Quality and Excellence of Government Services and its Effects to Customer Satisfaction - Research Proposal Example

Quality and Excellence of Government Services and its Effects to Customer Satisfaction Introduction Quality has grown to be the benchmark for achieving competitive advantage. Organizations emphasize on excellence and quality management as the channel for achieving excellence standards. Excellence is a state of excelling. In business terms, excellence is “the ability of firms to make profits while meeting the customers’ requirements” (Antonescu and Constantinescu, 1993 cited in Ionica et al. 2010 p. 127). Customer satisfaction is the first item on the quality management circle. Every organization has customers and unless it gathers information about what they require and what their expectations are, it cannot meet, let alone exceed the customers’ expectations. Many organizations seek to achieve quality management and excellence in a bid to gain a competitive advantage and increase performance and profitability. Similarly, governments have popularised their efforts in quality management and excellence in offering government services to their citizens. Quality management is believed to impact on the customer satisfaction and loyalty which validates any business. This study seeks to find out whether the same principles of quality management used by business are applicable in governments especially in offering public services. It seeks to find out how governments apply the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model, especially the leadership and customers, in the delivery of their services. Furthermore, the study will establish the role of leaders’ vision towards the practice in quality and excellence in services. The major question the study will seek to answer is whether good governance services have effects on customer, in this case public, satisfaction and loyalty. Finally, the research will compare the level of UAE quality in government services with that of UK and Malaysian governments. Problem statement In the age of global competition and economic liberalizations governments face the pressure of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of how they deliver public services (Al-Raisi and Al-Khouri 2010). Many studies have been done on quality management in different organizations with few focusing on the effectiveness of governments in employing quality management and excellence in delivering public services. There has been an emphasis in the government of UAE to change their focus from delivering services with an activity-based approach to taking the results/outcome-based approach. The UAE government strategy 2011-2013, which lays the foundation to achieving the UAE vision 2021, aims at putting the citizen first and becoming and accountable, lean, innovative and forward-looking government (“UAE government strategy 2011-2013”). This strategy has been in place for the last two years and it is important to examine how it has affected delivery of services and gaining customer (public) satisfaction and loyalty. In this globalization era, it is also important to know what the government has used as benchmarks to measure quality and what approaches they have applied in gaining quality management and excellence, specifically whether the government have applied the EFQM model in its efforts to quality management. Leadership and customer satisfaction is a key concept in any efforts to attain quality management and excellence and it is important to find out how government apply these important keys in delivering services. This is important because while in most instances quality management aims at increasing the competitive advantage and profitability of the organization, governments aim at satisfying their citizens and creating national cohesion and a sense of belonging. To measure the level of success the UAE government has gained in its quest to quality management and excellence, it is important to compare the government efforts and results to those from other governments. Therefore, this study will compare UAE government with those of UK and Malaysia. The findings from this study will help in informing the governments of UAE whether its efforts have paid off and whether they have impacted the customers (public). The comparison with other governments will help in establishing gaps and opportunities for improvements. Purpose of the study This study aims at investigating quality management and excellence in government services. It seeks to find out quality services initiatives and creativity done by the government to satisfy the customers and whether such efforts create customer satisfaction and loyalty as a result of good government services. In addition, it aims at evaluating the leaders’ visions towards best practices in quality and excellence in services through a comparison between UAE, UK and Malaysia in level of quality in government services. Specifically, the study will seek to achieve the following objectives: 1. To find out the king of quality service initiatives and creativity that the government of UAE to satisfy the customers 2. To determine what are the leaders’ visions towards best practice in quality and excellence in services 3. To evaluate how the government in UAE applies EFQM model especially leadership and customers in offering government services. 4. To establish whether good, quality government services lead to customer satisfaction and loyalty. 5. To compare how governments in UAE, UK and Malaysia apply quality management and excellence in offering government services Research Questions This study will seek to answer the following questions; 1. What are the quality initiatives and creativity the government of UAE has done in offering services to the public 2. Do those initiatives have effects on the public and which effects are those? 3. Do good government services result to customer (public) satisfaction and loyalty? 4. What are the leaders’ vision towards best practice in quality and excellence in services? 5. How does the UAE government compare with those of UK and Malaysia in its efforts of quality management and excellence in offering its services? Definition of terms Quality: Some definitions for quality include, ‘doing the right things right the first time round’ (Vora 2002), loss avoidance, customer delight and conformance to requirements. For the purposes of this study, quality is defines as value that creates customer delight and conforms to requirements. Quality management: Houghton (1994), says quality that the quality management is meeting the customers’ requirements 100% of the time. It is an attempt to rediscover the customer and the decisions that an organization makes at every level is based on the needs and desires of the customer. Quality in this case is defined as what customer wants (Noel 1995, cited in Foley 2000). Excellence: Ionica et al. (2010) describe excellence as “success in competition by obtaining high quality products and services, offered to customers in shortest time, in terms of efficiency. In view of organization and technology, excellence is seen as “a successful combination in using internal and external resources by the management, through systematic generating and maintaining the positive long-term synergies” (Ionica et al. (2010, p. 128). Theoretical Framework According to Foley (2002), there is evidence that quality management faces problems mostly due to its lack of theory. European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) EFQM helps organization define what sustainability means. It also provides approaches for its implementation and provides consistency of the conflicting responsibilities with different stakeholders. EFQM Excellence Model was reviewed in 2010. Some of the concepts that were emphasised include “creativity and innovation, sustainability, corporate governance, organizational agility, risk management, promoting products and services and supplier management” (Ionica et al, 2010). Literature Review According to Shafiq (2012), quality improvement is associated with productivity. The proponents of Total Quality Management (TQM) like Juran, Deming and Crosby promoted the thought that implementing quality lead to achievement of higher levels of quality and performance. Vora (2002) observes that when one is excited about employees, the employees will improve the processes and seek to delight customers which in turn lead to improved financial and operational performance. Reeves and Bedner (1994) admits that searching for a definition of quality has yielded inconsistent results. While some define it as value, others describe it as a conformance to specification and others as fitness for use. Vora (2002) says that every single organization should have its own definition of quality which is defined from the customer’s perspectives. Several researchers have advocated for quality management which takes the customer approach. Crosby (1972) took quality management to be a conformance of requirements whereby an organization discovers what the customer wants, train the employees on ways of accomplishing what the customer wants and ensuring that it is delivered on time. Similarly, Juran and Gryna (1980) supported quality management that is customer-based whereby an organization ensures that the customer can count on the product or service for its intended purpose (Foley 2000). Foley (2000) quotes Naumann and Shannon definition of quality as his personal favourite – “quality is when your customer comes back and your products don’t” (Naumann and Shannon 1992, p. 44). Vora (2002) says that, “business excellence can be achieved by understanding quality management principles and implementing quality management practices” (p.1151). USA Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award program (2002) uses seven criteria to recognize organizational excellence. Two among the criteria used are leadership and customer and market focus (Vora, 2002). Leadership is one of the most important key drivers of TQM. The quality management journey relies on the active involvement and commitment of leaders for its success. As Vora (2002) notes, the leaders have the roles overseeing the development of the vision, mission and values of an organization, review strategic and operational performance, recognize employees, handle key suppliers, avail the resources necessary for process improvement and ensure that there are no obstacles to improvement efforts. In addition, the leaders are expected to listen to customers and take action based on what the customer wants. This can be used through reviewing and using customer feedback. Different organization use different tools and techniques in order to attain quality management for example benchmarking, brainstorming, cost of quality, Pareto principle and the root-cause analysis or the fish bone (Vora 2002). Brainstorming gives people the chance to share ideas towards continuous improvement. To effectively benefit from brainstorming, it is good to gather people who have knowledge about an issue and provide them with a favourable environment to give their opinions without criticisms. Vora (2002) is of the view that combining brainstorming with the use of Affinity Diagram allows for key issues to get defined which gives to a starting point for a solution. The Pareto principle applies after brainstorming and an Affinity Diagram has been completed, whereby lists of the major and minor issues are identified. This follows a process of pairing down the list from a trivial many to a vital few. According to Vora (2002) “output of this analysis feeds into the Fish-Bone analysis to go from critical issues to possible solutions” (p. 1158). Among the key things that determine quality management success are; delighted customers, happy employees, simplified and improved internal processes, tangible operational enhancements and improved financial results. Like other governments in the world public sector organizations in the UAE face the challenge o improving effectiveness and efficiency in delivering public services. United Arab Emirates was formed in 1971 after it gained independence from UK. It comprises seven Emirates; Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Fujairah, Sharjah, Ras al-Khaimah, Ajman, and Umm al- Qaiwain. The capital city of the UAE is Abu Dhabi. According to Al-Raisi and Al-Khouri (2010) customer service has been brought at the centre of the value proposition equilibrium when it comes to government systems. There has been a paradigm shift from an activity based to a result or outcome-based focus in offering services. “This is guided by the governments vision to excel at customer service, promote innovation and creativity in public sector and make tangible difference to the society that it serves” (Al-Raisi and Al-Khouri 2010, p. 3). The government in the UAE have adopted TQM in order to improve performance and drive towards excellence. In its efforts to innovation and creativity, government departments have come up with interesting ways of delivering services. In Sharjah, as in all other emirates, the governments has the Fast Service Counters the immigration departments (and other departments) which ask for additional fees but they process people faster. In Dubai, the government has introduced and electronic toll collection system which aims at reducing congestion of traffic. It is called Salik Toll System. In addition, the police department in Abu Dhabi has introduced an Electronic Number Auction which facilitates auctioning of plate numbers to the general public (Al-Raisi and Al- Khouri, 2010). The study will seek to evaluate these three government initiatives in the light of quality management and excellence in offering government services to the public and the kind of effects it has on the public in terms of satisfaction and loyalty. Research methodology All research is done on the assumptions of what a valid research constitutes of and the methods that are more likely to facilitate the acquisition of the knowledge the research tries to acquire. Therefore, each research shows what its assumptions are. This study will employ the qualitative research methodology. Specifically, it will use the explorative descriptive research design to identify, analyse and describe the issues surrounding quality management in the UAE government. Explorative research offers a greater understanding to a situation. Rather than providing measurement that quantifies data, an exploratory research design provides a better understanding of a concept about a topic. Therefore this kind of approach would facilitate the aim of this study, as well as point out new knowledge, with all factors involved in play. Data collection method This study will collect data from three Emirates in the UAE; Abudabi, Dubai and Sharjah. In Abudhabi, the study will collect data from the Electronic Number Auction of the Abudhabi Police GHQ. In Dubai, Data will be collected from the Salik Toll System and in Sharjah, data will be collected from the fast service counters in the immigration department. Data will be collected through open-ended interviews and questionnaires, as well as review of government records on quality management in their practices especially customer feedbacks. Open-ended interview will collect data from leaders while questionnaires will be used on the public. The questionnaires will be administered through emails and returned using the same channel. Peer-reviewed literature will be used to provide data on UK and Malaysian governments and how they employ quality management and excellence in the delivery of government services. Sample This study will randomly pick 150 participants to respond to the questionnaires who use different government services in the three emirates of Abudabi, Dubai and Sharjah; 50 from each emirate. The participants from Sharjah must have used the fast service counters from the immigration department. Those from Dubai, must have used the Salik Toll System and those from Abudhabi should have directly benefited from the Electronic Number Auction from the police department. The study will also pick five leaders from each of the three departments and interview them. The leaders should be involved with quality management decisions in the organizations. Secondary data for comparison will be collected from peer-reviewed papers; five from UK and five from Malaysia. Ethical Issues Ethical measures will be employed in order for the research to be effective and to receive satisfactorily honest responses. Firstly all the respondents will be informed of the intentions of this research and how the information they provide will be used. Secondly, the researcher will ensure that data will be collected and stored anonymously and confidentially. Thirdly, the respondents will be informed that they are to participate in this research willingly without any form of incitement or coercion. Fourthly, as Bryman and Bell (2003) recommends, the data will be used only for the purposes of this research and will not be used to harm the respondents in any way. Finally, all the questionnaires will be destroyed after analysis. Data analysis Data obtained for this research will be analysed using the SPSS software. Measures like the correlation between certain factors as well as percentages for different factors will be compiled. The strategy for the analysis will include regression analysis, exploratory factor analysis, cluster analysis as well as cluster analysis. Conclusion and Recommendations Conclusions will be made based on the data analysis and how well the data answers the research questions. The researcher will offer recommendations based on the findings of the research. References Al-Raisi, A N and Al-Khouri, A M, 2010, Public value and ROI in the government sector, Advances in Management, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 1-6. Bryman, A and Bell, E., 2003, Business Research Methods, New York: Oxford University Press. Foley, K J, 2000, from quality management to organizational excellence: Don't throw the baby out with the bath water, Multinational Alliance for the Advancement of Organisational Excellence, Proceedings of the 1st International Research Conference on Organisational Excellence in the Third Millennium, Estes Park, CO. Ionica, A, Baleanu, V, Edelhauser, E. and Irimie, S., 2010, TQM and business excellence, Annals of the University of Petrosani, Economics, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 125-134. Reeves, C A and Bednar, D A, 1994, Defining Quality: Alternatives and Implications, Academy of Management Review, Vol.19, No.3, pp.419-445 Shafiq, M, 2012, Implementation of quality management systems and business excellence frameworks in Pakistani textile companies, Journal of Quality and Technology Management, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 11-23. UAE government Strategy 2011-2012, Available online at: http://www.uaecabinet.ae/English/Documents/PMO%20StrategyDocEngFinV2.pdf Vora, M K, 2002, Business excellence through quality management, Total Quality Management, Vol. 13, No. 8, pp. 1151-1159. Read More