Quality Management Practices and Operational Performance of Insurance Companies in Kenya
Abstract
To establish how operational performance of insurance companies was affected by quality
management was the main objective of this study. Specifically, the study sought to establish the
quality management practices adopted by insurance companies in Kenya; the quality management
challenges faced by insurance companies in Kenya and the relationship between quality
management practices adopted and the operational performance of insurance companies in Kenya.
Analyzing of the data with the aid of SPSS was done using descriptive statistics and inferential
statistics. The study concludes that insurance companies have implemented quality management
practices (top management support, strategic planning, process management, supplier
management, and customer focus and employee involvement) to a great extent. The most
implemented practices were customer focus, top management support, supplier management and
employee involvement where they were all implemented to a great extent. The study also
concludes there exists a strong link (R-value = 0.602) between quality management practices and
operational performance of insurance firms with quality management practices being able to
explain 36.2% of the total variance in the operational performance of insurance firms. All the
quality management practices (top management support, strategic planning, supplier management,
process management, and customer focus and employee involvement) were found to have a
positive effect on the operational performance of insurance firms. The study further concluded that
insurance companies face challenges when implementing quality management practices to a
moderate extent. The challenges faced often by the insurance firms are resistance to change by the
staff; lack of adequate experience in implementation and inadequate implementation personnel
while the less often faced challenges were inadequate leadership and direction from managers;
lack of understanding of the strategy by implementers and absence of the appropriate structures.
The study makes the following recommendations. The management of the insurance firms should
involve the employees in identifying the best practices to adopt in order to reduce resistance to
change by staff. The insurance firms should also hire qualified staff that has the requisite expertise
and experience in implementing quality management practices. Most respondents were reluctant
in filling the questionnaires. They feared that the information sought through the questionnaires
would be used against them. The scope of “this study was limited to the effect of quality
management practices on the operational performance of insurance companies. This implies that
the findings cannot be adequately applied to non-insurance firms. In future, a similar study should
be done considering non-insurance firms such as commercial banks in order to establish how
implementation of quality management practices affects their operational performance.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
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