International Organization for Standardization 9001 Certification and Service Delivery in Government Ministries in Kenya

Abstract

Quality Management System (QMS) is an approach to control and direct operations to better manage an organization whereas customer satisfaction is the level of a person’s felt state as a result of comparing a product’s perceived performance in violation of his/her expectations. The objectives of the research were to determine the challenges faced by government ministries in the attainment of International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification and the effect of the application of ISO 9001 principles on customer satisfaction. The Research was anchored on two theories, thus Resource Based View Theory and the Systems Theory to explain aspects of ISO certification. The research adopted a descriptive research design. The target respondents were drawn from the 21 government ministries established in Kenya. Primary data was collected from the respondents using a questionnaire administered through a drop and pick method. The questionnaire had three sections; section A on general information, section B on challenges faced in attaining ISO certification under the first objective and section C for the second objective on the effect of on the application of ISO principles on customer satisfaction for services delivered by the ministries. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS computer software version 20 to generate both descriptive and inferential statistics. The descriptive statistics were presented using frequencies, mean and standard deviation while inferential statistics was obtained by performing a regression analysis on the dependent variable (customer satisfaction) and the independent variables that were significant (leadership and engagement of people). The research established that government ministries faced many challenges in their pursuit of ISO certification, key among them inadequate funding, awareness on ISO, benefits and top management support for ISO certification; frequent changes of top management in the ministries, the long duration taken to attain ISO certification, resistance to change and inadequate knowledge and skills on ISO, among others. The research also established that the application of ISO principles had a major effect on customer satisfaction in the services offered by government ministries in Kenya as was evidenced by a p value of 0.007 at 95 percent confidence level. This showed that the model adopted for this study was significant and that ISO principles were significant in predicting the level of customer satisfaction in government ministries in Kenya. The study concluded that attainment of ISO certification in government ministries was critical to improving services rendered to the citizens and increased customer satisfaction. It was, therefore, recommended that the Government should prioritize and mainstream ISO certification in all the ministries and ensure adequate resources were allocated.