Qualitative Analysis

The current research is aimed to examine  the perception of the employees in terms of readiness and the applicability of moving from the ISO 9001 : 2015 towards the new Integrated Management System (IMS) taking into the case of OETC.  It has shown from the previous research that the Integrated Management system can perform better as compared to the ISO 9001 : 2015 management system (Anttila & Jussila, 2017, p. 1095). However both the management system has their advantages and disadvantages. In the current research instead of comparing the two models, the transition from one management system to another from the employees’ perception has been analyzed(Ezzat, Bahi, &Nasreldeen, 2017, p.105)..  To analyze the same the primary data has been collected. In the current research both the qualitative and the quantitative analysis has been conducted. For the qualitative analysis personal interview was conducted among the 7 employees in the OETC. The open end questionnaire was used for the data collection. On the other hand, for the quantitative analysis close end questionnaire was used and the data was collected among 93 employees. So, the research methodology used in the current section is the mixed research method which includes both the qualitative and the quantitative analysis. In the first section the results from the qualitative analysis has been discussed, followed by the results from the quantitative analysis.  

Personal interview was conducted among 9 employees in  OETC, however only 7 employees answered all the questions. So, the sample size for the qualitative analysis is 7. The qualitative analysis has been categorized in different themes which provides much meaningful results from the analysis.

The first theme selected for the qualitative analysis is the knowledge of employees about the Integrated Management System. To know the same employees were asked about the IMS, and most of the employees were able to correctly defined the IMS. One of the employees said that the IMS is centralized system whose main objective is to meet the efficiency in the organization’s operation management.  According to the another employee IMS is , “..an integrated management system whereby the company can integrates its system under one platform”.   It shows that the employees are well aware about the Integrated  Management  System, which makes it easier for the company to implement it and replace it with the older integrated system(Meiers-Meiris, Mazais, &Lapi?a, 2017, p.13)..  However, it has also been noticed that the employees have only the basic knowledge of the system and there is no deep understanding on how the system has been designed and how it is different from the previous quality management system.

a) Knowledge about the Integrated management system

The second theme for the current research is the impact of new Integrated management system. Firstly the respondents were asked how the new integrated management system will impact the customer satisfaction.  Most of the respondents argued that implementing this system will have positive impact on the customer satisfaction as the IMS will bring more clarity towards the process of the organization and it will help the employees to focus on the their specific task which will improve the efficiency (Samy, Samy, & Ammasaiappan, 2015, p.21). This will eventually lead to improve in the quality of the products and services,  hence the customer satisfaction.  Another respondents argued that IMS will improve the customer responding and feedback process which will lead to higher customer satisfaction. One of the employees said that, ..”the flow of the customer request will  be clear and the responsibilities are well defined”.   So, on the basis of these arguments it can be said that the employees believes that the IMS is more efficient than the previous quality management system and this will have positive impact on the customer satisfaction (Nunhes, Motta, & de Oliveira, Evolution of integrated management systems research on the Journal of Cleaner Production: Identification of contributions and gaps in the literature, 2016, pp. 1234,1235).

Furthermore to investigate the perception of the employees on  the impact of the IMS on the quality of the service, employees were asked how will the new system affect the quality of service provided.  All of the respondents argued that with the implementation of the new IMS system the quality of the service provided will improve. However,  the reasons provided for the service improvement were different. One of the employees said that the quality measurement will become easy with the IMS which will lead to higher quality of the services provided. On the other hand another employee argued that, ” ..that each department in the organization integrates the other departments in order to come out with the better service.”  This shows that that there is positive impact of IMS on both the customer satisfaction and the quality of the services provided.  This also shows that the employees are already aware of the IMS system and the expectation from the system. However, the employees do not highlights the difficulty in the transition period which may have negative impact on customer satisfaction and quality of service provided in the short term.

In addition the respondents were also asked how the IMS will impact the performance of the individual employee in the organization and also the overall organizational performance. In response to this question all of the respondents argued that the IMS system will improve the personal performance of the employees as the roles and the responsibilities of each and every individual will be clear and one can focus on one particular direction. Also once the responsibilities are clearly defined, the employees are accountable so they perform well as compared to those system where the roles are not clearly defined. One of the respondents however emphasized on the fact that the improvement in the performance of the employees can only be achieved if the IMS is implemented properly. So, implementation is one of the major factor which will decide whether the  impact will be positive of not (de Oliveira, 2013, p. 124). The respondents further argued..” a simpler system under IMS will help staff to understand their role in the company and how they can impact on the quality of the outputs. Should improve the information sharing across the company”.  With increase in the individual performance in the organization, the overall performance of the organization will improve automatically. Even though the impact will depend on the proper implementation and the training of the employees to follow the new IMS process, in long run it is expected to have positive impact on customers satisfaction, quality of the services, employees performance and the overall performance of the organization (Gianni & Gotzamani, 2015, p. 266).

b) Impact of the Integrated Management System

Another important theme extracted for the current qualitative research analysis is the benefits and the challenges of implementing the IMS system in OETC. Every new process has its own pros and cons, however only those process should be implemented which have more advantages than its drawbacks (Chiarini, 2017, p. 311). To investigate the same, the respondents were first asked about the benefits of implementing the IMS system in their organization. Most of the respondents said that the IMS will make entire process mush simpler and less time consuming, the audits of different systems will be reduced as it is the centralized integrated system. Another respondent added that with reduction in time and the process the cost will also go down significantly in the long run (Wilson & Campbell, 2016, p. 835). One of the respondents argued that the IMS process will help the organization to achieve mission and vision of their organization by following the systematic methods provided by the IMS process. As per one senior employee ,”….reduce the exiting burden of certification audits if all systems are integrated not just the normal 3  of 9001, 14001,  and OSHAS 18001. IMS should results in substantially reduced number of  procedures which should enable better compliance.” This shows that the IMS process has positive impact on the OETC (Muthusamy, Palanisamy, &Mohanraj, 2018, p.401).

However, there are many challenges while implementing any process in the organization, especially in the large organization such as OETC. To examine the same the respondents were asked about the challenges faced while implementing the IMS in the OETC.  While responding to the same, one of the respondents said that the major challenges includes managing the stakeholders expectations and also that the bad performance of one system can have negative impact on the entire system as the entire system is IMS. Furthermore non availability of the required tools, working culture and the resistance to change are some of the other challenges identified from the current research. One of the respondents argued that ,” accurately and completely defining the business case, disputes over responsibilities and authority requirements between the departments are the major challenges.”  Apart from these the commitment by the higher management and the budget allocated for the implementation are some of the other challenges highlighted by the respondents.  

So, on the basis of the analysis, it can be concluded that the benefits of implementing the IMS process are significant. However the implementation process should be efficient and there are some major challenges which needs to be taken care of.

c) Benefits and Challenges

While conducting the personal interview the employees were asked  whether the integrated management system will fail due to higher cost and the complexity to use. In response to this questions, majority of the respondents agree with the fact that the IMS can fail if the process is not managed properly. One of the respondents argue that, “..yes there are no experts in this in OETC and I believe they need to go for the outsourcing which will be costly and the base on the other certification standards experiences, it is likely to have employee resistances.” This indicates that the employees in the OETC are expected to resist the implementation of the IMS process. On the basis of the previous research also it can be said that every major changes in the organization has to face some resistance from the employees, as people are afraid about the new changes. Especially the older employees are not comfortable with such changes Hoy & Foley, 2015, p. 691). Another problem in OETC as identified by one of the respondents is the lack of experts in this field. However on the other hand some of the respondents argued that OETC have successfully  implemented more complicated and high budget projects, so implementing IMS will not be a problem.

When asked , whether OETC is ready to implement the IMS or it should go with the ISO 9001: 2015 first, there is no unique response from the employees. Some of the respondents argued that the company should first go with the ISO 9001 : 2015 and quality management system and once this is successfully implemented then it can go for IMS (Nowakowski, Tubis, & Wojciechowska, 2017, p. 211). However on the other hand some respondents argued that the there is no relationship between the ISO 9001: 2015 and the Integrated Management system, so the OETC should go for the IMS irrespective of the ISO 9001:2015 process. According to one respondents, ” ..if the business case can be properly justified and an effective implementation developed we should proceed with IMS rather than have a midway stage with ISO 9001: 2015.”

Another important theme identified from the given set of information is how the challenges can be tackled which occurred while implementing the IMS process in OETC. The respondents were asked to provide the recommendations to mitigate the challenges and the possible threats which comes along with the IMS. Most of the respondents highlighted the importance of awareness among the employees about the new system. Also some of the challenges can be mitigated by engaging the concerned department in the implementation program. According to one of the respondents, ” starting with awareness campaign, training before implementing the process, also getting the feedback from the people is very important.”  Also the proper research and planning from the management helps to mitigate the challenges (Daoud, Abdullah , Fawzy, Khalifa , Helmy , & Badeyab, 2014, p. 4).

In this section the results from the quantitative analysis has been presented. For the quantitative analysis the descriptive statistics of the collected data has been conducted.  The close end questionnaire was used for the data collection and the primary survey  was conducted among 93 employees. Even though the survey was sent to more than 300 respondents in the OETC, only 93 respondents have filled the survey correctly. Some of the respondents did not reply and some of the respondents do not fill the entire survey correctly. So, the final sample size for the current research is 93. In the first section the results from the basic information about the respondents was asked.

As shown in the figure above among the 93 respondents 27 % of them were working in the transmission departments which was followed by the HSE department where 13 % of the respondents worked. Furthermore 9 % are working  in projects, 8 % in LDC and 6 % in IT department. 33 % of the respondents were working on some other departments. This shows that the transmission department has the maximum number of respondents in the sample. So, the results from the analysis will majorly represent the view of this department. However the representation from the other department is also significant, so there is no biasness in the sample size (Yazdani, et al., 2018, p. 111).

Another demographic question asked to the respondents were the designation or position in the company. For any research to be robust, the sample should consists the elements from the entire population. In this case the original response was the particular post, which has been further categorized into three different segments so that the results are more presentable and it is easy for the readers to understand the findings. As the results shows, 38 % of the employees in the sample are from the lower level followed by the middle level employees which consists of 35 % of the sample size. Finally the proportion of the senior level employees in the sample size is 27 %. This shows that the employees from all the segments are represented in the sample size.

Another important demographical variable included in the data set is the total experience of the employees in the OECT. As the results shows 46 % of the employees have less than 5 years of work experience in OECT. Furthermore 40 % of the employees have 5- 10 years of experience. Only 14% of the employees have more than 10 years of experience.  This shows that most of the employees are new to the company. However this may entirely because of the sample selection and the actual scenario may be different in the OECT.

Figure 1 Standard Audited

As shown in the figure above, when asked about the standards audited in the OETC, 47 % of the respondents said OHSAS 18001: 2007  followed by ISO 14001-2004 which was answered by 45 % of the employees. Only the 19 % of the employees said that OETC do not audit any of the standards. This is may be because the employees are not aware of the standards (Souza & Alves, 2018, p. 2680)..

Figure 2 Understanding of the Integrated Management System

Another question asked to the respondents was whether they have good understanding of the IMS or not.  Around 41 % of the employees agree that they have good knowledge with only 16 % of them strongly agreed.  The percentage of respondents who were not sure was around 28 %. This shows that majority of the people are aware of the IMS process however there are employees do not have any knowledge of the system. Similarly majority of the employees agrees that the management review considers the overall business strategy and planning.

Figure 3 Unified management support and responsibilities

As shown in the figure above most of the respondents agree that in OETC there is unified management support and responsibilities and only very small proportion of the employees disagree with that fact.  Furthermore of the respondents also agree that the integration of the institutions has led to high quality and has reduced the cost.

Figure 4 Integration helps to provide satisfactory services and quality products to the customers

When asked whether the IMS have any impact on the product and services provided to the customers with the integration system, more than 80 % of the respondents agree that the integration system have positive impact on the product and services provide to the customers.  Also most of  the respondents agree that the integration process has make the process easier which has resulted into product validation and also make the results reliable.

Figure 5 Quality improvement in the high on senior management agenda

Furthermore the respondents were asked about the management priority in OETC about the quality management.  In response to that, most of the employees agrees that the quality management is in higher agenda of the management. As shown in the figure above the percentage of respondents who do not think in similar way is negligible.

Figure 6 IMS adding value to both the organization and other applicable parties

The respondents were asked whether the IMS system will add value to OETC and its partners/clients, majority of the respondents said that it will add the value. Only small percentage of the respondents do not agree with the fact.

Figure 7   the system more effective regardless of the standards

When asked whether any IMS system is able to make more  effective system irrespective of the standards, more than 70 % of the respondents agree that the system will be more effective with the introduction of any IMS system rather than having separate standards for separate departments and process. Only small proportion of the respondents disagree to the fact, as shown in the figure above.

Figure 8 IMS makes the process better with existing resources, effective competitiveness and other duties

More than 80 % of the respondents agreed to the fact that the IMS will  have significant benefit to the organization and with the IMS the resources, effective competitiveness and other duties will be in better place as compared to the situation when there is no integrated management system.  This clearly indicates that the IMS is beneficial to the organization such as the OETC. The results from the current research can also be generalized in other organizations also.

Figure 9 Drive the company in an improvement and performance approach

When asked whether driving the company in an improvement and performance approach, majority  of the respondents agree with the fact with 36 % strongly agree.  Only a negligible proportion of the respondents did not agree with the given fact.

Figure 10 Good understanding of the ISO 9001 : 2015

When the respondents were asked whether they have good knowledge of the ISO 9001 : 2015 system, only 41 % of the respondents agreed. Around 35 % of the respondents were neutral with more than 21 % of the respondents said that they are not aware of such system. This shows that in terms of the awareness also the ISO 9001 : 2015 is not so popular among the employees in OETC.

Figure 11 It is important to develop the shortcut from ISO 9001 :  ISO 27001 and vice versa

The respondents were asked whether the OETC should develop the shortcut to move from ISO 9001  to ISO  27001 and vice versa, most of the employee were neutral. In other words the employees were not sure. This is may be because there is lack of awareness among the employees about both the process or the employees are not sure about the processes.

Figure 12 Overlaps process of audits between ISO 27001 and ISO 9001

Around 50 % of the respondents were not able to decide whether there is overlap between the ISO 27001 and ISO 9001. Only 42 % of the respondents agreed that the both the standards overlap with each other. The proportion of the respondents who disagreed with the given fact was very less.

Figure 13 Quantifying the benefits of the ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 adoption an easy tak.

When the respondents were asked whether it is easy to quantify the benefits of the ISO 27001 and 9001 process around 47 % of the respondents were not able to decide and more than 21 % of the respondents disagree with the given fact. On the basis of the results it can be said that quantifying the benefits is not an easy task. Only some specific section of the employees are able to realize the benefits and those respondents are the ones who agreed , as shown in the figure above.

Figure 14 Integration of the health and safety makes it easy for staff to file complaints related to work.

When the respondents were asked whether the integrate of the health and safety makes it easier for the lower level employees to file complains, more than 80 % of the respondents agreed, with 30 % of them strongly agreed.  This shows that integrated system is beneficial for not only the higher level employees but also for the employees in the lower level.

Figure 15 OETC  will implement the integrated system as it understand the health and the safety concerns

Around 78 % of the respondents in the current sample agrees that OETC will implement the integrated system as the company understand the relationship between work hazards and healthy and safety .  Furthermore, the proportion of the respondents who disagree with the given fact is very less.

Figure 16 Success of implementing the integrated management system depends on many aspects of techniques and the human factors

When asked are the technical and the human factors important for the successful implementation of the integrated managements system majority of the respondents agreed. This shows that there are various human and the technical factors which plays an important role in the implementation of the IMS. So OETC should take into consideration these facts before implementing the process.

Figure 17 costly and complexity of the IMS are the main reasons for its failures

As shown in the figure above, when the respondents were asked whether the cost and the complexity are the major factors which may lead to the failure of the IMS, half of the respondents were not sure and the around 35 % of the respondents did not agree with the given fact. The percentage of the respondents who agree that these factors leads to the failure of the program is very less.

Figure 18 OETC bears at least 80 % of the cost for the staff health and safety

To know whether the OETC is concerned about the health and the safety of its employees, the respondents were asked whether their company bears 80 % of the cost for health and safety, majority of the employees were not sure. They were either not aware of such schemes or they do not want to reveal any fact about the organization. However 53 % of the respondents agreed that OETC take care of 80 % cost related to the health and safety of the employees. This shows that OETC is concerned about its employees. Only a negligible proportion of the employees disagreed with the given fact.

Conclusion

This research is aimed to examine the employee’s perception of the readiness and the applicability of moving forward to integrated management system or stick with the ISO 9001 : 2015 accreditation taking into account the case of the OETC. Many previous scholars have argued that the integrated system is more useful for the organization which will eliminate the need of having different standards. The integrated system is expected to increase the efficiency in the process and also improve the quality of the product and the service provided by the organization. In the current research OETC has been taken as the case company, so for the analysis purpose also the primary data was collected from the same. Both the qualitative and the quantitative data has been collected. For the qualitative analysis personal interview of 7 employees has been conducted, whereas for the quantitative analysis the sample size of 93 employees has been taken into consideration.

Results from the qualitative analysis shows that the employees in OETC have good knowledge about the integrated management system the employees also have the perception that IMS will make the entire process of management much simpler and easy to use (Gianni & Gotzamani, 2015, p. 266).  In terms of the impact of the IMS , the results shows that it will have positive impact on customer satisfaction and  the quality of the goods and the services provided.  On the basis of the analysis it has been shown that the IMS will help the employees to focus on the specific task as the roles and the responsibilities are clearly defined under this process Bas¸aran, 2016, p. 34). There is no confusion in terms of direction and the process also become simpler that the employee in the lower level is also able to operate efficiently. There will be some problem in the transition phase when the new process is being replace by the IMS (Ruamchat, Thawesaengskulthai, & Pongpanich, 2017, p. 51). However in the long run the benefits are much larger than the cost. Also the quality measurement of the product become easy which will ensure that the high quality products and services are provided to the customers. This will not only increase the performance of the organization but also improve the brand value of the products and services provided. Furthermore the results from the qualitative analysis shows that successful implementation of the IMS is one of the major challenge . Managing the stakeholders involved in the entire process and lack of enough resources and tools to launch the program are the major implementation challenges.  Furthermore, since the system is integrated bad performance in one segment may affect the entire process which is another challenge to handle.  Also the results indicates that the cost of the implementing the IMS is much higher also the process is complex as compared to other processes.  In some organizations the employees are not ready for the change which creates another problem for the company. However  findings also suggests that the proper planning of the IMS and effective training and the awareness program will help the OETC to implement the IMS successfully.

Findings from the quantitative analysis suggests that the most of the respondents in the current research are from the transmission department who have less than 5 years of work experience in the OETC. The proportion of the respondents in the lower level position are higher than the proportion of employees in the senior position. Apart from the demographic conditions the results from the analysis shows that OHSAS 18001: 2007 is the most audited standard in the OETC. Similarly most of the employees argued that they are well aware of the IMS. Furthermore the management in the OETC are supportive towards the implementation of the IMS in the organization as most of the employees have the perception that the senior management support  the implementation of IMS. The positive impact of the IMS on customer satisfaction and the improvement in the quality of products is also shown by the results from the quantitative analysis also. Similarly, the findings also indicate that that quality management is one of the top priority of the senior management agenda in OETC. It is also believed that that IMS will add value to not only the OETC but also in the other organizations here it is applicable.

Furthermore the results from the data analysis shows that the employees think that quantifying the benefits of the ISO 27001 and 9001 is not easy. This is because most of the respondents were not able decide. This means that there is lot of confusion whether the ISO 27001 and 9001 are really helpful in the management system or not. On the other hand the employees are very clear about the importance of the Integrated management system as the employee are able to explain about the system as well as the benefits of the program. As per the employees, the new integrated management system will make it easy for the employees in the lower level to report to the higher level and there is very less chance of miscommunication. Also the employees are well aware of the challenges faced while implementing the integrated system. This shows that the employees and the company are well prepared to the implement the process. In some cases the process do not get along as the employees are not well aware of the process which makes it very difficult to implement. Also the findings show that the integrated management system help to maintain the health and safety issues of the employees. This will help the working environment more safe and also help to improve the work life balance of the employees. The company will also be able to monitor the health and safety measures of the employees and take necessary steps  so that the accidents and the other health related issues can be avoided. In terms of the challenges related to the implementation of the integrations system, two major factors comes forward. First the cost of the new system, as it is very costly process to implement and to successfully implement the process other tools and software should be implemented. Another major obstacle is the process complexity so the training of the all the stakeholder involved in the process. In the nutshell the main advantages of the new Integrated system are much higher  than the cost of the process, so the OETC should implement the process which will not only improve the employment efficiency but also the overall performance of the OETC also.

So, overall the perception of the employees towards the implementation of IMS is positive and they want the OETC to provide them required training and awareness related to the process. The IMS is expected to have the long term positive impact on the organization.

On the basis of the results from the qualitative and the quantitative analysis following recommendation can be made to OETC.

1) One of the major challenges identified is the effective implementation of IMS. OETC  can introduce various training and the awareness program, so that all the stakeholders in the organization are well aware about IMS and how it works. It can organize seminar, workshop, training classes and other creative activities so that the employees do not fear the IMS and are comfortable with the entire system. Also different videos, posters, fliers can be distributed among the employees so that the employees are comfortable with the IMS process (Chiarini, 2017, p. 311).

2) Another important challenges identified from the analysis is that the cost of implementing the IMS is very high. In some cases the high cost of IMS may become the major obstacle for the implementation of IMS. Previous research scholars have also shown that programs such as the IMS seems to be costly in the initial phase, however in the long run the benefit from the system will outnumbered the cost. Once the IMS is implemented the entire process becomes more efficient, the resources are fully utilized and there is less wastage of the resources. This will help the organization to reduce the cost. Also  the IMS will have positive impact on the customer satisfaction. This will lead to higher sales of the products and services which will help to cover the cost of IMS. Furthermore the IMS will help to improve the quality of the products and the services provided by the organization. This will help to improve the brand value of the organization and in the long run the company will benefit. So, the OETC should implement the IMS process

3) The resistance from the employees was highlighted by few respondents in the data analysis, however the results from the analysis do not show any significant resistance from the employees for the implementation of IMS. However this factor cannot be ignored. There will be certain section of the employees in the organization who do not want any change and are afraid of the new system. This is either because such employees do not want to learn new things or they do not want the company to know about their performance. In case of IMS, the performance measurement process will be much easier and the roles and the responsibilities will be clearly defined. So, some employees do  not want such changes to happen. In such cases the management should address their concerns and if there is any issues it should be resolved by discussion.

4) Complexity of the process is another important challenge which will occur in the initial phase of IMS, as the employees will find it difficult to cope up with the new system. Especially, the old age employees do not enjoy and significant changes in the working culture or the process. In such cases the OETC should have special attention to those sections of the employees and can also provide special training. The younger employees who are comfortable with the process should be encouraged to help their colleagues and friends.  

5) Results from the quantitative analysis shows that the successful implementation of the IMS projects depends on the various human factors and the techniques. The human factors may be the support from the higher management to implement the process, the implementation team and people involved in the different stages of the implementation. So, to make the IMS successful the implementation team should be carefully selected. There should be representation from all positions. If only the people from the higher posts are included the implementation may not be successful in the lower level. Also the importance of the required techniques has been highlighted from the results. So OETC should ensure that all the required tools and resources are provided so that the IMS can be successfully implemented across the organization.

6) The results from the analysis also highlights that the health and the safety are the major concerns of the employees in the OETC. Also the employees also argues that the new system will be able to capture these measures and the reporting of these issues to the higher management will be much easier as compared to the existing process. So while implementing the integrated management system , it should be ensured that the health and the safety related issues are covered. This will make the working environment safe and also improve the confidence of the employees which will eventually improve the productivity.

8) Results from the quantitative analysis also show that some of the employees argues that it is important to develop the shortcut from ISO 9001: ISO 27001 and vice versa. However there may be many difficulties and challenges while taking the short cut, so the management should ensure that the new integrated system should take into consideration these concerns also.

9) One of the findings from the results also showed that most of  the employees are not aware about the standard process followed in the organization and also about the facilities provided by OETC.  This is mostly in the lower segments of the employment. This is because when asked about the health and safety facilities provided by the OETC most of the employees were neutral. If they were aware about these thing they would have either agreed or disagreed with the given fact. So, it is important for OETC to provide the awareness to its employees about its process and also about the facilities provided.

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