1.0 Title
The working title of the dissertation is initially drafted as – Business Process Management and ISO 9000: Implications for Private Firms in Hong Kong
2.0 Background of the Research
Process management refers to the ensemble of activities whereby knowledge, skills, tools, techniques and systems that aimed at defining, visualizing, measuring, controlling, reporting and improving processes are applied for the purpose of meeting and/or exceeding customer requirements profitability. Process management is distinct from program or project management whereby the former refers to administering groups and interdependent projects while the latter refers to the discipline of planning, organizing and managing resources towards the completion of specific project goals and objectives.
Process management is most applicable to business or commerce. Business Process Management (BPM) is known as the holistic method of aligning the entirety of the organizational processes to the needs, wants and desires of the clients in order to promote effectiveness and efficiency while also focusing on innovation, flexibility and technological integration. The purpose of having a sound BPM centers on the continuous improvement of processes commonly known as ‘process optimization’. There are two broad categories for BPM – people and technology.
As such, there had been the recent shift from mechanistic-oriented business processes into integral people-driven processes within organizations. Since human and internal systems interact in structured, ad hoc and entirely dynamic ways to respond to individual and to one-to-many operations, BPM is crucial to many businesses irregardless of the scope, the size, the type and the structure of the business. Nonetheless, there is just one aspect that these businesses may not come together as they adhere to process approach to managing their respective organizations.
This is the business process management certification or the compliance to ISO 9000. ISO 9000 is the anthology of standards germane to quality management systems (QMS). These systems are hereby defined as the compilation of policies, processes and procedures as requisites of planning and execution within the core business area of a particular organization. Following the concept of quality, the International Organization for Standardization maintains that for a business to maintain sound operation there should be:
1) an assemblage of procedures which cover key business processes;
2) monitoring processes to ensure process efficacy;
3) maintaining sufficient records;
4) evaluating processes and applying corrective actions whenever necessary;
5) periodic reviewing of individual processes and the quality system itself; and
6) facilitating the improvement continuum.
Nonetheless, conformance with ISO 9000 does not necessarily guarantee the compliance and thus the quality of the products and services for end-users albeit the public disclosure of such conformance. ISO 9000 only certifies that these organizations are implementing business processes in a constant manner as it internally embraced paperworks stipulated by the standards set forth by ISO and proven by certificates issued by Accredited certification Bodies. Since these are documents that prove quality compliance to quality standards, ISO 9000 can be an effective marketing tool.
Though ISO 9000 has industry-specific interpretations, there remains the fact that the standard is generalized and abstract. To make sense, ISO 9000 can be applied to virtually all organizations that engage with business management practices. Notable is that process management generally moves with organizational changes driven by the external environment and therefore tended on paring much attention on changed processes while drawing away from the substance or quality of these changed processes. To wit, processes produce substance but the premise is that organizations approached the quality aspects of change as complex albeit the presence of ISO 9000.
The rationale of this research is to contextualize the substantive or qualitative aspects of business process management to the private firms in Hong Kong especially those that concerns what changes are desirable, how these changes can be recognized and implemented and why these substantive /qualitative changes must be prioritized. The drive is that BPM practices of these private firms could define the effectiveness of ISO 9000 such as the quality principles and its value and the consistent compliant to QMS.
Why this topic? After the completion of this dissertation, the research could not only provide insights for improving the management of the business itself but also its positive implications for investment and market share, sales growth and sales margin as well as competitive advantage and litigation avoidance. Though the research does not primarily stress the advantages of complying to ISO 9000, the research could draw organizations to create a more effective operation while also improving internal and external customer relationships, reduce waste while also increasing productivity and tap competition while also promoting international trading.
3.0 Research Aims and Objectives
The main objective of this dissertation is to explore the implications of business process management, of the ISO 9000 compliance and the combination of such to private firms in Hong Kong. To achieve this general purpose, the research will attempt at accomplishing the following specific objectives:
ü To distinguish the BPM practices of the private firms and to evaluate these practices in lieu with the ISO 9000
ü To determine the process orientation of these firms and to determine how process management is integrated into business operations
ü To scrutinize the existing business process models and the techniques and tools that are being utilized
ü To examine the relationship of business process framework to market-based and resource-based business strategies
ü To distinguish how BPM is positioned within the organizational structure and to determine the role of the key members in BPM and its improvement
ü To examine how these BPM practices benefit the private firms through recognizing the importance of complying to ISO 9000
4.0 Research Questions
The main question that this dissertation will attempt to answer is: To what extent do private firm BPM practices conform to ISO 9000? In lieu with this, the study will seek to provide answers to the following specific questions:
1) What is the orientation of these firms about ‘process’ and process management’? What are the negative and positive implications of process management to these firms?
2) What are the existing business process models of these firms? What are the business process modeling techniques and tools that are currently in use?
3) As a guiding principle, how the business process framework relates with market-based and resource-based business strategies?
4) How do the business process models fit with the organizational structure? What are the roles of the organizational members in the continuous improvement of BPM?
5) How these business process management practices are are upheld with respect to ISO 9000 standard? How does the compliance benefit these private firms?
5.0 Research Plan
The research will operate within the research process onion framework developed by Saunders et al in 2003 since conducting a research a research is somewhat similar to peeling the back layers of an onion in order to arrive at the central issue which is the interplay between BPM and ISO 9000 for private firms and how to collect the necessary data needed to answer the research questions and objectives. Through this process, the researcher would be able to create an outline of the most appropriate measures to be applied in the study. The first layer would be the research philosophy to adopt, the second is the research approach that is based on the research philosophy, the third considers the most applicable research strategy, the fourth one is the time horizon that the research wises to apply and the final layer is the data collection methods to be used. To illustrate:
Figure 1. Research Process Onion
Research Perspective
There are three research perspectives that the researcher could choose to apply according to Saunders et al as positivist, interpretivist and realist approaches (2003). Provided that the research is exploratory, I will be using the interpretivist approach. Interpretivism is the most plausible approach for this because it allows the search of the details of the situation to understand the reality or perhaps the reality working behind them as what Remenyi et al believe (1998). The interpretivist approach necessitates the exploration of subjective meanings that motivate people’s actions in order to understand their actions.
Positivism and realism may not be the most acceptable research perspective for this dissertation. There are many considerations for this. On the one hand, positivism prefers working with an observable social reality resulting to law-like generalizations. Though the goal is universal, which is to describe the phenomena being experienced, the research may experienced inapplicability when it comes to generalizing results. In addition, is purely based on the data collated as the ultimate basis of the conclusion, the researcher may not arrive at the ‘sense of ownership’ of the research.
On the other hand, though even I as the researcher believe that there is a reality that exists between independent human thoughts and beliefs, the research desires to approach the subject matter on a collective manner, meaning the researcher will collect the most pertinent informations in lieu with the organizational positions and beliefs. These socially constructed interpretations and meanings or this subjected reality may be trivial for this kind of research due to the primary purpose of the research which is to provide factual insights.
Research Approach
The researcher intends to use the inductive approach since the research focuses on building theories instead on testing them. The inductive research emphasizes the understanding of the meanings and the use of qualitative data. It also focuses on a more flexible structure to permit changes as the research progresses. Applying the deductive approach is not feasible since such approach generally purports on testing one or more hypothesis. Though this research also aimed at operationalization of concepts to ensure clarity and definition and the highly-structured approach, the study does not intend to emphasize technical principles and the emphasis on the collection of quantitative data. As such, the research aims at building conceptions based on the data gathered and then work at it to provide deeper knowledge about the subject matter.
Research Design
The timeline of the study is cross-sectional because of time constraint in conducting the research. I will be collecting data on more than one case through the use of questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, structured observation and document analysis since these tools can provide me the flexibility of focusing on the breadth of the research. Compared to longitudinal study that primarily aimed at finding out the changes about a phenomenon over a period of time, conducting the research based on a particular time would contribute to the quality, breadth and depth of the research.
Research Strategy
Exploratory research will be research strategy of this dissertation. The exploratory research will be used in the research. This kind of research will enable us to look at the problem in descriptive and exploratory manner. The descriptive nature of the study focuses on gathering information about the present existing condition in order to describe the nature of situation as it exists at the time of the study and to explore the causes of the phenomena, making possible the utilization of formal observation. Nonetheless, the descriptive research would not be sufficient. The exploratory nature of this research will facilitate us to investigate the various BPM practices that these private firms are using with the ISO 9000 standard as its basis and how it could contribute to the quality of the processes itself.
However, explanatory research would not be plausible since it focuses on establishing causal relationships between variables to which the research would not dwell deeper on while also there are no specific problems that the research wishes to consider. In addition, explanatory researches are often quantitative, deductive and require statistical means of analysing data.
Data Collection Methods
The survey strategy will be the data gathering tool that this dissertation would consider. As the most commonly used type of research method, surveys allows the collection of large amount of data from a sizable population. The survey method the researcher will going to use is the one-on-one, face-to-face interview. This instrument allows the researcher which will also be the interviewer to work directly with the respondent and will provide him the opportunity to probe and ask follow-up questions though this process is very time consuming and resource intensive.
Primary and secondary research will be used also. The primary data will be the results of the semi-structured interviews after they have been analysed. Interview questions will include open-ended, probing and hypothetical questions. I would be selecting five private firms randomly from a database of all private companies in Hong Kong which meet my inclusion criteria. My criteria will consist of private firms operating in Hong Kong for a minimum of ten years with relevant ISO certification. Due to time constraints, it is only feasible to explore on five companies, in order to explore this research in depth. Primary data will be presented in the discussion sections of the dissertation.
Secondary data will come from the selection of books especially business management books, journals, newspapers and magazine articles, related case studies, official statistics and the Internet. Among these sources, journal and research papers will be prioritized since they provide the most recent as well as more reliable informations. Data collated from these sources will be subjected to contents analysis and will be presented in the literature review section of the actual research.
Survey and the combination of primary and secondary data collection strategies would be the most appropriate methods since these subjectively produce informations that could add value to the research. Further, these can cultivate the participation of the researcher as an important element in achieving the objectives. There would be the balance between the wealth of the literature and the responses so as not to produce one-dimensional study.
Sampling Strategy
The research will going to apply the probability or representative sampling technique whereby the respondents are the five private firms in Hong Kong that meet the inclusion criteria will be the target. Simple random sampling will be used so as to facilitate an equal chance of being selected. This technique would be the most appropriate sampling tool to use in order to arrive at diverse, unbiased findings that other sampling technique could not provide, or either too technical or complicated for this research.
Analysis and Interpretation of Data
The interview responses will be subjected to descriptive statistical analysis in order to determine the corresponding frequency, percentage and weighted mean. The statistical formulas to be used are:
1. Percentage – to determine the magnitude of the responses to the questionnaire.
n
% = -------- x 100 ; n – number of responses
N N – total number of respondents
2. Weighted Mean
f1x1 + f2x2 + f3x3 + f4x4 + f5x5
x = --------------------------------------------- ;
xt
where: f – weight given to each response
x – number of responses
xt – total number of responses
The secondary data will be subjected to qualitative analysis whereby the collected documents will be categorized through extracting only the most relevant information for the subject while also proving the readers basic and advanced concepts that relates with the topic.
The findings will be represented through graphical presentations and contingency table if possible for visual explanation and will be saved into Thumb drive for future retrieval.
Validity, Reliability and Generalisability
To ensure the validity of the research, I will make certain that the methods used and analysis with the particular attention given to designing interview questions. Hong Kong (or China) private business sector, BPM and ISO 9000 will be also studied to ensure that the “findings are really about what they appear to be”.
In providing other researchers to replicate the results of this dissertation or the reliability of the research, the four threats to reliability will be lessened if not totally eliminated. These are the subject of participant error, subject of participant bias, observer error and observer bias. To ensure such, I will plan the interview with high degree structure to minimize participant bias and observer error. In interpreting and analyzing data without personal bias and observer bias, independent analysis of the data through a blinded researcher will be conducted.
I do not claim that the results and conclusions of the research can be generalized since it includes only five private firms in Hong Kong. Further, these firms that will be interviewed might use different BPM practices fit to their organizations as well as the motivation for complying with ISO 9000.
Any special resources or access required
The only concern of the researcher is conducting the interviews with organizations which should provide the primary data of this research. I assume that it would not be very easy to access them, but I will ensure that all effort and negation skills to organize the interviews will be devoted. Nonetheless, as the researcher I will assure them the commercial confidentiality to informations disclosed (or to be disclose) so as not to jeopardized the internal processes and might eventually lead to consequences such as industrial espionage and other business ethical dilemmas.
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