Facilitating TQM with the Application of ICTs to Improve Customer Satisfaction

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Facilitating TQM

with the Application of ICTs

to Improve Customer Satisfaction

Word count: 4977

Hallie Zhao, S2990040

University of Groningen

Faculty of Economics and Business

Pre-Msc Change Management

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1. Introduction

Stressing the significance of total quality management (TQM), researchers have suggested it is among the most important and positive predictors of the continuous improvement of customer satisfaction (CS) (Kristianto, Ajmal & Sandhu, 2011; Terziovski, 2006; Sit, Ooi & Chong, 2009; Mehra & Ranganathan, 2008; Ooi, Lin, Tan & Chong, 2010). TQM, a concept originated from Japanese manufacturing sector (Naoum, 2002), has expanded its meaning because of the challenges and stress from multi-dimensional demands and globalization (Yasin, Kunt & Zimmerer, 2004). The concept is no longer restricted to the manufacturing sector, but has reached a wider range of organizations including health care, services, education, government, and financial institutions (Sirvanci, 2004; Yaya, Marumon & Casadesus, 2011). Customers judge the quality of product and service provided by these organizations. TQM is then defined as a management strategy, with sound design and successful implementation, which can be adopted to enhance customer satisfaction through a concerted focus on customers (Mehra et al. 2008).

With regarding to achieving the aim of attaining higher level of CS, researchers (as indicated below) also indicated the specific practices within TQM which have positive relationship with CS. Among the findings of the reviewed studies, the most agreed TQM practices that contributes to CS are customer focus (Ooi et al. 2010; Mehra et al. 2008; Terziovski, 2006; Forza & Filippini, 1998; Agus 2004), information and analysis (Ooi et al. 2010; Sit et al. 2009; Terziovski, 2006) and people management (Agus 2004; Choi et al. 1998). These practices ensure the implementation of TQM plays a constructive role in the process of continuous improving customer satisfaction.

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(ICTs), have been proven to be supportive to TQM initiatives (Dewhurst, Martinez-Lorente & Sanchez-Rodriguez, 2003; Lobo & Ramanathan, 2005; Rohlin et al. 2002). The term ICTs refers to technologies that provide access to information especially through telecommunications (Christensson, 2010). The industries with large ICT adoptions include information, finance and insurance, manufacturing, professional, scientific and technical services, and health care and social assistance (Weber et al., 2011). Recent studies revealed the impacts of ICTs are related with performance management (Kagaari, Munene & Ntayi, 2010), corporate productivity (Miyazaki, Idota & Miyoshi, 2012), and crisis management (Schraagen, 2011). Benefits of implementing ICTs were found to be related to operations, marketing, financial performance, and the organizational culture of “learning by doing” (Ayal & Seidman, 2014).

However, among the reviewed researches which studied the adoption and impacts of ICTs, few were found to be focusing on how do ICTs facilitate TQM so that CS can be improved. It is already understood that ICT can help with the implementation of TQM while TQM serves the aim of improving CS. But the role ICT is playing in TQM in order to reach higher CS is not yet known. As a widely used tool for management, corporations have realized the (potential) benefits that ICTs can bring to them. This argument finds support from various scholars. For instance, Slocum & Lee (2014) indicated that ICTs have impacts on information management and flows, and shaping consumer behavior. Lobo et al. (2005) suggested that customers will continuously seek for using new technologies to manage relationship and companies need to prepare for this trend. From these discussions it is not hard to notice the missing connection between ICTs and the TQM practices which are supportive to CS. Considering the literature findings, the following research question is formed in this study:

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By answering this research question, a stronger connection between ICTs and TQM can be built up, as well as completing the previously mentioned theories concerning ICT and TQM since there was no focus on the influence of ICTs on TQM in terms of improving CS. Currently there are not abundant studies concerning the relationship between ICTs and TQM, findings of this research will make contributions to both ICT-related and TQM-ICT-related literature. By presenting the particular impacts that ICTs have on certain TQM constructs (people management, customer focus, information and analysis) that lead to enhanced customer satisfaction, companies can draw lessons from the findings to modify the implementation of ICTs for these three TQM constructs so that better business performance may be reached.

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2. Theory

In this section, theoretical background of this research relating to ICTs, TQM, and CS will be introduced and compared, ending up with a theoretical framework which acts as the guidance of the study.

2.1. Facilitating TQM with adoption of ICTs

Although no unanimity was attained as to the concept and definition of TQM (Lobo et al. 2005), the researcher selected the most appropriate one to fit in with the objective of this research: “TQM is a management strategy that, with sound design and successful implementation, can be adopted to enhance customer satisfaction through a concerted focus on customers” (Mehra et al. 2008, p.922).

ICTs are adopted to facilitate the implementation of TQM, which has been proposed by several scholars (Lobo et al., 2005; Dewhurst et al, 2003; Rohlin et al. 2002).

Lobo et al. (2005) presented a complete analysis involving all major elements of TQM with a quality management assessment framework (QMAF) (see original model in Appendix I). “Information, knowledge, and communication” (referring to ICTs in the QMAF model) is what connects all the twelve components of the model (i.e. the elements of TQM). A progressive four-level of quality management model (Phase 1-inspection; Phase 2-assurance; Phase 3-prevention, Phase 4-perfection) was brought forward and Lobe et al. argued that ICTs could be used to accelerate the movement of firms from phase 1 to phase 4.

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data, produce reports, check progress).

Dewhurst et al. (2003) demonstrated a list of very specific areas which ICTs support TQM, including improving customer and supplier relationship, increasing process control, facilitating teamwork, facilitating inter-departmental information flow, improving design progress and skills, applying preventive maintenance, introducing ISO 9000, measuring quality costs, and improving the decision process in quality departments.

Other managerial benefits of implementing ICTs have been found as: operations (reduced turnaround time), marketing (higher satisfaction level), financial performance (higher revenue generation rates), and organizational “learning by doing” culture (Ayal et al. 2014). ICTs can also help with accelerating the speed of information exchanging, processing of data, and improving the quality of intra-company communication (Houy, 2005).

One condition mentioned by several researchers (Dewhurst et al. 2003; Rohlin et al. 2002; Au e& Choi, 1999; Lobo et al. 2005) of successful implementation of ICT is a favorable culture within the organization. Organizations should put a high premium on commitment from top management and employee involvement through evolution in order to create a culture with high acceptance of ICT.

In summary, the implementation of ICT does benefit the continuous quality improve process from many aspects. A culture with acceptance and support for ICT will maximize the good effects brought by ICT adoption.

2.2. TQM constructs and their relationship with CS

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TQM that improving CS is the ultimate goal. Researchers (as indicated in the following paragraphs) have revealed how TQM help with realizing higher CS.

Talking about the relationship between TQM and CS, it should be started from the constructs of TQM, including leadership, people management, customer focus, strategic planning, information and analysis, and process management (Sit et al., 2009), which originated from the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) (see details in Appendix I). Referring to customer satisfaction, it is defined as the overall attitude of customers towards a good or service after they have acquired and used it (Malhotra, 1999). The positive impacts TQM has on CS are proven by various researchers (Mehra et al., 2008; Forza et al., 1998; Sit et al., 2009; Terziovski, 2006). These researchers revealed TQM substantially increases customer satisfaction. Several constructs of TQM were shown to have significant positive association with CS, namely customer focus, information and analysis, and people management.

Kristianto et al. (2011) stressed the use of quality function deployment (defined by Martins et al. 2001 as “how we understand the quality that our customer expect and make it happen in a dynamic way”) for achieving higher CS through implementation of TQM. Customer relationships should be well managed by meeting customer wants. Besides customer-related issues, Kristianto et al. (2011) attached great importance to employee training in order to maximize CS.

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globalization), and HR skills would facilitate TQM towards higher customer satisfaction. Choi et al. (1998) indicated the effects of employee involvement and empowerment which avails increasing access to information and resources as well as delegating decision-making.

There are also other supporters for customer focus. For instance, customer satisfaction was ranked very high in the success factors of TQM listed by Kumar, Garg & Garg (2010). Employee training and feedback were found on the list as well, showing a positive relation with improving CS. In addition, the researchers added effective communication as a contributor to CS, although they place it in the last place.

However, several scholars affirmed the essentiality of effective communication as or being contained in one of the TQM constructs. Terziovski (2006) argued that elimination of barriers between individuals and departments is one of the best predictors of customer satisfaction. And to realize the elimination of barriers, effective communication is the solution. The findings of Ooi et al. (2011), Sit et al. (2009) and Choi et al. (1998) proved that information and analysis are among the TQM constructs which have positive association with CS. Here, information and analysis refers to not only the information exchange within an organization (among employees and departments), but also external information and knowledge collecting (with customers and competitors) (Forza et al. 1998; Sit et al. 2009) and benchmarking (Terziovski, 2006).

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Figure 2.1 summaries the TQM constructs which have positive relationship with CS.

Fig. 2.1 TQM constructs that contributes to CS

2.3. ICT-TQM-CS

When summarizing the discussions above, it is not hard to identify the link between ICTs and TQM, as well as the link between TQM and CS. ICTs support TQM by accelerating and smoothing the TQM practices and creating better connections among the TQM constructs. In the meanwhile, three constructs of TQM (people management, customer focus, information and analysis) have shown major contribution in terms of improving CS.

However, through reviewing literatures, researches that focusing on the contribution of ICTs to TQM in terms of the CS-related aspects were rarely found. Recent studies of ICTs focused on the impacts on knowledge capabilities and innovation (Joshi, Chi, Datta & Han, 2010), new product development, training and skills (Slocum et al. 2014), which are not even closely linked to TQM. Literatures that confirmed TQM’s positive

TQM

Leadership

People management

Customer focus

Strategic planning

Information and analysis

Process management

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relationship with CS did not give insight on the impacts of ICTs either (as can be concluded from 2.2 TQM constructs and their relationship with CS). Therefore, it is valuable to study the influences of ICTs from a distinct view which focus on the relationship between ICTs and the TQM constructs that are critical to increasing CS. By filling the gap of ICT and TQM in terms of increasing CS, this research provides major contribution to academic realms of ICT and TQM. Knowledge about the how ICT contribute to TQM from a new viewpoint can be gained to strengthen the previous research findings on ICT and TQM.

Figure 2.3 presents the framework of this research.

Fig. 2.3 ICT-TQM-CS

The three constructs related to CS will also be applied during the data analysis session as categories of codes.

The main research question is formed as “How do ICTs influence TQM in terms of

TQM

Leadership

People management

Customer focus

Strategic planning

Information and analysis

Process management

CS

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achieving customer satisfaction?” Several sub research questions are formulated according to the main question:

1) What ICT are applied and how do ICT influence people management as a construct of TQM?

2) What ICT are applied and how do ICT influence customer focus as a construct of TQM?

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3. Methodology

In this section, the method chosen to do this research, the source of evidence which will be used, and the techniques to translate and analyze data will be introduced.

To serve the objective of this research is to explore how do ICT support the continuous improvement of customer satisfaction thus facilitating TQM, the researcher chooses to do qualitative case study researches with two companies who are using ICT as a significant tool to facilitate TQM thus the relationship between ICT and the continuous improvement of customer satisfaction can be studied.

The overall research process is under the approach of inductive while the data analysis session is conducted in a deductive way. The purpose of inductive approach is to better understand the nature of the issue (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2009). From the objective it can be known that the research is to form a theory (in this case to complete existing theories) from the analysis of data and research context rather than the other way around, so the inductive approach should be adopted in this case. The sample of subjects being small, consisting of five people working in organizations which are studied, makes case study a reasonable choice. Regarding to the data analysis session, the approach is deductive because the researcher applied the theoretical framework formed in the Theory chapter as the guidance of the research. The theoretical framework also provides categories when coding data from interviews.

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companies are hotels but with different market positioning. The brief information will be introduced respectively in the following two paragraphs.

One of the two companies (Company H, referred to “Case 1” in the Results chapter) is a 4-star hotel located in a major city in Central China. The 21-floor building offers 442 rooms, a banquet hall with a capacity of 1200 people, and several multifunctional halls, VIP rooms and wedding rooms. TQM has been the major concept of the management team for years. The application of ICTs is abundant in this hotel. With the operation of more than 60 servers and 20 ICT applications, the implementation of TQM is strengthened from various management aspects. The researcher finds this company a good one to do research with because there is a complete and mature management process facilitated by ICTs, which fits in with the aim of this research.

The other company (Company S, referred to “Case 2” in the Results chapter) is an economy hotel in a municipality in the Eastern China. The hotel has more than 80 employees and has adopted TQM since it was founded. The Plan-Do-Check-Act model is the way they ensure a smooth implementation of TQM. Although the hotel placed itself into a budget hotel, “to put customers’ needs in the first place” has long been the core value. In recent years the hotel began to put a high value on ICT as it is a booming way to do business and propagate information, from which the implementation of TQM is also benefited. The researcher finds this company a good object as well, giving possibly more views than investigating only one company in this industry.

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convenience of the researcher. Doing interviews in mother tongue will ensure the interviews going on smoothly for both the interviewer and interviewees so that reliability and validity of the collected data can be improved to a large extent. The limitation of doing research with organizations outside where the researcher is located is that there is no possibility to do face-to-face interviews. Instead, telephone interview appears to be the best choice under this circumstance. The interviews will be recorded by audio taping with the agreement of the interviewees. This is to ensure the reliability of collected raw data and show respect to the participants.

Two people from Company S (a personnel staff and a marketing manager) and three people from Company H (an ICT specialist, a front office worker, and a floor captain) will be interviewed.

Some sample questions to be asked in the interviews are shown below:

 What ICTs are applied in your company and what are the impacts of these ICT on TQM?

 How do ICTs influence people management process in your company?  How do ICTs influence customer focus issues in your company?

 How do ICTs influence information and analysis process in your company? Confidentiality was treated seriously and only relevant information relating to this research will be presented in the data analysis session.

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4. Results

The results of this research will be presented by the findings of Case 1 (Hotel H) and the findings of Case 2 (Hotel S) respectively. In both of the cases, ICTs are found to be applied in the three TQM constructs (people management, customer focus, information and analysis) that contribute to CS. However, the applications of ICT and their functions differ between the two cases. A short comparison will be given in the end of the section.

4.1. Findings of Case 1

ICTs that serve people management in Case 1 in terms of recording personnel information, conducting performance appraisal, facilitating job-related training, facilitating people orientation, and arranging labor relation and payment.

For customer focus, the functions of the applied ICTs are managing and storing customer information, facilitating customer support service, and collecting feedback. For information and analysis, the applied ICTs facilitates internal communication, benchmarking, and supporting knowledge management.

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Findings of Case 1 People management

Function Specific ICT application(s) Citations from the interviews

Recording personnel information

HRMS Interview H1 - “…The manager’s page has functions like personnel records…”

Conducting

performance appraisal

HRMS Interview H2 - “…The manager’s page has more managerial functions like…and

performance appraisal, which influence …” Facilitating job-related

training

The Intranet Interview H1 – “…For training, the use of ICT is very important…the Intranet helps

with making it flexible and convenient…” Facilitating people

orientation

The intranet, email, teleconference, interphone

Interview H1 – “Messages about people orientation are usually spread out via ICTs, like the post on the company website, emails, interphones etc.”

Arranging labor relation and payment

HRMS Interview H1 – “…labor relation management, payment and bonus…”

Customer focus

Managing and storing customer data

Opera PMS Interview H1 – “… [Opera PMS] is a front office software which deals with customer

related information.” Facilitating customer

support service

Opera PMS, Delphi, interphone, voicemail

Interview H2 – “Interphone and voicemail are very helpful tools for supporting customer service

Collecting feedback Online booking websites, company

website, social media (WeChat, Weibo)

Interview H1 – “…we are also cooperating with many online booking websites, allowing them to plug into our own systems. Data can be imported directly…”

Information and analysis

Function Specific ICT applications(s) Citations from the interviews

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communication used for informing… SCM is used to manage connections with suppliers.”

Interview H3 – “ICTs related to external communication are usually email and telephone.”

Benchmarking The Internet Interview H1 – “Benchmarking is more or less included in the information and

knowledge management…There are some ICT applications used for data collection like the Internet…”

Supporting knowledge management

OA system, discussion board on the Intranet

Interview H1 – “…information and knowledge management involves many ICTs like the OA system and the discussion board of the Intranet.”

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4.2. Findings of Case 2

ICTs that serve people management in Case 2 in terms of people management are conducting performance appraisal, facilitating job-related training, enhancing employee focus, supporting recruitment.

For customer focus, the applied ICTs manage customer relationship and store data, also help with understanding customers’ requirement and collecting feedback.

For information and analysis, facilitating internal communication, facilitating external communication, and supporting market analysis are the functions of ICTs.

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Findings of Case 2 People management

Conducting performance appraisal

Shengwei HRMS Interview S1 – “…arranging jobs and analyzing employee performance…also a

database of employee information.”

Interview S1 – “…manage attendance rate and arrange jobs…”

Facilitating job-related training The Intranet Interview S2 – “…all employees have access to the training sectors of the

Intranet where materials like PowerPoint slides, videos and some electronical periodicals can be found.”

Enhancing employee focus Social media (Dingding), telephone,

email

Interview S1 – “ICTs are used for communication among employees and management team…ICTs help us know about their problems…”

Supporting recruitment Recruiting website, html5 tool

(Yiqixiu)

Interview S1 – “We post recruiting information on many recruitment websites…also use Wechat and Weibo a lot.”

Customer focus

Managing customer relationship and storing data

Baihui CRM Interview S2 – “Baihui’s CRM system is what we are using now, for managing

customer relationship…”

Interview S1 – “… [Baihui’s CRM system] as the database of customer information…”

Understanding customers’ requirements and collecting feedback

Online booking websites, social media (WeChat, Weibo), email, telephone

Interview S2 – “…we are cooperating with online booking websites…so in that way we can collect feedback from customers.”

Information and analysis

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Facilitating internal communication

Social media (Dingding) Interview S2 – “The internal communication ICT tool we are using now is a

mobile application called Dingding.” Facilitating external

communication

Telephone, email Interview S2 – “Email and telephone are used for contacting partners and

suppliers.”

Supporting market analysis Baihui CRM, the Internet Interview S2 - “Information needed for doing marketing analysis are usually

collected from the Internet.”

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4.3. Comparison

The findings in the two cases are similar to each other in general. However, differences still exist in all of the three categories.

In terms of people management, the functions of ICTs in Case 1 resemble that of Case 2. ICTs does the job of recording personnel information and conducting performance appraisal, facilitating job-related training, and supporting people orientation (employee focus) in both cases. Additionally, ICTs also assist arranging labor relation and payment in Case 1 while in Case 2 ICTs support recruitment instead. Several managerial software systems, the Intranet, email, and telephone (including teleconference) are applied to serve these functions. One major difference is that social media is considered to be important for people management in Case 2 while it is not mentioned in Case 1. In regards to customer focus, ICTs help with managing and storing customer data, collecting feedback, and facilitating customer support service in both cases. Managerial software, online booking websites and social media are the primary ICTs applications. Yet in Case 1 the importance of software systems and interphone is stressed more than that in Case 2.

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5. Discussion

This paper explores organizations that apply ICTs to support the implementation of TQM for the aim of improving CS. Through conducting interviews with people from two companies in the tourism and hotel industry, it is identified that ICTs have positive impacts on three TQM constructs (people management, customer focus, information and analysis) and these three TQM constructs contribute to improving CS in the long run.

Major findings are divided into three categories (i.e. the three CS-related TQM constructs). ICTs support people management mainly by recording personnel information and conducting performance appraisal, facilitating job-related training, and supporting people orientation. ICTs help with customer focus through managing and storing customer data, collecting feedback, and facilitating customer support service. ICTs strengthen information and analysis by facilitating effective communication and support market analysis.

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although several authors (Dewhurst et al., 2003; Rohlin et al., 2002; Au et al., 1999; Lobo et al. 2005) mentioned that successful application of ICTs should be built upon an organizational culture which has high acceptance of ICTs, it is not reflected significantly in this research. ICTs’ influence on benchmarking, as included in contents of information and analysis (Terziovski, 2006), is rather limited in this research since there was no abundant information about benchmarking collected from the interviews. These findings provide better insights into the relationship between ICT and TQM in the background of tourism and hotel industry. Companies in the same sector may use the results to adjust their ICT adoptions to achieve high working efficiency which results in enhanced customer satisfaction and more profitable business performance. The small size of sample and only a short time is allowed to do research are the major limitations in this study. The chosen two companies are two hotels with different market positioning, which adds to the representativeness of the results in tourism and hotel industry but may be not applicable in other industries. The fact that interviews were done in Chinese and were translated into English when doing data analysis may also influence the accuracy of data which decreases reliability of the research to a certain extent.

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6. Conclusion

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Appendix I: models in Theory

 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) criteria 1. Leadership

2. Strategic planning

3. Customer and market focus

4. Information and analysis

5. Human resource development and management

6. Process management

7. Business results

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Appendix II: Interview guide

INTRODUCTION

First of all, I would like to thank you for participating in this research!

As you (might) know, I am a pre-master student at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen and is now doing a research looking into the relationship between ICT and continuous improvement initiatives. Concretely, I will focus on the how ICT influence the implementation of total quality management thus contributing to the continuous improvement of customer satisfaction, since improving customer satisfaction is the core objective of TQM. By investigating the real life functions, benefits, and maybe problems, we aim at to enrich the current understanding of the relationship between ICT and TQM and to provide more solid and convincing arguments that ICT is positively correlated with TQM.

To do this, I am conducting interviews with several people from your company. The interviews will be audiotaped ideally but I will only do that when I had the permission from the participants. Literal transcripts will be made and sent back to the participates again to check if things noted down are correct and complete. The data collected from the interviews will help with the mentioned research and will not be used for any other purpose.

The interview is confidential which means your personal information will not be published or used in the research. I am responsible for this.

Before we start, I would like to ask your permission to use data from this interview confidentially for my study and feed it back to my supervisors. Furthermore, do you give your permission to audiotape this interview? If so I would like to ask you to sign an Informed Consent after the interview.

To start the interview, there will be some questions about the organization that you work for and your role in it. Questions related to the implementation of TQM and ICT in the organization will follow and I will focus on how ICT can be implemented by corporations to influence TQM in terms of achieving customer satisfaction. Your opinions and knowledge about it are highly valued in this research so please feel free to share them with the researcher.

So before we start with interviewing, would you like to ask or say anything?

OPENING QUESTIONS

1. You work in company X. Can you give me some information about this company?

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2. Can you tell me something about your role in the company?

(Probes: Can you tell me more about the things you do? What is your role in the implementation of TQM? etc.)

3. How do you think of the implementation of TQM in general?

(Probes: How does TQM help with your business performance? etc.)

In the next session, questions will be divided into three aspects, three TQM constructs that contributes to CS, focusing on ICT adoption in these three constructs.

CORE QUESTIONS

Topic 1: ICT-people management

1. What ICT do you use and how do ICT influence people management process in your company?

2. How do you think of the effect of ICT on people management?

Topic 2: ICT-customer focus

1. What ICT do you use and how do ICT influence customer focus issues in your company?

2. How do you think of the effect of ICT on customer focus?

Topic 3: ICT-information and analysis

1. What ICT do you use and how do ICT influence information and analysis process in your company?

2. How do you think of the effect of ICT on information and analysis?

ROUNDING UP

Now we are almost finished.

1. Now I will offer a quick summary of your answers. … Is there anything important missing? Would you like to add something?

2. How do you feel about the interview?

1) Does the interview meet your expectation (content, the way questions are formed, time, etc.)?

2) How did you feel as the interviewee? How did it feel to be interviewed by me?

3. Would you like to receive a copy of the transcript of the interview?

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Appendix III: codebooks of the interviews

 Codebook of Case I

Code Definition Example

People management Recording personnel information

Actions of documenting employees’ information

H1 – “We have a HRMS for employee management…has functions like personnel records, …”

Conducting performance appraisal

Actions of documenting and evaluating an employee’s job performance H1 – “…attendance analysis, performance appraisal, …” Facilitating job-related training Actions of preparing an employee to perform a task

H1 – “…training management…” Facilitating people

orientation

Actions of improving personal capabilities and potentials.

H1 – “…personal

development…and provide many other learning materials, not only the job related stuff, for employees on the Intranet.”

Arranging labor relation and payment

Actions of managing labor relation, formulating payment and bonus plan

H1 – “…labor relation management, payment and bonus…”

Customer focus Managing and storing customer information

H1- “It’s a front office software which deals with customer related

information.” Facilitating customer

support service

H1 – “…reservations, front desk service, cashiering, …” H2 – “Interphone and voicemail are very helpful tools for supporting customer service.”

Collecting feedback Actions of collecting

customer feedback

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allowing them to plug into our own systems. Data can be imported directly. …” Information and analysis

Facilitating communication Actions of communicating

and information transferring

H1 – “For internal communication we use interphone and email. The FCS is used for

informing …SCM is used to manage connections with suppliers.”

Benchmarking Actions of determining

potential improvements, analyzing how other organizations achieve high performance level, and using this information to improve performance

H1 – “Benchmarking is more or less included in the information and knowledge management…There are some ICT applications used for data collection.”

Supporting knowledge management

Actions of capturing, developing, sharing, and effectively using

organizational knowledge.

H1 – “…information and knowledge management involves many ICT like the OA system and the

discussion board on the Intranet.”

 Codebook of Case II

Code Definition Example

People management Conducting performance appraisal

Actions of documenting and evaluating an employee’s job performance

S1 - “arranging jobs and analyzing employee performance…also a database of employee information”

S1 - “manage attendance rate and arrange jobs” Facilitating job-related

training

Actions of preparing an employee to perform a task

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PowerPoint slides, videos and some electronic periodicals can be found” Enhancing employee

focus

Actions of people orientation S1 - “ICT are used for communication among employees and management team…ICT will help us know about their problems…”

Supporting recruitment Actions of the overall process

of attracting, selecting and appointing suitable candidates for jobs

S1 - “We post recruiting information on many recruitment websites… also use Wechat and Weibo a lot.”

Customer focus Managing customer relationship and storing data

Actions of managing company’s interaction with current and future customers

S2 - “Baihui’s CRM system is what we are using now, for managing customer relationship…” S1 – “… as the database of customer information…” Understanding customers’ requirements and collecting feedback

S2 - “…we are cooperating with online booking

websites…so in that way we can collect feedback from customers.”

Information and analysis Facilitating internal communication

Actions of communicating and information transferring within organization

S2 - “The internal

communication ICT tool we are using now is …” Facilitating external

communication

Actions of communicating and information transferring outside organization

S2 - “Email and telephone are used for contacting partners and suppliers.” Supporting market

analysis

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Facilitating TQM with the Application of ICTs to Improve Customer Satisfaction