Tài liệu A systemic design for mass customized service delivery in higher education institutions

A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS 逢 甲 大 學 商 學 博 士 學 位 學 程 博士論文 高等教育機構大量客製服務傳送的系統化 設計 A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS 指 導 教 授 ：頼文祥 博士 研 究 生 ： Pham Thuy Duong 中 華 民 國 一 百 零 八 年 九 月 1 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The objective of this chapter is to present an overview of the present research. In order to accomplish this objective, this chapter is organized as follows: Section 1.1 presents the background of the research; Section 1.2 hightlights the significance of the study and definitions of key terms; Section 1.3 presents the major contributions of the present research to the fields of service mass customizaion and systems thinking applications; Section 1.4 describes research questions and research gap; Section 1.5 describes the objectives of the study and motivation; Section 1.6 proposes the theoretical framework; Section 1.7 provides a brief description of the research approach to the dissertation; Finally, Section 1.8. presents the delimitations of the study. 2 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS 1.1. Research background The World Declaration on Higher Education highlights the need to develop student services worldwide. It is imperative that higher education institutions (HEIs) provide services and programs that promote the quality of student life, to meet its needs and to improve learning and success achievements (Ludeman, 2002). The declaration is considered as the vision for student service operationalization. The major functions of student services and administrations in any universities include admission, academic registry, fees and finance affairs, international affairs, central examinations, graduations, timetabling, customer services for students, and student information system. Most of HEIs have identified the mission to provide the highest quality service to students due to student centricity approach. To implement this mission in reality however is a challenge for universities where there is an increasing heterogeneity in student demands while the paradox of efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery is always a dilema. In addition in the context of muticultural academic diversity, stimulated by globalization, there is a continual growth and diversification (Audin et al., 2003) in students’ demand especially in the context of strong competitions among universities. Several universities are looking for innovative ways to gain competitive advantage over their rivals, as well as to create value for 3 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS students in terms of student experience and through administrative efficiency (Dunnion and O’Donovan, 2014). Derived from viewing students as customers with continual diversification, there is a need for service staff at universities to provide mass-customised services (MCS) and this cannot be achieved unless there is a departure from a mass-production approach (Pine, 1993). The mass-production approach is based on standardising work procedures in which university staff members need to handle students’ demands in a repetitive manner, with detailed descriptions of service procedures, dialogue scripts, and after-contact work standards (Jaaron and Backhouse, 2013). This standardisation of procedures, however, is perceived to increase the mechanisation of the student-employee contact and harm students’ satisfaction with HEIs (Dunnion and O’Donovan, 2014). Therefore, the transfer from product-oriented economies to service-oriented ones, as witnessed in the most developed countries, has fuelled attempts in the HEIs to migrate from mass production models to Mass Customisation (MC) ones (Tien, 2011). When moving to an MC approach, one of the major challenges to confront HEIs is their ability to develop an MC service strategy, which is dependent on the choice of a proper service operations design (Da Silveira et al., 2001; Moon et al., 2011). In addition, when considering 4 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS how to design services from which customers can ‘pull value’– i.e. get what they want – Seddon (2008) believes that it is critical to shift from thinking of the system as one that pulls physical things together to manufacture at the rate of customer demand to thinking of the system as one that offers services together in response to the variety of customer demands, called ‘systems-thinking’. Developed since 2003 by Seddon, the terminology of ‘systems-thinking’ used throughout this paper to describe the service delivery system has emerged from the translation to the service sector of lean manufacturing principles (Seddon and Brand, 2008), incorporating Deming’s intervention theory (1982) together with Peter Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology (1981). According to Jaaron and Backhouse (2013), the employment of the systems-thinking approach for service operations design has a significant impact on the service-offering organisations in terms of providing a real-time mass-customised service. Although MC of student services is essential and beneficial to universities as a sharp weapon in the competition, as analysed above, little attention has been paid by previous empirical studies to models and tools that can operationalise MC in universities. Therefore, there is a need to conduct this research: “A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN 5 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS” to investigate the impact of applying the systems-thinking approach on universities’ abilities to provide mass-customised services for their students. 1.2. Significance of the study Firstly, the study introduced universities to an innovative model choice of systems thinking to implement service operations and delivery effectively & efficiently, which could seamlessly response to the continuous changes and diversification in student/ customer needs. Secondly, due to proper model choice of service delivery design it could create value for students in terms of student experience and administrative efficiency and consequently contribute to enhance universities’ competitive advantage over their rivals. Further, the most striking significance is to make success for both the students and the institution. + For Institutions: if an institution follows the systems-thinking principles to deliver mass-customized services for students’ continuously-changed demands, it tends to become a learning organization, which could gain unique competitive edge. As a result, the enrollment rate of both domestic and international students would increase, the service staff capability would be enhanced, and the International Outlook criteria in university ranking would be satisfied. 6 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS + For Top Management Team and operations manager: it helps Top Management Team and operations managers realize the benefits of transfering from the top-down hierarchy perspective of Command and control thinking to outside-in system one of systems-thinking, which makes a great innovation in operations management of service departments/ institutions. + For students: if students’ service demand could be met at the first contact, the value creation would be optimized and get student satisfaction. As a result, it would contribute to the quality of students learning experience and their academic success. Overall, there are several managerial implications for universities adopting the model of systems-thinking to implement their strategies of MC in order to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. It helps university administrators accordingly to know what to do and where to start in their endeavor to design an MC service-delivery system based on systems-thinking. Definition of the key terms Student services are services related to student affairs which are delivered to meet demands of diverse student population as individuals and as subgroups (Ludeman, 2002) such as admission, academic registry, 7 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS finance affairs, international affairs, customer services, testing, graduation, etc. Mass customization (MC) is the process of providing a one-of-a-kind product without sacrificing the benefits of scale economies (Davis, 1987) Mass customized services (MCS) is the use of flexible processes and organizational structures to produce varied and often individually customized products and services at the low-cost of a standardized, mass-production product (Hart, 1994; Pine, 1993) Systems-thinking principles (STP) is defined as redesigning service operations around and from customer demand instead of functional hierarchies (Seddon, 2003& 2008). Higher education institutions (HEIs) designates organizations providing higher, postsecondary, tertiary, and/or third-level education. 1.3. Contributions to the field To best of my knowledge, this research firstly contributes to the fulfillment of the gap of MC in service operations (Da Silveira et al, 2001). The value of this research secondly is the development of Systems theory applications in service operations through the design for mass customized service operationalization model for higher education 8 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS organizations. Another major contribution of this study is to be able to respond to the need of academic discussion of systems thinking approach due to its significant impact on practice (Jackson, 2009). Further, one of the most significant contribution of this research is to create a measurement scale of the relationship between Systems-thinking design and mass – customised service capabilty of a higher education institution for student service operations, shortly termed as ST-MCS. Last but not least, this research provided academic researchers with empirical evidences from Europe and Asia to support the operational model of MCS using systems- thinking approach. 1.4. Research questions and research gaps O’Donovan (2010) argued that the prevailing ‘command and control’ (Seddon 2003) management logic, which can be found at work throughout both the public and private sectors, is the primary cause of inferior and expensive service. Based on their findings, they suggested an alternative way using Principles of Systems-thinking (Jackson et al. 2008), whilst comparing and contrasting this with the flawed thinking which currently prevails. In addition, Jaaron and Backhouse (2013) showed that the systems-thinking principles for service operations design have a great influence on the ability of service-offering organizations to deliver a 9 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS real-time MCS. Although the importance of MCS is significant as analyzed above, few studies were previously conducted and there still need more empirical studies to prove the possibility of operationalizing MCS at HEIs following systems-thinking design. Therefore, the first research questions was formed as follows: 1. How does the systems-thinking principles impact on universities’ abilities to provide MCS for their students in the UK? Although a few studies in the UK indicated that the systems-thinking approach has significantly enhanced the universities’ ability to design MCS, which are more able to absorb diversified student demand, this exposes a gap that we need to use different HEIs in different cultures and sittings to ensure that these constructs do not confound results. Hence, it is really meaningful if we could find a case from Asia to validate correlates of systems-thinking principles and MCS for students. As a consequence, the following basic research question has been still unanswered. 2. How are the correlates of systems thinking principles and mass customized service delivery for students at Asian universities? 10 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS 1.5. Objectives of the study and motivation This study was conducted to investigate the impact of systems-thinking principles (Seddon, 2003) on operationalizing the ‘mass customization’ capability of student services at HEIs in both Europe and Asia. This study was divided into the two following stages: Stage 1: based on a case study conducted in one of the UK’s leading universities in the east midlands region of England, Stage 1 of this research empirically explored the determinants of mass customization as a result of systems-thinking in service delivery in the HEIs. A conceptual framework must be created for universities to follow in this regard. The conceptual framework would help university administrators, accordingly, to know what to do and where to start in their endeavour to design an MC service-delivery system based on systems-thinking. Stage 2: based on the conceptual model designed for MC in higher education from Stage 1, Stage 2 of this research aimed to validate the correlates of systems thinking principles and mass customized service delivery for students at Asian universities, particularly in two dynamic universities in Taiwan. 11 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS 1.6. Theoretical Framework Anchored on the present literature about mass customization and systems-thinking principles, a conceptual framework was proposed to illustrate the different levels of the principles of systems-thinking impacting MCS capability including human resource level (i.e. micro determinants), operational level (i.e. meso determinants), and functional level (i.e. macro determinants). The relationships between these three organisational levels were represented in Figure 1.1 as a the theoretical framework. 12 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS System design at Macro level (Functional Dimension) Systems-thinking Principles System design at Meso level (Operational Dimension) MCS capability System design at Micro level (Human Resource Dimension) Figure 1.1. Theoretical Framework 12 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS 1.7. Research approach A mixed research design (Tashakkori and Teddlie, 1998) with quantitative and qualitative data sources as shown in Figure 1.2 was relevant for achieving the objective of this research. In the first stage, a qualitative case study was conducted in one of the UK’s leading universities to empirically explore the systems-thinking relationship with enhancing the MC ability of admission and academic registry services in the HEIs through the realisation of the determinants of MC of students’ service operationalization in a systemic design. In the second stage, a quantitative methodology was employed in two of the most dynamic universities in Taiwan to validate the correlates of systems-thinking principles and mass customization capability of students’ service delivery through testing the constructed model from Stage 1. Finally, to mitigate the impacts of "Omitted Variable Bias" (OVB), a number of in-depth interviews with operations managers and service staffs, as sources of another qualitative study, were conducted in order to reconfirm the correlates of Systems-thinking and MCS capability. 13 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS  Literature Review  Case study  Semi-structured interviews  Focus group  Observation and archival document Qualitative research Explore the relationship between Systems thinking and MCS capability and the preliminary influential factors  Design questionairre for obtaining the key factors of MCS  Cronbach’s Alpha of the ten groups of factors  Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) to describe variability among the observed, correlated variables  Structural equation modeling (SEM) for hypotheses testing Quantitive research Determine the key determinants of MCS operationalization in HEIs as a result of systems-thinking principles in Taiwanese HEIs. In- depth interviews to mitigate the impacts of Omitted Variable Bias (OVB) Qualitative research Confirm the correlates of Systems-thinking and MCS capability Figure 1.2. Research Flow 14 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS 1.8. Delimitations of the study There are some boundaries in this dissertation which had been set before any investigation was carried out. First, for the purpose of the first stage of this research, only one leading UK’s university, which had already adopted a systems-thinking approach to manage their service operations, design, and delivery was targeted as indicated in the methodological section. Therefore, other universities were not included in this research due to the fact that they could not fulfill the mechanisms of the data collection strategy and research goals. For the second stage of this study in order to validate the correlates of the determinants of MCS in HEIs in Taiwan, the focus was made on the service institutions and departments services in the two Taiwanese university, which experienced in systems-thinking design for mass customized service (MSC) delivery through providing students with some kind of "One - Stop Service" or "One-door Service. Therefore, other service institutions/ departments were not included in this research due to the fact that they could not satisfy the requirements of the data collection and research objectives. As far as the methodological procedures such as data collection was concerned, the emphasis in the second stage was on quantitative-based research. The author used questionairre survey to collect data. The 15 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS questionairres administration modes such as face-to-face adminnistration, paper-and-pencil administration as well as online format link were mainly used in this research. In addtion, in order to investigate the relationship between systems-thinking principles and university’s capability of MCS operations emphasis was put on chief operating officer, academic registrars, service staff and officers of functional departments of the aforementioned university. Thus, other stakeholders of university such as faculties and students were excluded from both stages of this research. 16 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW The sections below present a selective review of the literature that hightlights the following points: Firstly, a brief introduction of Seddon’s Systems-thinking and its origin (2003) were presented. Secondly, a shift from Mass customization (MC) in manufacturing to Mass customized services (MCS) was presented, analysed and summarized. Thirdly, the most successful example of applying Systems thinking theory in business was taken and illustrated in the relation with MC model. Finally, the second chapter of the dissertation closed with summary of research gaps which paved for this study. 17 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS 2.1. Seddon’s Systems thinking (2003) and its origin Systems-thinking began life by defining itself in opposition to operational research (OR), known as soft systems-thinking vs hard systems approach (Checkland, 1978; Ackoff, 1979). Systems-thinking is normally viewed favourably as offering strengths complementary to traditional strands of the disciplines, and is strongly anchored on the theories provided by Checkland (1981) and Eden and Ackermann (2001). Following over 50 years of establishment and development, there are currently two systems approaches arising that have been little discussed in the academic world but are having a considerable impact on practice (Jackson, 2009), which are ‘Whole Systems Working’ by Hudson (2006) and Vanguard’s systems-thinking in the service industry by Seddon (2003). ‘Whole Systems Working’ has influenced the field of health and social care because it is described as ‘the process of involving all stakeholders of the domain in discussion about service change … rather than focusing only upon their own service’ (Hudson, 2006). Since being first developed by Professor John Seddon and his colleagues in the mid-1980s, Systems thinking (ST) has evolved as a way 18 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019) A SYSTEMIC DESIGN FOR MASS CUSTOMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS to study and redesign the work of service operations. Seddon’s published works (2003, 2008) described the ST in details, and there are already numerous documented examples of its application to organisations (ODPM, 2005; Middleton, 2010; Zokaei et al., 2011). It had many features in common with other forms of ST as developed by thinkers such as Checkland, Ackoff, Senge and Jackson (ODPM, 2005), which were listed below. • ST situates itself in contrast to reductionism (what Seddon terms ‘command and control’) (Chapman, 2004) • the parts of the system are recognised to be interdependent with emergent properties (Checkland, 1978; Flood, 2002) • ST is best learnt experientially (Ison, 2010) • ST involves the idea of people being exposed to their own ‘worldview’ (Churchman, 1968) and recognising that this contrasts with the experience of their service from a customer’s perspective. • feedback loops are demonstrated to be crucial to refining a system’s performance (Senge, 2006) • services need to structure themselves to be able to deal with the ‘requisite variety’ of their operating environments (Ashby, 1991) However, Seddon’s version of ST is unusual because of the particular 19 逢甲大學 e-Theses & Dissertations (2019)