ABSTRACT
The study focused on influence of quality check management on the performance of hotels in Umuhia Abia State. The objectives of the study are; To identify the dimensions of quality check management applicable in hotel operation, to examine the influence of quality check management on employee productivity in hotel operation, to determine the influence of quality check management on the sustainability of hotels in Umuahia Abia State and to assess the influence of quality check management on the customer satisfaction in hotel operation. To achieve the objective of the study, survey research design was adopted. The researcher adopted primary data in getting the required information through the use of structured questionnaire. The population of the study is 38 registered hotels in Umuahia, Abia State with 520 staff strength. The sample size of the study is 226 after adopting Taro Yamane formula. In analysis the data, simple regression analysis was used. The findings revealed that (i) quality check management has a significant influence on employee productivity in hotel operation (ii) quality check management has a significant influence on the sustainability of hotels in Umuahia Abia State (iii) quality check management has a significant influence on customer satisfaction in hotel operation. The study recommends that Hotels should ensure they manage and improve the quality of their product/service that would help in enhancing organizational productivity. Also, hotels should train their staff on quality control. Effective quality control will positively affect organizational performance.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title page i
Approval
ii
Certification
iii
Dedication
iv
Acknowledgement
v
Table of contents
vi
List of table
xi
Abstract
xii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background to the study 1
1.2 Statement of the problem 4
1.3 Objectives of the study 6
1.4 Research questions 6
1.5 Research hypotheses 7
1.6 Significance of the study 7
1.7
Scope of the study 8
CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1
Conceptual Framework 9
2.1.1
Meaning and Origin of Quality 9
2.1.2
Quality Management 9
2.1.3
Quality Management Components 14
2.1.3.1 Quality Control: 14
2.1.3.2 Quality Assurance: 18
2.1.3.3 Quality Improvements 25
2.1.4 Organizational Performance 25
2.1.5 Quality Management and Organizational Performance 27
2.1.6 The Influence of Management Commitment on
Organizational Performance 29
2.1.7 The Influence of Employee Involvement on Organizational
Performance 31
2.1.8 The Influence of Continuous Improvement on
Organizational Performance 33
2.1.9 The Influence of Customer Focus on Organizational
Performance 34
2.2
Theoretical Framework 37
2.2.1 Quality Improvement
Theory (Deming, 1986) 37
2.2.2 Theory of
Constraints (Goldratt and Cox, 1984) 38
2.2.3 Resource-Based View
(Barney, 2011) 39
2.3 Empirical Review 40
2.4 Summary of
Reviewed Related Literature 43
CHAPTER
3: METHODOLOGY
3.1
Research Design 44
3.2 Area
of the Study 44
3.3
Population for the Study 44
3.4
Sampling and Sampling Technique 44
3.4.1
Sample size determination 44
3.5
Instrument for data collection 45
3.6
Validity of the instrument 46
3.7 Reliability
of the instrument 46
3.8
Method of data collection 46
3.9
Method of data analysis 47
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Results 48
4.1.1 Socio-economic
Characteristics
48
4.2 Analysis of research questions
49
4.3 Test of hypotheses 53
4.3 Discussion of findings 57
CHAPTER 5: SUMMARY,
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Summary 59
5.1.1 Restatement of the Problem 59
5.1.2 Description of Methods Used
61
5.1.3 Major Findings
61
5.2 Conclusion 62
5.3 Recommendations 62
5.4 Contribution to knowledge 63
5.5 Suggestion
for further studies 63
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
One of the most important components of tourism is
hospitability industry whose development both internationally and nationally is
overwhelming. In fact, specialists in the field provide a special attention to
hospitability industry, and within it, to hotel unit (O' Fallon and Rutherfort,
2011; Walton, 2009; Vallen and Vallen, 2012; Fleșeriu, 2011). The continuous development of service quality
management is currently a challenge for the hotel industry having thorough
implications for the entire tourism industry. Policy developed by any tourist
unit that is focused on service quality management, service strategy, human
resources management and information technology assume the raise of many means
and energies within the tourist sector as direct contact with customers,
intangible supplied services and development of tourist services, are major
elements. In the hotel sector, starting with the year 1980, there were concerns
as regards quality of services and products supplied to the customers (Johns,
2015) due to the impact that it can generate over the activity performance (Barney,
2011). Thus, it has noticed that quality management can influence the
performance indicators in two ways (Rad, 2016): by means of an internal impact
(improvement of efficiency, cost cutting etc.) and of external impact
(maximization of market share, increase of number of customers, getting of
customer satisfaction, image improvement etc.) (Barney, 2011). Quality
management (QM) is a business practice that is widely used by many organizations
to improve firm performance. The widespread interest in using quality
management to improve organizational performance started in the manufacturing
sector and later spread to service organizations (Anderson, Daly and Johnson, 2013).
Implementing quality management effectively as several empirical studies have
indicated can positively influence hotel performance (Kaynak, 2013; Powell,
2015; Samson and Terziovski, 2019). The focus of hotels that implement quality
management is on provision of superior customer value, improvement of the
efficiency of the processes, increase in productivity, quality improvement,
reduction in costs, increase in sales and market share, customer retention and
an improved firm image (Kaynak, 2013; York and Miree, 2014). Increased revenues
and reduced costs are possible with continuous provision of superior value to
customers, improvement of processes and provision of quality product (Kaynak
2013, 2009). Satisfaction of customers
leads to increased revenues because it enables the firm to gain a market
competitive advantage (Kaynak 2013; York and Miree, 2014).
Quality management can be viewed as a
management approach made of its principles, practices and techniques (Dean and
Bowen, 2014). The principles are a set
of fundamental assumptions that explain how the firm is viewed together with
its relations to customers,
competitors and suppliers. The practices are seen as the activities performed to show and symbolize the principles,
such as collecting customer
information, improving work processes and managing employees. The techniques are viewed as the procedures
and infrastructure for conducting certain
practices (Dean and Bowen, 2014).
Quality
check management indicate that the perceived benefits of quality management are
influenced by individual quality practices such as employee management, process
orientation and customer orientation, and different firm characteristics, such
as firm size and the degree of capital intensity (Hendricks and Singhal, 2011).
Hendricks and Singhal (2011) provide empirical evidence that small businesses
benefit more from quality management than their larger counterparts, in terms
of achieving more improvement in operating income and sales.
Intensified
competition due to globalization and the rapid growth of the tourism market
makes the sustainability of hotel businesses possible with the adoption of a
service quality management approach. The tourism sector (which hotels part of
it) plays an important role in the development of the Nigeria economy. For
instance in 2013, the Nigeria tourism sector contributed approximately twelve
per cent towards the country’s GDP and eleven per cent towards total employment
(World Travel and Tourism Council, 2014). The continued growth of the tourism
sector and the foreign exchange earnings it generates has made the tourism
sector to be one of the major sectors in the world economy (Singh, 2017). The
tourism sector’s multiplier effect on other sectors of the country has lead to
development and growth of businesses such as the hotels. Unlike other products
and services, the tourism product is consumed at the point of production
(Dieke, 2011) making the implementation of service quality management approach
very significant for the provision of superior customer service and the most
critical in today’s hotels competition worldwide.
Policy management is the process of creating, communicating,
and maintaining policies and procedures within an organization. An effective
policy management system can mitigate risk in two ways. First, it makes
policies more quickly accessible to direct care staff, guiding care and safety
decisions. Second, it can protect an organization from litigation by staying up
to date on accreditation standards and creating an audit trail in the case of
legal action. Because the process of managing policies can be expensive and
time consuming, hospital boards should make the implementation of an efficient
policy management system a priority. A comprehensive and well-managed set of
policies can support hotel activities by communicating boundaries and
expectations, establishing a culture of compliance within the organization,
protecting the organization from litigation, and helping achieve the organization’s
objectives. The policy can be in the area of quality check to ensure that the
hotel maintain good service quality in order to enhance performance and
employee productivity.
Hotel
services are considered as one of the most important and high customer contact
services in the tourism industry (Shahin & Samea, 2010). Service quality
management and improvement are the most critical factors in today’s hotels’
business. Hotels are intermediaries who bear the responsibility of satisfying
customers by providing quality tourism service in terms of accommodations and
leisure to the tourists. It is therefore
crucial to develop an understanding of the success of hotel business. Besides
the numerous studies on the quality management and performance linkages, there
is scarcity of empirical and conceptual studies on Nigerian firms.
Specifically, there are inadequate quality check management and performance on
hotels operations in Nigeria.
1.2
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
In many emerging
economies especially in Nigeria, hospitality industry had been the economic
growth engine and was the major tradable sector in those economies (Tsai,
2014). Hotel industry is burdened by challenges such as resource scarcity, high
cost of energy, unreliable electricity supply, low level technology utilization
and declining trend of product innovation (UNEP, 2015). Among the major
challenges that are facing the industry are poor electricity and time
consuming, and bureaucratic procedures. Companies that experience good
performance consistently have the understanding of what total quality
management means to a business establishment. For this reason, hotels are
adopting quality management strategies that work for them in order to improve
on, thus the study intends to look at the role played by quality management in
influencing performance among hotels with an additional look at the
relationship that may exist between quality management and performance.
Despite the growth
and development in technology, hotel industries still stocked with poor quality
planning and implementation, this have affected the products and services
output. Also, the growing rate of poor quality products/service are increasing
at alarming rate. The firms consistently undermined the ISO (International
Standard Organization) specification that affect the quality assurance. Even
the agencies saddled to checkmate the control and quality standard often
abandon the role through corrupt practice and favouritism syndrome. Then, the
poor and disequilibrium in control and standard grossly affected the quality
improving rate of both product and service. In addition, the persons that
regulates and supervises hospitality policies is nothing to write-home about
and this have retarded the outlook of control and check-and-balance within the
hotel industry. Employees are no longer supervised, management policies no
longer observed by management and employees. This has in turn affected the
quality of product and service in hospitality industry. Often time, guests
complain of poor service from hotel staff, some staff are either sluggish or
rude while rendering service to guests/customers. This is as a result of lack
of quality check management from hotel managers.
In view of the
foregoing discussion, it is clear that previous studies have not provided
adequate evidence on the relationship between quality check management and the
performance of hotels. It is on against this backdrop that this study intends
to examine the influence of quality check management on hotel performance:
mediating role of management policies and supervision in hospitality operation.
1.3
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The main objective of this study is to
examine the influence of quality check management on the performance of hotels
in Umuahia, Abia State.
The specific objectives includes;
(i) to identify the dimensions of quality check
management applicable in hotel operation.
(ii) to examine the influence of quality check
management on employee productivity in hotel operation.
(iii) to determine the influence of quality check management
on the sustainability of hotels in Umuahia Abia State.
(iv) to assess the influence of quality check
management on the customer satisfaction in hotel operation.
1.4 RESEARCH
QUESTIONS
The following questions guided the study;
(i)
what are the dimensions of quality check
management applicable in hotel operation?
(ii)
what is the influence of quality check
management on employee productivity in hotel operation?
(iii) what is
the influence of quality check management on the sustainability of hotels in
Umuahia Abia State?
(iv) what is
the influence of quality check management on customer satisfaction in hotel
operation?
1.5 RESEARCH
HYPOTHESES
For the purpose of this study, the following hypotheses were
formulated in a null form;
Ho1: Quality check
management has no significant influence on employee productivity in hotel
operation.
Ho2: Quality check
management has no significant influence on the sustainability of hotels in
Umuahia Abia State.
Ho3: Quality check
management has no significant influence on customer satisfaction in hotel
operation.
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
STUDY
The study will be
significant to the following group of people
Hotel industry: the study
will enable hotels to know the effect of quality check management on
organizational efficiency. The findings of this study will also review to
hotels, the dimensions of quality check management that have the ability of
enhancing their performance. The study will also help hotels to identify those
factors that could hinder the effectiveness of quality check management in an
organization.
Employees: the findings
and recommendations of is study will also educate employees on the need to
improve their service quality that would enhance organizational performance.
Government: The findings
of this study will help government and policy makers in taking effective
decision relating to policy formation in respect to hospitality industry.
Students; this study will
enlighten students of this noble institution and other institutions on the
influence of quality check management on hotel performance: mediating role of
management policies and supervision in hospitality operation
Researchers: this study
will serve as a reference material to researchers who would want to carry out a
similar topic in future.
1.8
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The content scope the influence of quality
check management on the performance of hotels in Umuahia, Abia State. The
geographic scope is Umuahia, Abia State. The unit scope is the managers and
staff of the selected hotels in Umuahia Abia State.
Login To Comment