MBNQA criteria in education: Assigning weights from a Malaysian perspective and proposition of an alternative evaluation scheme

In order to improve quality and productivity among American companies, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) was launched by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) under the Department of Commerce of US government in 1987. Over the years, the award has been proved to be effective in improving companies’ market share, customer satisfaction, employee morals and also profitability. MBNQA has been a ‘role model’ in developing national quality award for many other countries in the world. Furthermore, for organizational self-assessment, the criteria framework of MBNQA has been in use throughout the world. Presently, the award is offered in three categories: Business, Education, and Health-care. The present paper is concerned with MBNQA in Education. NIST has developed a comprehensive set of criteria to be fulfilled in order to be eligible to win the award. However, in the existing literature, it is not clear how the weights are assigned to the criteria and subcriteria. The present paper uses analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to reassign criteria weights from a Malaysian perspective. Furthermore, the paper points out the fallacy of the present evaluation scheme and proposes an alternative one based upon the absolute measurement procedure of AHP. The modified scheme is expected to enhance the fairness in evaluation of the award aspirants. The paper also shares the experiences gathered in data collection using AHP.Malcolm Baldrige national quality award, total quality management, analytic hierarchy process, evaluation

Applications of the analytic hierarchy process in management

Over the last three decades, managers, researchers, practitioners, management consultants and many other people have used the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to make decisions or to prioritize a set of factors in many areas of management. Perhaps, the most appealing reason for the method’s widespread use is its simplicity in application. Further, AHP can deal with subjective factors in decision making in a logical way. Number of real world applications of AHP is simply numerous. In this talk, only the following selected applications of AHP will be presented: Human Resource Management: - Developing A Human Resource Management Effectiveness Model - Selecting Managers for State-Owned Companies - Selection of Research Officers in the Saudi-Arabian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Total Quality Management: - Whether or Not to Implement ISO 9000 Quality Management System - Improving Service Quality at Restaurants - Selecting a Manufacturing Process for Benchmarking Environmental Management - Identifying Public Preferences for Land Preservation - Prioritizing Attributes in Urban Open Space Design - Prioritizing Factors in SWOT Analysis for a Finish Forestry Firm Information Systems Management - Ranking Critical Success Factors for Executive Information Systems - How to Choose a Word Processing Softwar

Management decision making by the analytic hierarchy process: A proposed modification for large-scale problems

Frequently, management decision making problems involve multiple criteria/objectives/attributes. Over the years, many quantitative methods have been developed to facilitate making rational decisions involving multiple criteria. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is, in general, regarded as one of the most successful techniques to solve decision making problems involving multiple criteria. In AHP, the decision maker starts by constructing the overall hierarchy of the decision problem. The hierarchy consists of criteria, subcriteria and alternatives of the decision making problem. A number of pairwise comparison matrices are formed in order to derive weights of the criteria and the local weights of the alternatives. Subsequently, the principle of hierarchical composition is used to determine the global weights of the alternatives. The alternative with the highest global weight is selected as the best alternative. The drawback of the traditional AHP is that it requires a large number of pairwaise comparisons, especially in the presence of a large number of criteria. The present empirical study attempts to investigate the possibility of eliminating insignificant criteria in order to reduce AHP computational time. Using the Expert Choice software, findings confirm that criteria that carry comparatively lesser weights can be excluded from the hierarchy and thereby the total time required for making the pairwise comparisons can be reduced drastically. To solve large-scale enterprise multi-criteria decision making problems (that involve large number of criteria) by AHP, it is proposed that at the very outset, decision makers can apply nominal group technique to identify the insignificant criteria. These criteria can be dropped from subsequent analysis and this exclusion will not affect the final decision significantly. This proposed methodology is expected to enhance the applicability of AHP in solving various kinds of larger sized multi-criteria decision making problems in any enterprise.Multiple criteria decision making, Analytic hierarchy process, Nominal group technique, Large-scale problems, International business

MBNQA criteria in education: assigning weights from a Malaysian perspective and proposition of an alternative evaluation scheme

In order to improve quality and productivity among American companies, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) was launched by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) under the Department of Commerce of US government in 1987. Over the years, the award has been proved to be effective in improving companies’ market share, customer satisfaction, employee morals and also profitability. MBNQA has been a ‘role model’ in developing national quality award for many other countries in the world. Furthermore, for organizational self-assessment, the criteria framework of MBNQA has been in use throughout the world. Presently, the award is offered in three categories: Business, Education, and Health-care. The present paper is concerned with MBNQA in Education. NIST has developed a comprehensive set of criteria to be fulfilled in order to be eligible to win the award. However, in the existing literature, it is not clear how the weights are assigned to the criteria and subcriteria. The present paper uses analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to reassign criteria weights from a Malaysian perspective. Furthermore, the paper points out the fallacy of the present evaluation scheme and proposes an alternative one based upon the absolute measurement procedure of AHP. The modified scheme is expected to enhance the fairness in evaluation of the award aspirants. The paper also shares the experiences gathered in data collection using AHP

Prioritization of service quality dimensions for healthcare sector using analytic hierarchy process

Due to the unique nature among the service industries, the overriding objective of the healthcare sector is to provide error free, impeccable services to their patients and clientele. It is not an option rather a norm for the healthcare sector to uphold and maintain the level of service that is quintessential and benchmark in the service industries. However, service quality has different meanings to different people. In this paper, SERVQUAL has been considered as the main tool to measure service quality and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) has been applied to prioritize the five dimensions of SERVQUAL for healthcare sector. In addition to this, AHP has been applied to prioritize the various items representing each of the dimensions. The results show that Reliability and Assurance are the two most important service quality dimensions in the healthcare sector. The priorities of dimensions and their items are also determined with respect to a selected demographic factors on the part of the respondents

Critical success factors of the nine challenges in Malaysia's Vision 2020

By the year 2020, Malaysia aspires to become a fully developed nation. In order to realize this vision, formally termed ‘Vision 2020’, Malaysia must address nine strategic challenges identified by the government of former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad. These challenges are: (1) Establishing a united Malaysian nation, (2) Creating a psychologically liberated, secure, and developed Malaysian society, (3) Developing a mature democratic society, (4) Forming a community that has high morale, ethics, and religious strength, (5) Establishing a mature, liberal and tolerant society, (6) Establishing a scientific and progressive society, (7) Establishing a fully caring society, (8) Ensuring an economically just society, and (9) Establishing a prosperous society. The present paper seeks to identify and rank the critical success factors of these nine challenges by applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process. A number of ‘front-line’ critical success factors are discussed at length. The paper also analyzes the impact of respondents’ demography on the outcomes. The findings are expected to provide valuable guidelines to the Malaysian government in course of developing effective action plans to achieve Vision 2020

Prioritizing the nine challenges of Malaysian Vision 2020

The exotic phrase “Vision 2020” has been coined to signify a lofty and long term objective pertaining to some issue in many countries across the world. In Malaysia, the architect of this vision is the former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad, who unveiled it in 1991, 30 years in advance of the time line of demarcation. The gist of the Malaysian Vision 2020 is that “By the year 2020, Malaysia will become a developed nation.” In course of this long, arduous and turbulence full journey, the nation needs to address the nine strategic challenges: (1) Establishing a united Malaysian nation, (2) Creating a psychologically liberated, secure, and developed Malaysian society, (3) Developing a mature democratic society, (4) Forming a community that has high morale, ethics, and religious strength, (5) Establishing a mature, liberal and tolerant society, (6) Establishing a scientific and progressive society, (7) Establishing a fully caring society, (8) Ensuring an economically just society, and (9) Establishing a prosperous society. Malaysia has already made a significant progress in achieving the objectives of Vision 2020. Nonetheless, depending upon the prevailing as well as ensuing situation, a number of new action plans need to be devised and implemented before the country is declared as a developed nation. In this context, the present paper applies the Analytic Hierarchy Process to prioritize the above-mentioned nine challenges so that the country’s scarce resources can be disbursed to formulate and implement the right action plans in the remaining ten years

Ranking of employees' reward and recognition approaces: A Malaysian Perspective

Recognition of employees’ achievements is one of the most important factors to motivate employees. Employees who perform exceptionally well, expect that their contributions will be recognized or they will be appreciated by the top management. Over the decades (or perhaps centuries) the reward and recognition system has been adopted by numerous organizations – private or public. There are myriad ways by which employees can be appreciated. Further, one special type of reward may not motivate equally everyone. One person’s reward may be perceived by another person as punishment. The present research intends to find out the specific reward and recognition ways preferred by the employees working in various Malaysian organizations. A list comprising seventeen major ways of reward and recognition has been prepared and the items in the list are prioritized by taking inputs from 505 employees working in more than 96 various public and private organizations in Malaysia. The findings of the research are expected to provide guidelines in developing an appropriate reward and recognition system for any organization, in general and Malaysian organizations, in particular.Reward and recognition, Motivation, Employee involvement, Employee satisfaction

Application of quality function deployment in redesigning website: A case study on TV3

Internet technology has been used by most of the organizations in the world today. One of the primary vehicles of information gathering and dissemination in today’s world is organizational website. This research evaluates the performance of the present TV3 (a popular private television station in Malaysia) website. By means of an on-line survey and a few focus group discussions, it also identifies the website viewer requirements and their corresponding importance level. Subsequently, the technical requirements are identified that can fulfill the viewer requirements. A House of Quality (HOQ) is built to find the relationship between the viewer and technical requirements. The Quality Function Deployment (QFD) exercise provides the prioritized technical requirements, which is expected to guide the TV3 website development and maintenance team in its future website redesigning project. The findings of the research are also expected to provide some insight in other organizations in similar need.Quality Function Deployment; Website development; Erbsite quality evaluation; TV3;Malaysia

Strengthening Muslim family institution: a management perspective

Today, the Muslim society is embroiled with many problems and there are reasons for this. It is the view of many Muslim scholars that presently the Muslim family institution is not as strong as it is supposed to be. The objective of the present research was to apply Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to strengthen Muslim family institution. According to the QFD framework, two types of information are required, namely the ‘what’ and ‘how’. The ‘what’ includes the requirements for having a strong Muslim family institution, while the ‘how’ involves the ways to fulfil those equirements. Data are collected from 40 Muslim scholars on a personal contact basis. AHP has been applied to prioritize the requirements (‘what’). The QFD exercise provides the prioritized ‘technical’ requirements (‘how’). The findings are expected to provide guidelines for having a strong family institution that can contribute towards developing a healthy society