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Introduction
It is a world trend that government departments, statutory bodies and other public organizations have to undergo transformation in order to become more efficient, effective, and accountable ([31] Piana and Torres, 2003) and to provide consistent, good quality services ([35] Saner, 2002). Some organizations, such as Royal Mail Group and Deutsche Post Aktiengesellschaft (AG), have gone through the re-engineering and privatization processes and transformed themselves as successful multinational enterprises. For others, privatization is not an option, but they have nonetheless responded to the pressing demands from the public by adopting the service delivery models and management practices used in the private sector ([6] Brown et al. , 2000). The ISO 9001 quality management system is one such tool ([9] Chu et al. , 2001; [35] Saner, 2002; [37] Singh and Mansour-Nahra, 2006)
Although ISO 9001 has been implemented in many organizations for years, most research in the literature ahs focused on the applicability and effectiveness of ISO 9001:1994/2000 in private-sector settings ([2] Anderson et al. , 1999; [5] Bhuiyan and Alam, 2004; [8] Carlsson and Carlsson, 1996; [12] Dick et al. , 2001; [30] Park et al. , 2007). There is a dearth of literature reporting this important aspect in the public sector. So far, [28] McCarthy and Hicks (1991) have described the applicability of ISO 9001:1987 in a health care setting and [37] Singh and Mansour-Nahra (2006) have discussed the applicability of ISO 9001:2000 in an Australian federal government agency. In both studies, the applicability of ISO 9001:1987/2000 was primarily determined by the extent of ISO 9001:1987/2000 implementation in day-to-day operations. [9] Chu et al. (2001) reported a questionnaire survey conducted in Taiwan's public sector in 1999. They highlighted that there was little progress in implementing ISO 9001:1994 in Taiwan's public organizations, not because of technical issues but due to organizational obstacles. [9] Chu et al. (2001) also found that ISO 9001:1994 implementation practices were different depending on the size of departments, unionization and service types. In sum, the literature reveals that while ISO 9001:2000 is popularly practiced in public organizations, its applicability and its effectiveness - as measured by the improvement of customer satisfaction ([18] International Organization for Standardization, 2008a; [33] Price and Brodie, 2001) - in this particular context are...