E-government services effectiveness evaluation framework (E-GEEF) : a case study of Indian e-tax service

Technological amplification has expended the involvement of information and communication technology in public sectors and enhanced governmental dependence on information systems which restrains the management attention towards improving the effectiveness of e-government services. Based on the analytical review of literature, it was found that most of the e-government evaluation models address the e-service dimensions that assess the quality of e-government websites. This gives a very constrict perspective to e-government and ignores the key dimensions. It becomes important to understand how citizens perceive and evaluate e-government services. This involves defining what e-government service is, identifying its underlying dimensions, and determining how it can be measured. Therefore, periodical evaluation of the effectiveness of e-government services becomes essential. Foregoing discussion clearly indicates the necessity of developing a well founded e-government e-service effectiveness evaluation framework which not only evaluates the e-government service effectiveness but also evaluates the e-government service quality criteria and the citizens‟ perception in the form of citizens‟ trust in offered e-services. Thus, the objective of this study was to develop a framework (E-GEEF) "e-government service effectiveness evaluation framework" that assesses e-government service effectiveness from the citizens‟ (G2C) perspective. A systematic study of the existing e-government service assessment frameworks has been carried out to establish the basis for conceptualizing a theoretical framework called e-government service effectiveness evaluation framework (E-GEEF). In this research, the author attempts to explore the underlying dimensions and factors of e-government services, and has proposed an effectiveness evaluation framework (E-GEEF). Present empirical research adapted DeLone and McLean, (2003) IS success model as base model which is upgradable and extendable, hence additional dimensions were incorporated to develop a novel framework (E-GEEF) for evaluating the effectiveness of e-government service. The suggested framework has identified number of measuring dimensions and associated items within each dimension for (E-GEEF). System quality, information quality, and service quality dimensions were adopted from DeLone and McLean (2003) IS success model and “intention to use and user satisfaction” dimensions were re-specified in proposed framework (E-GEEF) as “citizens‟ use / usefulness” and “citizens‟ satisfaction”. Further, "citizens" trust, perceived e-government service quality, and perceived effectiveness” were incorporated as new dimensions in the proposed framework (E-GEEF). Three new dimensions were identified and two existing dimensions were re-specified for evaluating the effectiveness of e-government service. Sixteen hypotheses were formulated from literature on existing e-government assessment frameworks to test the proposed framework (E-GEEF). In order to test the proposed framework and their associated dimensions, Indian e-tax service was considered, because e-tax service of Indian e-government is utilized by several Indian citizens for filing their taxes. Preliminary qualitative study was carried out carefully to ensure whether all important dimensions and measurement items were included in the proposed framework E-GEEF in the right research context or not. Empirical research has used quantitative analysis for validating the proposed framework (E-GEEF). Data collection was done using survey which was conducted among citizens of India who have been utilizing e-tax service as users. Descriptive statistical analysis was performed to ensure the data normality by using SPSS 20. Structural equation modeling statistical technique was applied using AMOS 21 on the collected data for testing the hypotheses. The empirical research findings have confirmed most of the hypothesized relationships within the validated framework (E-GEEF). Consequently, in terms of the theoretical implications, this study emphasizes the significance of such hypothesized relationships when performing empirical research in e-government context. Key findings demonstrated the strong relationships of perceived e-government service quality with system quality, information quality, service quality, and citizens‟ satisfaction. Further, citizens‟ trust exhibited direct relationships with perceived e-government service quality and perceived effectiveness of e-government service. Thus, as a major contribution to the proposed research, the identified new dimensions “perceived e-government service quality, citizens‟ trust, perceived effectiveness” and re-specified dimensions “citizens‟ use/usefulness and citizens‟ satisfaction” have shown great significance in evaluating effectiveness of e-government e-tax service in Indian G2C context. The developed and validated framework (E-GEEF) provides government agencies with an appropriate approach and dimensions in order to evaluate the effectiveness of e-government services

IT Service Climate: The Validation of an Antecedent Construct for IT Service Quality

Building from organizational climate theory, recent conceptual work has extended the IT service quality research and proposed a new construct, IT Service Climate, as an antecedent of IT service quality (Jia and Reich 2008). This paper reports on an empirical study that validated a 14-item measurement instrument for the IT service climate construct. Consisting of three dimensions, including Service Leadership, Service Vision, and Service Evaluation, the instrument demonstrates satisfactory reliability, convergent validity/unidimensionality, and discriminant validity. Data from a sample of matched pairs of systems and client units also indicate that, service climate scores from systems units explained significant variance in IT service quality as rated by their respective client units, thus demonstrating criterion validity. Contributions to both IT research and practice are discussed

Chapter Emergency remote teaching: an explorative tool

The worldwide rapid spread and severity of the infectious disease caused by Coronavirus forced the WHO to declare a global state of pandemic emergency during March 2020, by leading the governments around the world to adopt policies that created the widest rift of education systems in human history. Italy have temporarily closed each educational institution, by causing the disruption of tertiary education for 16.89% of the Italian learner’s population. To ensure the “pedagogic continuity”, universities adopted the transitioning from traditional face-to-face to online learning. This paradigm shift to fully remote teaching solutions represents the so-called emergency remote teaching (ERT) in contrast to the traditional teaching inspired by Bologna process principles such as teaching quality and student satisfaction. In a landscape of emerging difficulties connected to ERT contexts, the quality assurance of higher education recalled by the Bologna Process may be not appropriate. We propose an evaluation model for the quality and ERT success across two dimensions used as proxy variables: students’ engagement (SE) and success performance (SP). Within the faculties, we analysed the performance and hence the knowledge, skills and/or attitudes acquired by learners, within the students, the focus was the engagement as interest, motivation and involvement. Under this perspective our research question has an explorative nature: we are interested in detecting empirical evidence about the learning assessment and engagement in higher education with focus on students’ engagement and their success performance during ERT. The investigation carried out on Iulm University’s student population (N=775). We integrated textual data related to the students evaluation of ERT and their career data such as credits, marks before and post disease. The results show the relations between the two dimensions taken into account, with a multidimensional approach we created a factorial plan useful to create an agile tool of analysis in the ERT context

Servqual Model as Performance Evaluation Instrument for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME): Evidence From Customers in Nigeria

It is the intention of this study to ascertain if SERVQUAL model can serve as an instrument for measuring performance of small and medium scale enterprises in Nigeria. The study adopted the Kano model as the theoretical framework. Empirical works on service quality and customer satisfaction were reviewed. Survey research design was adopted and conducted with the use of structured questionnaire designed in a 5 point likert scale format ranging from strongly agree, agree, strongly disagree, disagree and undecided. Twelve (12) small and medium scale enterprises operating in six geo-political zones of Nigeria were judgmentally selected, from where a sample of 60 was drawn using Taro Yamane formula. The questionnaire was validated and its reliability established. Data presentation and analysis was carried out using tables and simple percentages. Chi-square statistic; a nonparametric technique was employed in the test of the three hypotheses formulated to guide the study. This led to rejection of the three null hypotheses indicating that: Service quality dimensions has relationship with performance of small and medium scale enterprises; tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy services can be used to measure performance of small and medium scale enterprises. This justifies that SERVQUAL dimensions; tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy are indicators of customer satisfaction, implying that they can be employed as performance evaluation tools for small and medium scale enterprises. It is recommended that small and medium scale enterprises should direct their operations in line with SERVQUAL dimensions, if they want to achieve customer satisfaction and business performance

Variety in Challenge-Based Learning in higher education

Increasingly higher education programs are made open and flexible to face challenges demanded by societal changes. Challenge-based learning (CBL) is perceived as an educational concept shaping these open and flexible programs. However, CBL as a field of research is still in its infancy. The present study searches for all-embracing commonalities of CBL in engineering education. We propose an evaluative framework that both includes commonalities and allows for variety in CBL characteristics between study components. This framework, labelled CBL-compass, serves as a methodological approach for educational staff and researchers to visualise the local colour of CBL in higher education institutions. With this study we aim to advance the field by contributing to a conceptual basis in flexibility in CBL. Our research question was: How can we assess the variety of CBL implementations in engineering education experiments? This question was answered by an evaluative case study. First, existing literature on CBL was scoped. The characteristics following from this review were perceived as dimensions, each with associated indicators. Empirical data were collected from an evaluation of six CBL experiments. The variety of scores on the CBL-compass gave an impression of how teachers implemented CBL in their course or project and can thus be used as an evaluation mechanism to improve this implementation. Filling in the CBL-compass triggered reflection among teachers about their course and CBL. The added value of the CBL-compass is the attention for, amongst others assessment or teacher skills and support, which are important for the overall quality of study components

A framework to evaluate the impact of ICT usage on collaborative product development performance in manufacturing firms : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand

Manufacturers are increasingly adopting collaborative product development (CPD) to achieve competitive advantage through joint synergies. Information and communication technology (ICT) is the major enabler of communication, collaboration, product designing, development, knowledge and information management, project management, and market research activities involved in CPD. Most ICT implementations incur a significant cost for firms, thus a deeper understanding of the impact of ICT usage on CPD performance would be immensely useful for managing ICT resources effectively in innovation programmes. However, existing evidence for the direct relationships between ICT usage and performance dimensions are counterintuitive (negative or insignificant). Not considering the different aspects of ICT usage was identified as a key reason for the lack of strong empirical evidence. Furthermore, the impact of ICT usage on collaboration-based product development performance and indirect impact through this collaboration performance on new product performance, as well as moderating effects of project characteristics on the direct and indirect ICT impact have largely been ignored in the literature. Therefore, drawing on relational resource-based view and organizational information processing theory, this study develops and utilizes a model including multidimensional ICT usage and CPD performance measurements, and possible moderating project characteristics, for better evaluating the impact of ICT usage on CPD performance. Initially, product development professionals from manufacturing firms and knowledgeable managers from ICT vendor firms were interviewed for a preliminary qualitative evaluation of the suggested model with industry perspectives. In addition, a quantitative investigation of secondary data obtained from the PDMA’s (Product Development and Management Association) 2012 comparative performance assessment study was conducted prior to the main survey in order to assess the significance of the proposed model with a different source of data. In the final main quantitative study, data collected from 244 CPD projects via an online global survey were used to test the research hypotheses. The study contributes to the current body of knowledge by revealing a positive direct impact of ICT usage on new product performance in terms of quality, commercial success, and time performance, and collaboration performance, which also in turn increases new product performance. In addition, moderating effects of project characteristics (complexity and uncertainty) on these associations have been explored. The study implies that manufacturers need to value not only the direct project benefits of ICT use, but also the collaboration-related outcomes that significantly increase the likelihood of achieving higher performance in their present and future CPD projects. Adequate attention must be paid to individual ICT usage dimensions as well. Particularly, other than frequency of ICT use, manufacturing firms need to improve the utilization of available features and functionalities of the tools (intensity) and the ICT proficiency of R&D staff, to gain the desired results in CPD projects

Empirical Investigation of the Factors Influencing Data Completeness in Electronic Medical Records

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology.Recent advances in electronic medical records (EMR) in healthcare highlight the role of high-quality data, because poor data quality can destabilise clinical decision-making that in turn may impact on the quality of care. Data completeness as an essential dimension of data quality has been the subject of much research in the last three decades, while addressing data completeness in EMR is still a significant challenge in healthcare. Exploring the factors that influence data completeness could be a starting point to address data quality issues in EMR. Constructing a conceptual model can be an effective exercise for studying complex phenomena such as data completeness in EMR. We do not have a conceptual model of factors influencing data completeness in EMR and specific relationships between these factors remain unclear. This study presents a novel conceptual model of the factors influencing data completeness in EMR and investigates the relationships between them. This thesis begins with presenting the first literature review of data completeness in healthcare and provides a novel synthesis of the identified challenges that has led to a categorisation of the factors influencing data completeness in electronic records from human, managerial, technical, and external perspectives. The thesis also presents a taxonomy of factors influencing data quality using breadth, depth, and interaction dimensions, and suggests guidelines for developing and comparing the factors influencing data quality. The empirical evaluation of the proposed conceptual model is carried out by surveying clinical practitioners in Australia, China, and USA. The results of data analysis reveal that the priority of the included factors is different among the three countries. Moreover, cultural differences are identified and highlighted in the relationships between these factors. The findings of this study draw specific attention to the important factors and help clinical practitioners identify which of these areas need to be addressed in order to improve EMR data completeness. In addition, the conceptual model proposed in this thesis can serve as the basis for the development of tools, methods and techniques for addressing data completeness in EMR

An empirical examination of passenger loyalty and its antecedents in the global cruise industry : A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Lincoln University

Cruise ships are an inclusive service as they are responsible for providing transport, accommodation, food, entertainment and recreation for their customers. Cruise ships operate in a competitive tourism marketing environment and they must provide a high level of service quality for their passengers. Research that develops a meticulous and robust cruise service quality model will make a valuable contribution to the cruise industry. In addition, examining the interrelationships among cruise service quality, cruise line image, passenger satisfaction and passenger loyalty is vitally important for cruise ship management to develop effective marketing strategies. This research uses comprehensive hierarchical modelling to determine the primary dimensions and sub-dimensions of cruise service quality and to examine the interrelationships among the four higher-order constructs: cruise service quality, cruise line image, passenger satisfaction and passenger loyalty. The roles of cruise line image and passenger participation as mediator variable in the modelling framework are also tested. The gender effect on all of the constructs under investigation is also examined. The data were collected from passengers of medium, large and mega cruise ships that visited Akaroa (New Zealand) and Benoa (Bali, Indonesia) port of calls, during the 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 cruise seasons. Three dyadic interviews and a pre-test were conducted before data collection. Preliminary data analysis, exploratory factor analysis, structural equation modelling and an independent sample t-test are used to analyse the data. The results reveal that cruise service quality is a multidimensional construct with a hierarchical structure having 10 first-order sub-dimensions, four second-order primary dimensions (interaction quality, physical environment quality, outcome quality and social factors), and one third-order dimension (cruise service quality). Social factors are the most important primary dimension of cruise service quality, followed by physical environment quality, outcome quality and interaction quality. For the interrelationships among the four higher-order constructs, the results show that cruise service quality and cruise line image are the antecedents of passenger satisfaction and cruise line image and passenger satisfaction are the antecedents of passenger loyalty. The empirical results confirm that cruise line image and passenger participation are mediator variables in the modelling framework. No gender effect on cruise service evaluation was found. An epilogue chapter discusses the possible impacts of COVID-19 on the current results and the development of future cruise service quality models

The Caring Artist: Exploring the Role of an Arts-­Health Practitioner in a Nursing Home and a Model of Arts-­Health Practice

The priorities many nursing homes give to physical care often supersede consideration for leisure arrangements and resources with the effect that the range of activities and engagement opportunities for residents are limited. An inactive lifestyle in nursing homes can compromise the residents’ quality of life and their psychosocial wellness through boredom, diminished morale and reinforced dependency. A low level of engagement also exposes residents to a greater risk of developing cognitive impairment and accentuates feelings of loneliness and isolation. Given the demographic trend of an ageing population together with a growing demand for nursing homes in Singapore, this research addresses the current lack of research on lifestyles of nursing home residents and arrangements to promote their personal well-being. In this thesis, I investigate the effect of a participatory visual arts programme on the personal well-being of residents in a Singapore nursing home. The study explores the ways in which well-being is afforded through participatory arts activities and the role an artist can take in relation to human caring. To facilitate evaluation and reflection on my arts-health practice, I brought my arts-health practice into a novel dialogue methodologically with the action-research case study approach of social science. I refer to this hybrid approach as ‘critical arts-health practice’. The empirical data of the study prompted exploration of the link between vitality and participatory arts activities. Participatory arts activities are found to revitalise the sensory, physical, cognitive, emotional, social capacities of older adults and promote self-actualisation. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze’s assemblage theory, I conceptualised the Arts-Health assemblage as a way of understanding the processes through which participatory arts activities contribute to the participants’ well-being, as both dynamic and as involving multiple interrelated elements. I argue that the broad concerns of arts-health practice can be defined as combining individualised attention to the participant, well-being outcome, and ensuring the quality of the environment and activities for participatory arts. I argue that attentiveness to these dimensions will promote a more effective and caring arts-health practice. Lastly, the central importance of these dimensions within an arts-health practice emphasises that the arts-health practitioner is first and foremost a caring artist

Toimittajan laadun määrittely ja mittaaminen tuotannollisissa palveluissa

Services have been traditionally separated from goods in terms of intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability and perishability. Even though the line between goods and services is blurred, as many services include a physical component and vice versa, services pose some differences to the purchasing process compared to tangible goods. With services, the importance of the specification phase is highlighted due to the fact that services are difficult to define unambiguously. This has also implications on the performance evaluation of the service supplier: the difficulty of defining a service makes it challenging to measure service quality. The objective of this research was to develop an approach for supplier quality measurement in industrial services from the viewpoint of the buyer. However, the intention was that the measurement system would ultimately be used jointly by the buyer and the supplier. The research in this thesis was conducted as a case study utilizing a mixed-method research approach. The empirical part of the research consists of two parts: the definition and measurement of supplier quality in industrial services. In defining supplier service quality, literature review as well as interviews with the case company and the service supplier representatives were used. As a result, a framework for supplier service quality was developed. The framework offers a comprehensive view on supplier service quality, combining the viewpoints of service profit chain, relationship quality, and process and outcome quality of the service. Based on the framework, supplier service quality consists of four dimensions: supplier capability, supplier-customer relationship, and process and outcome quality. The measurement of supplier service quality was constructed as a survey based on the developed framework, and it was used to measure the quality of cleaning service. This thesis describes the undergone process from the development of the measurement items to the actual data gathering and analyzing the results. Statistical analysis was used to examine the survey data. This thesis also developed a model of supplier service quality, aiming to examine the links between the four service quality dimensions. The results provide support for the use of process and outcome quality as dimensions of service quality. Even though the model could not be examined in full, the results suggest that process quality has an effect on outcome quality. Overall, the measurement process reported in this thesis offers useful insights for the future use and development of the supplier service quality measurement