This paper aims to review the evolution of a nation-wide Document Delivery Service in Korea over the past decade, focusing on how the service has been reconfigured to sustain and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to review the evolution of a nation-wide Document Delivery Service in Korea over the past decade, focusing on how the service has been reconfigured to sustain and fortify its position as a central channel for accessing information in the era of abundant digital resources.
Design/methodology/approach
The impacts of policy changes and technical improvements introduced incrementally over the years on the advance of the service are analyzed. The overall statistics over the period of 14 years are first presented to show the changing trends of the service, and the transaction log of the period of nine years is analyzed in detail to examine the impact of policy implementation and technical advancement on the quantity and quality of the service.
Findings
The transaction log analysis has uncovered the two main themes or directions of changes that have contributed to its robustness. First, changes introduced to streamline the service process both on the request end (unmediated requests) and on the delivery end (electronic delivery) have brought a sizable improvement on the speed of the service. Second, efforts to incorporate various resource-sharing activities into a unified service framework have led to an enhanced efficiency of the service as well as an increase in volume.
Originality/value
The empirical data demonstrating how managerial and technological changes have contributed to sustain the value of the service can be valuable benchmarking data for other services facing the same challenges.
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Qiang Guo, Dan Zhu, Mao-Tang (Brian) Lin, Fangxuan (Sam) Li, Peter B. Kim, De Du and Yan Shu
This research aims to use meta-analytical structural equation modeling to look into how hospitality employees use technology at work. It further investigates if the relationship…
Abstract
Purpose
This research aims to use meta-analytical structural equation modeling to look into how hospitality employees use technology at work. It further investigates if the relationship between the constructs of the technology acceptance model (TAM) is moderated by job level (supervisory versus non-supervisory) and different cultures (eastern versus western).
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 140 relationships from 30 empirical studies (N = 6,728) were used in this study’s data analysis in accordance with the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis.
Findings
The findings demonstrated that perceived usefulness had a greater influence on “user attitudes” and “acceptance intention” than perceived ease of use. This study also identified that the effect sizes of relationships among TAM constructs appeared to be greater for supervisory employees or in eastern cultures than for those in non-supervisory roles or western cultures.
Practical implications
The findings provide valuable information for practitioners to increase the adoption of employee technology. Practitioners need to focus on the identification of hospitality employee attitudes, social norms and perceived ease of use. Moreover, hospitality practitioners should be cautious when promoting the adoption of new technologies to employees, as those at different levels may respond differently.
Originality/value
This is the very first empirical investigation to meta-analyze the predictive power of the TAM in the context of hospitality staff technology adoption at the workplace. The findings also demonstrated differences in the predictive power of TAM constructs according to job level and cultural differences.
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Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American…
Abstract
Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.
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Nikita Dogra, Shuchita Bakshi and Anil Gupta
Technology has revolutionized the delivery of health-care services, with e-consultations becoming popular mode of service delivery, especially during the pandemic. Extant research…
Abstract
Purpose
Technology has revolutionized the delivery of health-care services, with e-consultations becoming popular mode of service delivery, especially during the pandemic. Extant research has examined the adoption of e-health consultation services, with little attention paid to examine the switching behavior. This study aims to identify factors affecting patients’ intentions to switch from conventional mode i.e. visiting hospitals/clinics to e-health consultations.
Design/methodology/approach
To understand this we use the push–pull–mooring (PPM) framework and integrate variables from status quo bias framework to the model. A cross-section research design was used, which rendered 413 valid responses which were obtained from the patients visiting a traditional hospital setup. The data was analyzed using partial least square – structural equation modeling using SmartPLS 3.0.
Findings
Findings suggest that push effects (inconvenience and perceived risk), pull effects (opportunity for alternatives and ubiquitous care), mooring effects (trust) and inertia significantly influence patients’ switching intentions from visiting hospitals/clinics to e-health consultations. Further, habit and switching cost positively influence inertia.
Practical implications
This study shall enable online health-care service providers and practitioners to understand patients’ intentions to switch to online health platforms and accordingly develop related marketing strategies, services and policies to encourage them to switch to the new offerings.
Originality/value
The current study enriches the previous research on e-health services by applying and extending PPM framework as the base model and showing its efficiency in predicting individuals switching intentions in the context of emerging economies. This study bridges the gap by focusing on switching behavior in context of health services.
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Korea and China have promoted a bilateral FTA since 2005 to upgrade their economic relationships. If the Korea-China FTA is concluded, then trade between the two countries is…
Abstract
Korea and China have promoted a bilateral FTA since 2005 to upgrade their economic relationships. If the Korea-China FTA is concluded, then trade between the two countries is likely to involve substantial changes both quantitatively and qualitatively. Offer lists submitted by Korea include steel, petrochemicals and machinery and those by China include some agricultural and marine products as well as nonferrous metals. Korea's interest in the Korea-China FTA has focused mainly on damage to the agricultural sector and there have been a lot of studies on the effects of the FTA on Korean agricultural sector. However, little is known about why China includes the nonferrous metals industry for early voluntary liberalization and its implications for the domestic economy. Nonferrous metals industry is one of China’s national strategic sectors and has a large supply excess in the country. This study targets the survey of Chinese nonferrous metals industry and trade structure and considers the problem of nonferrous metals in the context of negotiations for the Korea-China FTA and its implications for a higher-quality Korea-China FTA.
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This study addresses three research questions related to employee turnover: (1) does transformational leadership act as a pull-to-stay factor for employees? (2) How well does…
Abstract
Purpose
This study addresses three research questions related to employee turnover: (1) does transformational leadership act as a pull-to-stay factor for employees? (2) How well does turnover intention predict actual turnover behavior? (3) Does collective turnover moderate the link between turnover intentions and turnover behaviors?
Design/methodology/approach
Latent moderated structural equation modeling was employed with longitudinal and multi-source data from car dealerships located in the Seoul Capital Area, South Korea.
Findings
The results indicate a negative relationship between transformational leadership and turnover intentions and a positive relationship between turnover intentions and turnover behavior. Furthermore, the results provide empirical support for turnover contagion as a mechanism triggering turnover intentions into turnover behavior in the workplace.
Originality/value
This study provides a timely and novel contribution to the areas of leadership and employee turnover due to the underexplored research area of transformational leadership, the growing body of literature that questions the fixed assumption in employee turnover studies and the increasing interest in collective turnover. Importantly, existing research has examined the concept of collective turnover from a quantity perspective, aggregating individual turnover to group levels. This study provides a more nuanced, comprehensive evaluation of the quality of turnover, by considering the impact of performance contribution aspects of turnover at the business unit level.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore and examine the different word-of-mouth (WOM) acceptance and diffusion in social brand communities according to the level of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore and examine the different word-of-mouth (WOM) acceptance and diffusion in social brand communities according to the level of self-monitoring.
Design/methodology/approach
A web-based experimental design was used. The design consisted of three-mixed design of 2 (type of social networking sites) × 2 (type of online brand communities) × 2 (self-monitoring). ANOVA analysis was conducted.
Findings
Findings indicate that the differences in acceptance and diffusion of WOM according to online brand community type, and there was a significant three-way interaction effect. Specifically, people who have high propensity to self-monitor showed greater WOM acceptance in a consumer-driven community in either type of social networking sites while people who have low propensity to self-monitor showed greater WOM diffusion in a consumer-driven community only in interest-based social networking sites.
Practical implications
An important implication is that the social networking sites where brand communities can be placed should be chosen with the full consideration of different desires consumers have in terms of their level of self-monitoring to increase WOM effects.
Originality/value
This paper proposes the self-monitoring tendency as the key factor that predicts WOM effects with revealing the optimal combination of types of social networking sites and online brand communities that is most preferable for consumers with different self-monitoring level.
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Meehee Cho, Mark A. Bonn and Hyo Sun Jung
This study identified essential drivers of competitive productivity (CP) within the restaurant context at the meso-micro levels. Following evidence from previous research, this…
Abstract
Purpose
This study identified essential drivers of competitive productivity (CP) within the restaurant context at the meso-micro levels. Following evidence from previous research, this paper aims to discover if the relationships between the proposed drivers and restaurant competitive productivity (RCP) would differ based upon years in operations as a restaurant business (startup vs established).
Design/methodology/approach
Data analysis was conducted using responses obtained from US restaurant managers. Structural equation modeling assessed the hypothesized relationships. Additionally, multi-group analyses were conducted to test the proposed moderating roles of restaurant firm age within the proposed model.
Findings
Results documented that competitive personality, development and motivation were positively associated with employee competitive productivity (ECP) at the micro-level. Also, ECP, employee training, resource rareness, brand image and organizational culture were significantly and positively related to RCP at the meso-level. Additionally, the positive relationships between ECP and organizational culture, and RCP were greater in the established restaurant group compared with the startup group. However, the relationship between brand image and RCP was greater in the restaurant startup group than in the established group.
Practical implications
This study offered empirical evidence regarding a combination of meso and micro level drivers and their roles in improving RCP. Findings can be adopted to develop effective operational strategies to improve RCP.
Originality/value
Although RCP is critical and is proposed to be created by a comprehensive set of drivers considering organizational (meso-) and individual (micro-) situations, no literature has yet to adopt this comprehensive approach to assess RCP. This study focused on firm age and offered new knowledge about the need for developing specific strategies to improve RCP.
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Abstract
Purpose
Owing to the recent surge of interest in the age of the data deluge, the importance of researching data infrastructures is increasing. The open archival information system (OAIS) model has been widely adopted as a framework for creating and maintaining digital repositories. Considering that OAIS is a reference model that requires customization for actual practice, this paper aims to examine how the current practices in a data repository map to the OAIS environment and functional components.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted two focus-group sessions and one individual interview with eight employees at the world’s largest social science data repository, the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). By examining their current actions (activities regarding their work responsibilities) and IT practices, they studied the barriers and challenges of archiving and curating qualitative data at ICPSR.
Findings
The authors observed that the OAIS model is robust and reliable in actual service processes for data curation and data archives. In addition, a data repository’s workflow resembles digital archives or even digital libraries. On the other hand, they find that the cost of preventing disclosure risk and a lack of agreement on the standards of text data files are the most apparent obstacles for data curation professionals to handle qualitative data; the maturation of data metrics seems to be a promising solution to several challenges in social science data sharing.
Originality/value
The authors evaluated the gap between a research data repository’s current practices and the adoption of the OAIS model. They also identified answers to questions such as how current technological infrastructure in a leading data repository such as ICPSR supports their daily operations, what the ideal technologies in those data repositories would be and the associated challenges that accompany these ideal technologies. Most importantly, they helped to prioritize challenges and barriers from the data curator’s perspective and to contribute implications of data sharing and reuse in social sciences.