MEASURING EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION IN SMALL ANDMEDIUM SIZED ENTERPRISES

Employee satisfaction is considered to be a critical success factor for organizations. The concept of employee satisfaction has gained a special concern from both academicians and practitioners. This study aims to provide a framework for employee satisfaction and determine the critical factors of employee satisfaction and to measure their effect on overall evaluation of employee satisfaction in small and medium sized enterprises (SME) based on the data collected from Turkey. Data analysis revealed that there is a positive relationship between the each factor of employee satisfaction which are named satisfaction from pay and benefits (P&B), satisfaction from peers (P), satisfaction from management (M), satisfaction from working environment (WE), satisfaction from superior (S) and overall employee loyalty in SMEs. Furthermore, relevant recommendations and measures for improving the employee satisfaction are proposed

Service Quality And Determinants Of Customer Satisfaction In Hospitals: Turkish Experience

Service quality has increasingly been the subject of research in recent years. Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry presented and tested a generic model SERVQUAL to measure the perceived quality of a service. James Carman adapted and applied this instrument for use in the hospital industry. In this study, we use the instrument developed by Carman to collect data from the hospitals in Turkey. The purpose of the study is to examine the important criteria for measuring service quality in the health care industry in Turkey. The relationship between customer satisfaction and serqual measures are investigated for this purpose. In our study customer satisfaction measured by three criteria by asking customers; their future purchase intention, how they evaluate overall service quality and how they see overall quality of the hospital. Service quality was measured by the difference between perceived service and expected service and rated on a seven point Likert scale. Serqual measures consist of 6 criteria; tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, courtesy, and empathy. The techniques of factor analysis and the logistic regression models are used to investigate the relationships. Like the linear regression analysis, most of the usual statistical methods assume that the residuals, or errors, must follow a normal distribution. If they are not the methods should not be used. Unlike ordinary linear regression, logistic regression does not assume that the dependent variable or the error terms are distributed normally. Also, it doesn’t assume that the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable is linear. Logistic regression is a variation of ordinary regression which is used when the dependent variable is a categorical variable. The results of our analysis confirm that while tangibility, reliability, courtesy and empathy are significant for customer satisfaction, responsiveness and assurance are not

Education: A Comparative Structural Equation Modeling Study

AbstractThe increase in competition and intensifying market forces encouraged universities to sustain quality improvement in Higher Education Institutions. The aim of this paper is to introduce a conceptual model of student satisfaction with higher education experience based on the identification of the variable determinants of student perceived quality and the impact of those variables on student satisfaction and/or dissatisfaction with the overall student experience. This study concerns students in higher education institutions in Istanbul Turkey. This paper uses 41 item instrument of service quality which is applicable for TQM in education industry taking the SERVQUAL five dimensions for quality as basis. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses empirically verified and validated the underlying dimensions of perception of student satisfaction, TQM and organizational performance. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate the models and compare coefficients and latent means. In other words structural equation modeling was employed to test the model drawing on a sample of 1752 students from private universities. Decision makers will be able to use this instrument to identify the extent of TQM implementation in higher education institutions, while researchers will be able to use it for furthering TQM research in education. The results can be used by higher education institutions to renovate their quality-management processes and education quality strategies

Assessment of TQM Practices as a Part of Supply Chain Management in Healthcare Institutions

The aim of this study is to determine the critical factors of Total Quality Management (TQM) as Supply Chain Management (SCM) practices in the healthcare sector and to measure the effect of those factors on business performance of hospitals in Turkey. Performance of the hospitals was measured using subjective measures based on the hospitals administrators perception of how their organization performed relative to the competition. The technique of Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis is employed to investigate the relationship between TQM practices and business performance. Analysis of the data from 50 hospitals revealed that TQM practices in the healthcare SCM influence financial performance indirectly by influencing non-financial performance. The results of the study provide strategic information about the importance of TQM factors such as supplier quality, service design, process management, employee relations, training, role of top management, and data and reporting for the successful healthcare SCM

An integrated approach for lean production using simulation and data envelopment analysis

According to the extant literature, improving the leanness of a production system boosts a company’s productivity and competitiveness. However, such an endeavor usually involves managing multiple, potentially conflicting objectives. This study proposes a framework that analyzes lean production methods using simulation and data envelopment analysis (DEA) to accommodate the underlying multi-objective decision-making problem. The proposed framework can help identify the most efficient solution alternative by (i) considering the most common lean production methods for assembly line balancing, such as single minute exchange of dies (SMED) and multi-machine set-up reduction (MMSUR), (ii) creating and simulating various alternative assembly line configuration options via discrete-event simulation modeling, and (iii) formulating and applying DEA to identify the best alternative assembly system configuration for the multi-objective decision making. In this study, we demonstrate the viability and superiority of the proposed framework with an application case on an automotive spare parts production system. The results show that the suggested framework substantially improves the existing system by increasing efficiency while concurrently decreasing work-in-process (WIP).Q10006980682000012-s2.0-8511520297

Assessing the supply chain performance: A causal analysis

Measuring the performance-related factors of a unit within a supply-chain is a challenging problem, mainly because of the complex interactions among the members governed by the supply chain strategy employed. Synergistic use of discrete-event simulation and structural equation modeling allows researchers and practitioners to analyze causal relationships between order-fulfillment characteristics of a supply-chain and retailers’ performance metrics. In this study, we model, simulate, and analyze a two-level supply-chain with seasonal linear demand, and using the information therein, develop a causal model to measure the links/relationships among the order-fulfillment factors and the retailer’s performance. According to the findings, of all the order-fulfillment characteristics of a supply-chain, the forecast inaccuracy was found to be the most important in mitigating the bullwhip effect. Concerning the total inventory cost and fill-rate as performance indicators of retailers, the desired service level had the highest priority, followed by the lead-time and forecast inaccuracy, respectively. To reduce the total inventory cost, the bullwhip effect seems to have the lowest priority for the retailers, as it does not appear to have a significant impact on the fill rate. Although seasonality (to some extent) influences the retailer’s performance, it does not seem to have a significant impact on the ranking of the factors affecting retailers’ supply-chain performance; except for the case where the backorder cost is overestimated.Q1WOS:0004961170000012-s2.0-8507513393

Corporate governance and firm performance in emerging markets: Evidence from Turkey

This is a study of the relationship between context, internal corporate governance and firm performance, looking at the case of Turkey, an exemplar of family capitalism. We found more concentrated ownership, often in the hands of families, led to firms performing better; concentrated ownership means that controlling families bear more of the risks of poor performance. Less predictably, given that the institutional environment is so well attuned to family ownership, we found that mechanisms that accord room for a greater range of voices and interests within and beyond families – larger boards and foreign ownership stakes – seem to also make for positive performance effects. We also noted that increases in cross ownership did not influence market performance, but was negatively associated with accounting performance. Conversely, we found that a higher proportion of family members on boards had no discernable effect on performance. Our findings provide further insights on the relationship between the type of institutions encountered in many emerging markets, internal corporate governance configurations and firm performance

A two-stage analytical approach to assess sustainable energy efficiency

Administrators and policymakers at regional, national and global level are well aware of the necessity and undeniable benefits of renewable energy for long-term sustainability. In this study, we developed a two-stage analytical methodology to assess the efficiency of energy sources (a combination of various energy sources, mostly based on renewable sources), and Turkey, a country with a variety of renewable energy potential because of its favorable geographic and climatic conditions, was used as an illustrative case. Specifically, in the first stage, we utilized a nonparametric method and a powerful benchmarking tool—Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)—to analyze energy efficiencies for each province. In the second stage, we employed the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression and Tobit regression models to investigate the environmental factors affecting energy efficiency. And then, we used the Charnes-Cooper-Rhodes (CCR) DEA and Tobit regression combination to perform a validation of the findings. The tandem utilization of DEA, OLS, and Tobit regression models allowed us to overcome some of the shortcomings of these methods when they are utilized individually. The results revealed the factors that have direct and positive influence/effect on the efficiencies, which included gross domestic product per-capita, population size, and the amount of energy production from renewable energy sources. The findings also suggested that starting the investments at the less-efficient provinces result in a better overall nationwide technical efficiency. These results can potentially help decision makers to develop and manage energy investment strategies

Information system capabilities and firm performance:opening the black box through decision-making performance and business-process performance

This study contributes to the extant literature on information management by investigating the interrelation-ships between information systems (IS)-related capabilities and their effects on firm performance. Using theresource-based view (RBV), a set of hypotheses is formulated to examine these links, considering the role thatmay be played by decision-making performance and business-process performance as mediating variables.Structural equation modeling (SEM) has been applied to a sample of 204 firms in Turkey. The test resultsobtained confirm the proposed serially mediating model according to which decision-making performance andbusiness-process performance play a critical mediating role in the human resource and administrative-related IScapabilities, and firm-performance relationships. No support, however, has been found concerning the serialmediation effect between infrastructure-related IS capabilities and firm performanc