Quality Management System, Employee Satisfaction And

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ISSN: 2249-7196 IJMRR/June 2017/ Volume 7/Issue 6/Article No-7/681-686 Norreha Othman et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review

QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM, EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION AND EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE IN PRIVATE HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS: A PROPOSED FRAMEWORK Norreha Othman*1, SanySanuryMohdMokhtar1, MohdNorhasniMohdAsaad2 1School of Business Management, College of Business, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia. 2School of Technology Management and Logistics, College of Business, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia. ABSTRACT Effectiveness and importance of quality management system are hardly seen in private higher education institution in Malaysia, even-though many articles have mentioned the effectiveness of quality management system in public higher education institutions. The roles of academic staff in education services are undeniable. Their good performance will lead to higher education institutions’ performance as well as a country as a whole. Their performance will be affected by many factors such as motivational factors, government and organization’s policies, organizational factors and work-life balance. After reviewing numerous literatures, this study proposed a new framework on quality management system, employee satisfaction and employee performance of academic staff in private higher education institutions. Keywords: Quality management system, higher education institutions (HEIs), academic staff, employee satisfaction, employee performance. INTRODUCTION Education is very significant in every country. A developed country will consist of at least 70 percents nation of literate population. Education sector also is one of the key areas which may help in transforming Malaysia from moderate income country into high income country by 2020. Besides, due to economic growth, higher education has become the main contributor to a country’s economy, opportunity of employment, increasing of income and export income as well as the development of states and country as a whole. Higher education in Malaysia is being monitored by Ministry of Higher education (Yussof Ismali & Osman, 2011; Ismail & Abidin, 2010; MOHE, 2015). The government cannot transform the higher education alone. Its need the help of private higher education institutions (HEIs) to provide tertiary education to students with various courses and difference levels in professional, technical and management areas (MEB-HEIs, 2015; Yusof et al. 2013). In this 21st century most of the HEIs are facing almost the same challenges such as low productivity, increased costs, lack of financial resources, adoption of ineffective method to achieve its goals, low level of job satisfaction among employees as well

*Corresponding Author www.ijmrr.com 681 Norreha Othman et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review as a greater demand for enrolment, a diverse student body, the impact of globalization and expanding technological demands (Zabadi, 2013). Thus, to ensure that HEIs remain in good quality, effective and efficient, private HEIs need to follow and implement the guidelines produced by the Ministry (MOHE, 2015). Malaysia had shown that the enrolment of international student for public HEIs is 30 percents whereas for private HEIs is 70 percents. Besides, Malaysia is among the highest percentage of enrolments students for HEIs within Asian countries (MEB – HEIs 2015). The government will control and manage those private HEIs in term of quality such as teaching and learning process, academic staff, management system stakeholders and all related relationships among each other. In many countries the issue of quality management has been discussed on the agenda of HEIs for a certain period of time (Zabadi 2013; Arokiasamay & Nagappan, 2012). In related to those, academic staff or lecturers are the backbone and key success of educational institutions (Amazt & Idris, 2011). Lack of motivation among employees would lead to poor performance and high employee turnover which makes the attainment of objectives of organization impractical and too difficult to achieve (Hossain & Hossain, 2012; Latham, 2007). Motivational factors and employee satisfaction in academic staff play important role in HEIs (Osakwe, 2014). There are various quality management, tools or models which can be implemented in institutions to ensure of quality services provided being achieved. One of the main quality management being practiced in HEIs in Malaysia is quality management system (QMS) ISO 9001. QMS ISO 9001 is a group of rules and processes which are interconnected that are implemented within departments in an organization, and to ensure those processes are able to execute harmoniously and achieve a good quality and performance level of goods produced or services provided (Almeida, Muniz, & Costa, 2014; Nonyane, 2011; Alolayan, 2014). The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is one of the quality systems used to provide business with capability for their processes and requirements as well as management practices. ISO 9001 had brought a lot of advantages and benefits to an organization such as improved productivity, consistency in quality, employee involvement, staff morale and job satisfaction (S. Rajaram 2008). QMS ISO 9001 provides a quality framework to HEIs without changing the process of institution operates (Thonhauser, 2008). As institutions adopted QMS ISO 9001, it is expected that employee will contribute more and feel satisfied with their jobs and perform their best for the institutions. Employee satisfaction is described as how’s people perceive about the rewards and benefits they had received and it is an attitude of an individual employee (Tan & Waheed, 2011). Employee satisfaction is also refers to job satisfaction. Whereas, individual performance also known as employee performance or job performance (Mendes, Carlos, Lourenco, 2014). Employee performance is the combination of mental and physical of an individual to complete a task given (Abdul Halim et al, 2001). Samad (2009) concluded that all of the QMS aspects had a positive relationship with business performance and product quality. Even-though all those variables; quality management system, employee satisfaction, employee performance seems related in various studies empirically or conceptually, there is difficult to find articles empirically

Copyright © 2017 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved 682 Norreha Othman et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review which study quality management system, employee satisfaction and employee performance in private HEIs in Malaysia. LITERATURE REVIEW Numerous articles agreed with that acquiring of QMS ISO 9001 had improved the performance of the SMEs’ organizations in Iran (Bayati & Taghavi, 2007). Also, Levine and Toffel (2010) suggested that implementing of QMS had increased in sales and employment, increased in employee’s salary, no injuries of employees. Besides, QMS has proven to improve quality in production or manufacturing process (Mahony, Lahap, & Sillitoe 2011). For examples, there are studies in QMS ISO 9001 and organizational performance in automotive firms (Saad, 2012), and study of QMS ISO 9001 and business performance in construction firms (Said, 2005). In contrast, in service sector such as health sector, implementing of QMS will influence employee to improve their performance (Kimutai, Gachunga, Wanjau, & Gichuhi 2013). Studies carried out in Qatar for both public and private organization found that implementation of quality management system has no impact and does not improve the performance of the organizations’ workers in terms of producing products and providing services (El Tigani, 2011). It is mentioned by Munaf (2013) that in order to enhance academic staff performance the management need to look into their motivational factors and job satisfaction. Study by Brown et al. (1998) had found that QMS ISO 9001 had improved in quality awareness and product, however not in productivity, costs, wastage rates, staff motivation and staff retention. Quality management is expected to create an environment that will boost up job satisfaction of an employee and perform his best for the organization (Karia & Asaari 2006). Khairunneezam (2013) discovered that overall employee satisfaction mediate the relationship between antecedents of job satisfaction and intention to leave in the context of academic staff of public HEIs in Malaysia. Kaziliunas (2010) mentioned that no study has measured the performance of organization after the implementation of quality management system ISO 9001. Besides, Yaakub (2015) also agreed that implementing of quality management such as total quality management has improved employee performance in public HEIs. Job satisfaction had been as mediator in several studies such as Khairunneezam (2013), Ismail, Li and Mamat (2013), Gohari, Kamkar, Hosseinipour and Zohoori (2013), Deepa and Kuppusamy (2014), Sarwar and Abugre (2007), Wong and Li (1995), Khan, Ur-Rehman, Ur-Rehman, Safwan and Ahmad (2011) and Romle et. al., (2015). Mosadeghrad (2014) mentioned that implementation of quality management can improve employee satisfaction. Besides, Ngobeni and Bezuidenhout (2011) concluded that transparent and good human resources policies such as maintain and control of quality management, challenging work, reciprocal communication career goals, training and development are factors that will lead to employees satisfaction. Satisfied employees also will lead to higher productivity because of decreasing bad attitudes such as absenteeism and late comers (Gebremichael & Rao, 2013).

There is significant relationship between employees’ motivation and personality and employees’ performance (Wijono 1997). Sirohi and Shrivastava (2013) concluded that satisfaction has a relationship with commitment and performance of academic staff of private colleges in India. Besides, academic staff in HEIs who satisfied and performed well will deliver their educational service in quality mannered. And it is concluded that satisfaction level of work environment and commitment are related directly with job performance. In addition, job performance is affected by gender, level of experience and qualification (Yussof, Ismail & Osman, 2011). Osakwe (2014) revealed that motivation factors are significant with job satisfaction and there is no significant difference between male and female of academic staff motivation and job satisfaction. There is positive relationship between job satisfaction and job performance (Vroom, 1964). Furthermore, most of the scholars also view that they is a link between employee satisfaction and job performance (Mahony et al. 2011). DISCUSSION AND RESULTS Thus, from the literatures various scholars agree that quality management system have a positive relationship with organizational performance. However, it is hardly to find literature in regards to quality management system and employee performance in terms of services specifically in private higher education institutions. Furthermore, employee satisfaction had been decided to be used as a mediator in the proposed framework since it has met the conditions stressed by Baron and Kenny (1986). Motivational factors had been decided to be used as a moderator since there are various studies had been used motivational factors as a moderator. There are multiple factors of motivational factors of an employee performance in an organizational; this study will be focusing on motivational factors as suggested by Herzberg only. Motivated academic staffs who feeling satisfied will contribute positively to achieve HEIs goals and objectives (Osakwe 2014). Hence, the framework proposed as Table 1 is expected to be study empirically since unavailability of information and research. Table 1: Proposed Framework

IV Mediator DV

ES EP

QMS

Motivational

factors

Note: QMS - quality management system ES - employee satisfaction EP - employee performance Motivational factors – Herzberg’ theory

CONCLUSION Thus, from the review of literatures this study intends to explore the effectiveness of quality management system which will boost up employee motivation and employee satisfaction as well as employee performance. The proposed model in this study will give a whole idea and understanding on the relationship of quality management system, employee motivation, employee satisfaction and employee performance. And it can be tested empirically to support the proposed model. REFERENCES [1] Bayati, Taghavi A. The impacts of acquiring ISO 9000 certification on the performance of SMEs in Tehran, The TQM Magazine 2007; 19(2): 140-149. [2] Almeida D, Muniz JJ, Costa AFB. Critical factors to quality management system implementation : relevant literature review 1992-2012. In Industrial and Systems Engineering Research Conference 2014; 1–7. [3] Alolayan S. An Assessment of quality management system indicators for the ISO 9001 : 2008 certified work organizations in Kuwait, 2014. [4] Arokiasamay ARA, Nagappan K. An Analysis of Globalization and Higher Education in Malaysia. Business Intelligence Journal 2012; 5(1): 141-150. [5] El Tigani OAA. The impact of the implementation of the ISO 9000 Quality Management System upon the perception of the performance of the organization’s workers. Global Journal of Management and Business Research 2011; 11(8): 11-21. [6] Hossain MK, Hossain A. Factors affecting employee’s motivation in the fast food industry: The case of KFC UK Ltd. Research Journal of Economics, Business and ICT 2012; 5: 21-30. [7] Karia N, Asaari MHA. The effects of Total Quality Management practices on employees’ work-related attitudes. The TQM magazine 2006; 18(1): 30-34. [8] Kasperaviciute R. Application of ISO 9001 and EFQM Excellence Model within higher education institutions: practical experiences analysis. Social Transformation in Contemporary Society 2013; (1): 81-92. [9] Kaziliunas A. Problems while implementing Quality Management Systems for a sustainable development of organizations. EkonomikaIrVadyba: AktualijosIrPerspektyvos 2012; 4(28): 90-98. [10] Levine DI, Toffel MW. Quality management and job quality : How the ISO 9001 standard for quality management systems affects employees and employers, 2010. [11] MEB-HEIs (Malaysia Education Blueprint – Higher Education Institution 2015-2025), MOHE, 2015. [12] MOHE (Ministry of Higher Education), 2015. Retrieved from mohe.edu.my [13] Nonyane LP. A critical evaluation of the quality management system at the medical company in the North West, 2011.

[14] Osakwe RN. Factors affecting motivation and job satisfaction of academic staff of universities in South-South Geopolitical Zone of Nigeria. International Education Studies 2014; 7(7): 43. [15] Rajaram S, Siva Kumar M. Total Quality Management, 10th edition, New Delhi, India: Himal Impressions, 2008. [16] Samad S. Assessing the differential effects of quality management system on product quality and business performance. International Review of Business Research Papers 2009; 5(2): 283–292. [17] Thonhauser T. Factors that relate to the time to ISO 9000 registration in education in institutions. Schools Effectiveness and School Improvement 2008; 19: 333-349.