-line service recovery and overall service quality II-1. Responsiveness of on-line service recovery may have a significant effect on overall service quality. II-2. Compensation of on-line service recovery may have a significant effect on overall service quality. II-3. Contact of on-line service recovery may have a significant effect on overall service quality. 3.2.3 The Hypothesis of Overall Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction The relation between overall service quality and customer satisfaction III-1. Overall service quality may have a significant effect on customer satisfaction. 3.2.4 The Hypothesis of Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Intention The relation between customer satisfaction and loyalty intention IV-1. Customer satisfaction may have a significant effect on loyalty intention. 3.2.5 The Hypothesis of a Mediation Variable Wolfinbarger & Gilly(2003) and Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Malhotra(2005) had made clear that each dimension of service quality has a significant effect on overall service quality. Add to this, the authors analyzed empirically that each dimension of on-line service quality has a positive effect on customer satisfaction. With that viewpoint, this study would examine if overall service quality mediates between on-line service quality and each dimension of customer satisfaction, keeping on looking into the relation between on-line service quality and overall service quality, overall service quality and customer satisfaction. And as this study understands that each dimension of on-line service recovery also has an effect on overall service quality, this would examine if overall service quality also mediates between on-line service recovery and each dimension of customer satisfaction. Therefore these hypotheses followed are set up to examine if overall service quality plays its role as the mediation variable. The relation between on-line service quality and customer satisfaction V-1. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of efficiency of on-line service quality on customer satisfaction. V-2. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of system availability of on-line service quality on customer satisfaction. V-3. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of fulfillment of on-line service quality on customer satisfaction. V-4. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of privacy of on-line service quality on customer satisfaction. The relation between on-line service recovery and customer satisfaction VI-1. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of responsiveness of on-line service recovery on customer satisfaction. VI-2. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of compensation of on-line service recovery on customer satisfaction. VI-3. Overall service quality may mediate the effects of contact of on-line service recovery on customer satisfaction. 4. Empirical Analysis 4.1 Research design and the characters of data This empirical study aimed at customers who ever purchased air ticket at the Web sites for reservation and issue. Total 430 questionnaires were distributed, and 400 were collected. After surveying with the final questionnaire, the frequency test was performed about variables of sex, age which is demographic factors for analyzing general characters of sample data. Sex of data is consist of 146 of male(42.7%) and 196 of female(57.3%), so portion of female is a little higher. Age is composed of 11 of 10s(3.2%), 199 of 20s(58.2%), 105 of 30s(30.7%), 22 of 40s(6.4%), 5 of 50s(1.5%). The reason that portions of 20s and 30s are higher can be supposed that they use the Internet frequently and purchase air ticket directly. 4.2 Assessment of measuring scales This study used the internal consistency analysis to measure reliability, and then used the Cronbach'$\alpha$ to assess this. As a result of reliability test, Cronbach'$\alpha$ value of every component shows more than 0.6, it is found that reliance of the measured variables are ensured. After reliability test, the explorative factor analysis was performed. the factor sampling was performed by the Principal Component Analysis(PCA), the factor rotation was performed by the Varimax which is good for verifying mutual independence between factors. By the result of the initial factor analysis, items blocking construct validity were removed, and the result of the final factor analysis performed for verifying construct validity is followed above. 4.3 Hypothesis Testing 4.3.1 Hypothesis Testing by the Regression Analysis(SPSS) 4.3.2 Analysis of Mediation Effect To verify mediation effect of overall service quality of and , this study used the phased analysis method proposed by Baron & Kenny(1986) generally used. As shows, Step 1 and Step 2 are significant, and mediation variable has a significant effect on dependent variables and so does independent variables at Step 3, too. And there needs to prove the partial mediation effect, independent variable's estimate ability at Step 3(Standardized coefficient $\beta$eta : efficiency=.164, system availability=.074, fulfillment=.108, privacy=.107) is smaller than its estimate ability at Step 2(Standardized coefficient $\beta$eta : efficiency=.409, system availability=.227, fulfillment=.386, privacy=.237), so it was proved that overall service quality played a role as the partial mediation between on-line service quality and satisfaction. As
    shows, Step 1 and Step 2 are significant, and mediation variable has a significant effect on dependent variables and so does independent variables at Step 3, too. And there needs to prove the partial mediation effect, independent variable's estimate ability at Step 3(Standardized coefficient $\beta$eta : responsiveness=.164, compensation=.117, contact=.113) is smaller than its estimate ability at Step 2(Standardized coefficient $\beta$eta : responsiveness=.409, compensation=.386, contact=.237), so it was proved that overall service quality played a role as the partial mediation between on-line service recovery and satisfaction. Verified results on the basis of empirical analysis are followed. First, as the result of , it shows that all were chosen, so on-line service quality has a positive effect on overall service quality. Especially fulfillment of overall service quality has the most effect, and then efficiency, system availability, privacy in order. Second, as the result of , it shows that all were chosen, so on-line service recovery has a positive effect on overall service quality. Especially responsiveness of overall service quality has the most effect, and then contact, compensation in order. Third, as the result of and , it shows that and all were chosen, so overall service quality has a positive effect on customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction has a positive effect on loyalty intention. Fourth, as the result of and , it shows that and all were chosen, so overall service quality plays a role as the partial mediation between on-line service quality and customer satisfaction, on-line service recovery and customer satisfaction. 5. Conclusion This study measured and analyzed service quality and service recovery of the Web sites that customers made a reservation and issued their air tickets, and by improving customer satisfaction through the result, this study put its final goal to grope how to keep loyalty customers. On the basis of the result of empirical analysis, suggestion points of this study are followed. First, this study regarded E-S-QUAL that measures on-line service quality and E-RecS-QUAL that measures on-line service recovery as variables, so it overcame the limit of existing studies that used modified SERVQUAL to measure service quality of the Web sites. Second, it shows that fulfillment and efficiency of on-line service quality have the most significant effect on overall service quality. Therefore the Web sites of reserving and issuing air tickets should try harder to elevate efficiency and fulfillment. Third, privacy of on-line service quality has the least significant effect on overall service quality, but this may be caused by un-assurance of customers whether the Web sites protect safely their confidential information or not. So they need to notify customers of this fact clearly. Fourth, there are many cases that customers don't recognize the importance of on-line service recovery, but if they would think that On-line service recovery has an effect on customer satisfaction and loyalty intention, as its importance is very significant they should prepare for that. Fifth, because overall service quality has a positive effect on customer satisfaction and loyalty intention, they should try harder to elevate service quality and service recovery of the Web sites of reserving and issuing air tickets to maximize customer satisfaction and to secure loyalty customers. Sixth, it is found that overall service quality plays a role as the partial mediation, but now there are rarely existing studies about this, so there need to be more studies about this.

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  • A Study for Improvement of Nursing Service Administration (병원 간호행정 개선을 위한 연구)

    • 박정호
      • Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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      • v.3 no.1
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      • pp.13-40
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      • 1972
    • Much has teed changed in the field of hospital administration in the It wake of the rapid development of sciences, techniques ana systematic hospital management. However, we still have a long way to go in organization, in the quality of hospital employees and hospital equipment and facilities, and in financial support in order to achieve proper hospital management. The above factors greatly effect the ability of hospitals to fulfill their obligation in patient care and nursing services. The purpose of this study is to determine the optimal methods of standardization and quality nursing so as to improve present nursing services through investigations and analyses of various problems concerning nursing administration. This study has been undertaken during the six month period from October 1971 to March 1972. The 41 comprehensive hospitals have been selected iron amongst the 139 in the whole country. These have been categorized according-to the specific purposes of their establishment, such as 7 university hospitals, 18 national or public hospitals, 12 religious hospitals and 4 enterprise ones. The following conclusions have been acquired thus far from information obtained through interviews with nursing directors who are in charge of the nursing administration in each hospital, and further investigations concerning the purposes of establishment, the organization, personnel arrangements, working conditions, practices of service, and budgets of the nursing service department. 1. The nursing administration along with its activities in this country has been uncritical1y adopted from that of the developed countries. It is necessary for us to re-establish a new medical and nursing system which is adequate for our social environments through continuous study and research. 2. The survey shows that the 7 university hospitals were chiefly concerned with education, medical care and research; the 18 national or public hospitals with medical care, public health and charity work; the 2 religious hospitals with medical care, charity and missionary works; and the 4 enterprise hospitals with public health, medical care and charity works. In general, the main purposes of the hospitals were those of charity organizations in the pursuit of medical care, education and public benefits. 3. The survey shows that in general hospital facilities rate 64 per cent and medical care 60 per-cent against a 100 per cent optimum basis in accordance with the medical treatment law and approved criteria for training hospitals. In these respects, university hospitals have achieved the highest standards, followed by religious ones, enterprise ones, and national or public ones in that order. 4. The ages of nursing directors range from 30 to 50. The level of education achieved by most of the directors is that of graduation from a nursing technical high school and a three year nursing junior college; a very few have graduated from college or have taken graduate courses. 5. As for the career tenure of nurses in the hospitals: one-third of the nurses, or 38 per cent, have worked less than one year; those in the category of one year to two represent 24 pet cent. This means that a total of 62 per cent of the career nurses have been practicing their profession for less than two years. Career nurses with over 5 years experience number only 16 per cent: therefore the efficiency of nursing services has been rated very low. 6. As for the standard of education of the nurses: 62 per cent of them have taken a three year course of nursing in junior colleges, and 22 per cent in nursing technical high schools. College graduate nurses come up to only 15 per cent; and those with graduate course only 0.4 per cent. This indicates that most of the nurses are front nursing technical high schools and three year nursing junior colleges. Accordingly, it is advisable that nursing services be divided according to their functions, such as professional, technical nurses and nurse's aides. 7. The survey also shows that the purpose of nursing service administration in the hospitals has been regulated in writing in 74 per cent of the hospitals and not regulated in writing in 26 per cent of the hospitals. The general purposes of nursing are as follows: patient care, assistance in medical care and education. The main purpose of these nursing services is to establish proper operational and personnel management which focus on in-service education. 8. The nursing service departments belong to the medical departments in almost 60 per cent of the hospitals. Even though the nursing service department is formally separated, about 24 per cent of the hospitals regard it as a functional unit in the medical department. Only 5 per cent of the hospitals keep the department as a separate one. To the contrary, approximately 12 per cent of the hospitals have not established a nursing service department at all but surbodinate it to the other department. In this respect, it is required that a new hospital organization be made to acknowledge the independent function of the nursing department. In 76 per cent of the hospitals they have advisory committees under the nursing department, such as a dormitory self·regulating committee, an in-service education committee and a nursing procedure and policy committee. 9. Personnel arrangement and working conditions of nurses 1) The ratio of nurses to patients is as follows: In university hospitals, 1 to 2.9 for hospitalized patients and 1 to 4.0 for out-patients; in religious hospitals, 1 to 2.3 for hospitalized patients and 1 to 5.4 for out-patients. Grouped together this indicates that one nurse covers 2.2 hospitalized patients and 4.3 out-patients on a daily basis. The current medical treatment law stipulates that one nurse should care for 2.5 hospitalized patients or 30.0 out-patients. Therefore the statistics indicate that nursing services are being peformed with an insufficient number of nurses to cover out-patients. The current law concerns the minimum number of nurses and disregards the required number of nurses for operation rooms, recovery rooms, delivery rooms, new-born baby rooms, central supply rooms and emergency rooms. Accordingly, tile medical treatment law has been requested to be amended. 2) The ratio of doctors to nurses: In university hospitals, the ratio is 1 to 1.1; in national of public hospitals, 1 to 0.8; in religious hospitals 1 to 0.5; and in private hospitals 1 to 0.7. The average ratio is 1 to 0.8; generally the ideal ratio is 3 to 1. Since the number of doctors working in hospitals has been recently increasing, the nursing services have consequently teen overloaded, sacrificing the services to the patients. 3) The ratio of nurses to clerical staff is 1 to 0.4. However, the ideal ratio is 5 to 1, that is, 1 to 0.2. This means that clerical personnel far outnumber the nursing staff. 4) The ratio of nurses to nurse's-aides; The average 2.5 to 1 indicates that most of the nursing service are delegated to nurse's-aides owing to the shortage of registered nurses. This is the main cause of the deterioration in the quality of nursing services. It is a real problem in the guest for better nursing services that certain hospitals employ a disproportionate number of nurse's-aides in order to meet financial requirements. 5) As for the working conditions, most of hospitals employ a three-shift day with 8 hours of duty each. However, certain hospitals still use two shifts a day. 6) As for the working environment, most of the hospitals lack welfare and hygienic facilities. 7) The salary basis is the highest in the private university hospitals, with enterprise hospitals next and religious hospitals and national or public ones lowest. 8) Method of employment is made through paper screening, and further that the appointment of nurses is conditional upon the favorable opinion of the nursing directors. 9) The unemployment ratio for one year in 1971 averaged 29 per cent. The reasons for unemployment indicate that the highest is because of marriage up to 40 per cent, and next is because of overseas employment. This high unemployment ratio further causes the deterioration of efficiency in nursing services and supplementary activities. The hospital authorities concerned should take this matter into a jeep consideration in order to reduce unemployment. 10) The importance of in-service education is well recognized and established. 1% has been noted that on the-job nurses. training has been most active, with nursing directors taking charge of the orientation programs of newly employed nurses. However, it is most necessary that a comprehensive study be made of instructors, contents and methods of education with a separate section for in-service education. 10. Nursing services'activities 1) Division of services and job descriptions are urgently required. 81 per rent of the hospitals keep written regulations of services in accordance with nursing service manuals. 19 per cent of the hospitals do not keep written regulations. Most of hospitals delegate to the nursing directors or certain supervisors the power of stipulating service regulations. In 21 per cent of the total hospitals they have policy committees, standardization committees and advisory committees to proceed with the stipulation of regulations. 2) Approximately 81 per cent of the hospitals have service channels in which directors, supervisors, head nurses and staff nurses perform their appropriate services according to the service plans and make up the service reports. In approximately 19 per cent of the hospitals the staff perform their nursing services without utilizing the above channels. 3) In the performance of nursing services, a ward manual is considered the most important one to be utilized in about 32 percent of hospitals. 25 per cent of hospitals indicate they use a kardex; 17 per cent use ward-rounding, and others take advantage of work sheets or coordination with other departments through conferences. 4) In about 78 per cent of hospitals they have records which indicate the status of personnel, and in 22 per cent they have not. 5) It has been advised that morale among nurses may be increased, ensuring more efficient services, by their being able to exchange opinions and views with each other. 6) The satisfactory performance of nursing services rely on the following factors to the degree indicated: approximately 32 per cent to the systematic nursing activities and services; 27 per cent to the head nurses ability for nursing diagnosis; 22 per cent to an effective supervisory system; 16 per cent to the hospital facilities and proper supply, and 3 per cent to effective in·service education. This means that nurses, supervisors, head nurses and directors play the most important roles in the performance of nursing services. 11. About 87 per cent of the hospitals do not have separate budgets for their nursing departments, and only 13 per cent of the hospitals have separate budgets. It is recommended that the planning and execution of the nursing administration be delegated to the pertinent administrators in order to bring about improved proved performances and activities in nursing services.

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