Hanjoon Lee

The service quality dimensions and patient satisfaction relationships in South Korea: comparisons across gender, age and types of service

Purpose – Aims to investigate the structural relationships between out‐patient satisfaction and service quality dimensions under a South Korea health care system where patients have substantial freedom in choosing their medical service providers and to further study the causal relationship between service quality and satisfaction between out‐patient subgroups obtained on the basis of gender, age and types of services received.Design/methodology/approach – After assessing the construct validity of the service quality dimensions based on confirmatory factor analysis, a path model specifying the relationships between service quality dimensions and patient satisfaction was estimated. The next analysis was a series of multi‐sample analyses. A multigroup LISREL analysis was used to test the invariance of structural paths between service quality dimensions and patient satisfaction.Findings – Results indicated that the general causal relationship between service quality and patient satisfaction was well supported...

Methods of Measuring Health-Care Service Quality

Abstract Service quality is an elusive and abstract construct to measure, and extra effort is required to establish a valid measure. This study investigates the psychometric properties of three different measurements of health-care service quality as assessed by physicians. The multitrait-multimethod approach revealed that convergent validity was established for measures based on the single-item global rating method and multi-item rating method. On the other hand, almost no evidence of convergent validity was found for the measures based on the constant-sum rating method. Furthermore, discriminant validity for the seven health-care service quality dimensions measured by the three methods was not well established. The high levels of interdimensional correlations found suggested that the service quality dimensions may not be separable in a practical sense. The study suggested an ongoing effort is needed to develop a new service quality scale suitable to this unique service industry.

Motivated Search: Effects of Choice Accountability, Issue Involvement, and Prior Knowledge on Information Acquisition and Use

Abstract The present experiments explore the impact of two types of motives (choice accountability and issue involvement) and prior knowledge on information search and use. The experiments show that accountable subjects examined more information, employed multiple stage search criteria, and were likely to use a more compensatory choice strategy. In addition, a second experiment demonstrates differential effects for accountability and issue involvement: accountability increases search effort regardless of level of prior knowledge; whereas, issue involvement increases search effort only when prior knowledge is low. Accountability also increases the integrative complexity of the thoughts reported during the search process; whereas, issue involvement has only marginal and incremental effects on integrative complexity. Implications of the results for understanding the effects of different types of motives on information acquisition and use are discussed.

A taxonomy of couples based on influence strategies: The case of home purchase

Abstract This study develops a taxonomy of husband-wife dyads that is based on the couples influence strategy mix employed in resolving preference discrepancies in a home purchase situation. Four groups of couples are identified: compromising couples, wife-driven couples, dogmatic couples, and light influencing couples. A comparative analysis of these four groups shows that the type of influence strategy mix used by the couple is linked to some of their demographic characteristics, sex-role attitudes, and has ramifications with respect to the sharing of influence on the decision outcome.

Perceptions of marketing managers and researchers on factors affecting the evaluation of the quality of survey research

Among the various factors affecting the use of research information by managers, the quality of research has been regarded as one of the most important. Even though there is no consensus among research findings, studies done in the area of cognitive psychology have questioned whether people can evaluate statistical features affecting research quality. This study explores whether managers and researchers can properly evaluate various sampling factors in assessing the quality of survey research. Results of data analysis showed that managers and researchers could properly evaluate the role of sample size, sampling process and response rate in assessing survey quality. Furthermore, researchers had a more correct understanding regarding these sampling aspects than did managers.

Working Status and Leisure Activities of Married Women

Using nation-wide Canadian survey data, this study investigated the relationship between wife’s working status and participation in leisure activities. Participation frequencies for 45 leisure activities were examined. Significant results included that full-time working wives were the most active participants in social activities, part-time working wives in outdoor activities and sports games spectating, and housewives in domestically centered activities.

A study of parent–adolescent interaction: The impact of family communication patterns on adolescents’ influence strategies and parents’ response strategies

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of family communication patterns (FCP) on adolescents’ choice of influence strategies and parents’ choice of response strategies in situations of parent–child purchase decision disagreement. Design/methodology/approach This study uses family triadic (mother–father–child) survey data collected from 294 Korean families. The study develops classifications of adolescent influence strategies and parental response strategies in the initial stage and subsequently investigates the impact of FCP on the adolescent child’s use of influence strategies and each parent’s use of response strategies. The final stage of the study involved an exploratory investigation aimed at discovering the adolescent influence strategies and parental response strategies that are likely used in conjunction. Findings Results show an overall significant impact of FCP on both adolescents’ use of influence strategies and parents’ use of response strategies. They further reveal that Korean mothers tended to encounter their children’s persistent influence attempts with unyielding, strict response strategies. The types of response strategies used by Korean fathers were not linked to particular types of influence strategies used by their children but linked to their level of education attained and household income. Practical implications Findings of this study may help marketers formulate an appropriate marketing communication strategy that can be effective in resolving parent–child purchase disagreement. Originality/value With its focus on the adolescent influence strategies, parental response strategies, and FCP as a factor influencing the strategy choice by adolescents and parents, this study provides new insights into the parent–child interaction taking place in situations of parent–child disagreement about a purchase decision.

The Influence of Parental Style on Consumer Socialization in Mother-Adolescent Dyads and Father-Adolescent Dyads

This study investigates the manners in which parental style influences adolescent consumer socialization outcomes. Specifically, it proposes and tests two alternative conceptual frameworks that specify differing patterns of relationships among parental style, parental practices, and consumer socialization outcomes. The first conceptual framework (the full-effect model) mirrors the more traditional research direction regarding parental style and posits that parental style influences consumer socialization outcomes both directly and indirectly (through parental practices). In the second framework (the moderating-effect model) which is based on Darling and Steinberg’s (1993) theorization, parental style is posited as a moderator of the relationship between parental practices and consumer socialization outcomes. Analysis was conducted separately for mother-adolescent dyads and father-adolescent dyads and comparisons are made between the influences of maternal and paternal parental styles. Results show that the full-effect model gained better support from the data than the moderating-effect model. The full-effect model, in turn, performed better for mother-adolescent dyads than father-adolescent dyads.

Product Images Versus Consumers Characteristics: South Korean Study

Under the multi-attribute model, consumers’ preferences related to foreign products would be affected by their images of foreign made products. Over one thousand Korean consumers were questioned about their images of foreign electronic products as well as their consumer characteristics. Multiple regression results showed that consumers’ characteristics were better predictors of their foreign products preferences and actual ownership as compared to consumers’ product images.

Adolescents’ Power and Perceived Influence in Family Purchase Decisions

This study examines adolescent perceptions of power in five dimensions contained in the French-Raven typology and investigates their relationships with adolescents’ perceived influence in family purchase decisions. The results show that adolescents’ perceptions of legitimate power were significantly related to their perceived influence in family purchase decisions involving minor and major products for their own use and adolescents’ perceptions of expert power were significantly related to their perceived influence in those decisions involving minor and major products for their own use as well as major products for the family use.