Design opportunities in mutual support service for the elderly
Year: 2017
Editor: Anja Maier, Stanko Škec, Harrison Kim, Michael Kokkolaras, Josef Oehmen, Georges Fadel, Filippo Salustri, Mike Van der Loos
Author: Pahk, Yoonyee; Baek, Joon Sang
Series: ICED
Institution: UNIST Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Republic of (South Korea) Korea
Section: Product, Services and Systems Design
Page(s): 359-368
ISBN: 978-1-904670-91-9
ISSN: 2220-4342
Abstract
As concerns about economic crisis and lack of human resource by rapid ageing population are growing, new models of social support service are required. One of alternatives for enabling sustained well-being life for elderly people is mutual support model. While there are high levels of interest in the research and enthusiasm for the concepts of mutual support in service sector, there are also low levels of awareness, understanding about this specific type of support based on reciprocity. With lack of knowledge, there is an ambiguity in designing or improving mutual support service. In this research, we conducted case studies exploring influential factors on building relation in mutual support service to know about what needs to be considered in designing mutual support service. Even though this research has limitations as preliminary study, the findings from case studies in this research still could be helpful to those who want to design mutual support model for elderly people or improve the relational quality of their service model.
Keywords: Service design, Case study, Mutual support, Sustainability