Luận án tiến sĩ kinhsự hài lòng của công dân với các dịch vụ hành chính công ở ủy ban nhân các phường thuộc quận tây hồ

LIST OF TABLES 1 List of Variables and Initial Items in the Survey Instrument 51 3 Result of the Seventh EFA with Scales of Independent Variables 56 6 Distribution of Respondents as to

CITIZENS' SATISFACTION WITH PUBLIC ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES AT

THE WARD PEOPLE’S COMMITTEES OF TAY HO DISTRICT

A Dissertation Submitted to Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration and

Central Philippine University Joint Program

In Partial Fulfillment

Of the Requirements for the degree DOCTOR OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

By HOANG VAN HAO

December 2016

influenced Both direct and indirect meetings between us have been really effective These have helped me improve my expertise and insights, which finally has improved the quality

of this study

I am also deeply grateful to my family, who has provided me with unconditional support throughout the whole process Over the last four years, I have two sons My wife has taken the responsibility of taking care of our sons She has never complained about it

so that I can fully focus on studying Furthermore, she has read and given valuable

opinions about this dissertation so that the content is expressed more precisely and

professionally Next, I would like to send my gratitude to my parents They have helped much in looking after our sons I am deeply indebted to my parents as they provided such help while they were in worse health than before My parents have only heard about the university from us, but they have been always ready to try their best to ensure my sisters' educational quality as well as mine

Finally, I would like to thank my friends who have shared their research

experience, especially in collecting and analyzing the data I also send my loyal thanks to

my peers in this PhD course who have brought to me many more experiences in study, work and life as well I really look forward to working with them in the future

Public Administrative Service and Citizens’ Satisfaction 37

III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 46

LIST OF FIGURES

4 Conceptual Framework of the Study (Adjusted after EFA) 19

LIST OF TABLES

1 List of Variables and Initial Items in the Survey Instrument 51

3 Result of the Seventh EFA with Scales of Independent Variables 56

6 Distribution of Respondents as to their Characteristics 64

7 Distribution of Respondents as to Information Related to the Use of

Public Administrative Services

66

8 Descriptive Statistics of the Different Items and Components of Public

Administrative Services

70

9 Descriptive Statistics for Different Items of Citizens’ Satisfaction 72

10 Mean Scores on the Different Components of Public Administrative

Services and Satisfaction by Gender

73

11 Mean Scores on the Different Components of Public Administrative

Services and Satisfaction by Age

74

12 Mean Scores on the Different Components of Public Administrative

Services and Satisfaction by Marital Status

75

13 Mean Scores on the Different Components of Public Administrative

Services and Satisfaction by Educational Attainment

76

14 Mean Scores on the Different Components of Public Administrative

Services and Satisfaction by Occupation

77

15 Mean Scores on the Different Components of Public Administrative

Services and Satisfaction by Income

79

16 Mean Scores on the Different Components of Public Administrative

Services and Satisfaction by Frequency of Use

80

17

Mean Scores on the Different Components of Public Administrative

Services and Satisfaction by Acquaintances in Ward People’s Committees

81

18 Mean Scores on the Different Components of Public Administrative

Services and Satisfaction by Paying Extra Fee

82

19 Mean Scores on the Different Components of Public Administrative

Services and Satisfaction by Residence

83

ABSTRACT

CITIZENS' SATISFACTION WITH PUBLIC ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES AT

THE WARD PEOPLE’S COMMITTEES OF TAY HO DISTRICT

HOANG VAN HAO

This study was conducted to evaluate the citizens' satisfaction with public administrative services at the Ward People’s Committees of Tay Ho District The one-shot survey design

or the post-test only design was used to gather data from 440 randomly selected

respondents allocated proportionately to the eight wards of Tay Ho District The survey instrument was tested for its reliability using the Cronbach’s Alpha Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was used to reduce the number of items and factors from the initial seven factors with 33 items to five factors with 27 items after the EFA The instrument was translated to Vietnamese to allow easy understanding of the respondents and distributed to the randomly selected respondents All the data collected were processed using SPSS 20 Analysis made use of descriptive statistics and Multiple Regression Analysis, t-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to test the hypotheses of the study The study revealed that most if not the majority of the respondents were females, not more than 45 years old, married, university educated , working as employee, civil servant or freelancer; and with a monthly income of 3 to 5M VND The majority of the respondents were occasional users

of public administrative services, without acquaintances in the Ward People’s Committee, have not paid extra fee to avail of the services and residents of the ward where they avail the public administrative services The respondents generally have “Good” perception of

the different components of the public administrative services and have “high” perceived satisfaction of the public administrative services There were no significant differences in the perception of the respondents of the different components of public administrative services and their satisfaction according to their gender, age, marital status, income,

acquaintances in the Ward People’s Committee, payment of extra fee and residence However, significant differences were observed according to educational attainment, occupation and frequency of use of public administrative services All the five

components of public administrative services were found to be significant determinants of satisfaction Civil servants’ capacity and public-duty ethics appeared to be the major determinant followed by time and cost and facilities while transaction and process of delivery showed to be the least

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Public administrative reform is an urgent as well as a lasting duty in order to step

by step build a clear and strong public administration which serves efficiently and

promotes greatly the process of reforming and developing the country Administrative procedures are an indispensable part in our social life It is also a tool of the state in

administering the society and serving both organizations and individuals After fifteen years since the application of the comprehensive public administrative reform program, the carrying out of administrative reform has had many positive changes, which have been supported by most of the public Basing on this, Hanoi People’s Committee in general and Tay Ho District People’s Committee in particular, always set the requirement that they should complete and improve the quality of serving citizens and operate the administrative activities stably, quickly, effectively and legally

Administrative procedure reform is not only one of the administrative reform sectors but also the main program of the country The carrying out of administrative

procedure simplification scheme on the fields of state management from 2007 to 2010 (Scheme 30) has importantly contributed to enhance the business environment, socio-economic life and the process of global integration Vietnam is continuing to promote the program of reforming the administrative procedure in the period of 2010 - 2020 according

to the Governmental resolution, in which the duty of administrative procedure reform is focused Between 2011 and 2015, the administrative procedure reform has been

implemented to continue enhancing the business environment, boost all the social

resources and improve the competitiveness ability of the country, maintain the conditions for the state economy to develop fast and sustainably Hanoi City has been focusing on this recently in order to contribute to the improvement of the citizens’ life standard, reduce the money and time waste, which makes the public feel more satisfied and closer when

working with state agencies

Nowadays, the duty of administrative reform in Tay Ho District has created the standards in the way of serving the citizens, especially in the fields, according to the “One-Stop-Shop” (OSS) mechanism, with a more clearly and simply built system of procedures

In the wards, the enterprises as well as the citizens are offered the convenience and ease in some tasks which need to be acted by state agencies such as notarization, business

registration, procedures of civil status and law surveying Administrative procedure reform has contributed to changing management and leadership thinking and the process of

supervising and administering in administrative agencies, thus, improving the capacity, validity and effectiveness of state administrative practices

Since its establishment in 1995, Tay Ho District has always paid attention to the task of reforming the administrative procedures at the grassroots level Eights wards

belonging to this district have had many improvements and positive changes in the

administrative machinery However, it is hard to tell whether or not the citizens are really satisfied with the results of the current administrative reform The enterprises as well as the citizens have still had troubles and nuisances in many fields such as asking for estate or accommodation ownership right, allowing construction and so on Therefore, the renewal

of delivering public administrative services and improvement of the delivery quality at the

grassroots level are crucial Besides the function of state management, the serving function

of the state aims at providing necessary services for the citizens so that they can carry out their rights and duties appropriately is now given more attention than before As a

consequence, the question as to how to evaluate the public administrative service quality as well as the citizens’ satisfaction is still raised Thus, the researcher decided to choose the

study entitled, “Citizens' Satisfaction with Public Administrative Services at the Ward People’s Committees of Tay Ho District” In this study, the author aims at determining

and evaluating the citizens’ satisfaction with the delivery of the public administrative services at the wards belonging to Tay Ho District at present Also, this investigation is carried out to find out the solutions to enhancing the quality of public services at grassroots level with a hope to create more citizens’ satisfaction with public administrative services;

so that the citizens’ trust for the State management agencies can be enhanced

Background and Rationale of the Study

Few would disagree with the premise that citizens want to be satisfied when

interacting with government According to Oliver (1997:10), satisfaction itself was defined

as “a desirable end state of consumption and patronization” and “a reinforcing, pleasurable experience.” Although this was mentioned by Oliver from a customer’s perspective, this argument undoubtedly could be applied to citizens Life satisfaction of citizens should be a worthy goal for government

In the academic researches on citizens’ satisfaction with government services, while the emphases and perspectives kept varying (e.g., the ideal proxy for or measure of

satisfaction, models identifying process of the formation of satisfaction attitudes, the

primary outcomes of citizens’ satisfaction, to name a few), a popular theme penetrating a majority of these works on this topic adopted the “performance - satisfaction - trust (or confidence)” conceptual linkage (Bouckaert, Van de Walle, & Kampen, 2005; Fornell, Johnson, Anderson, Cha, & Bryant, 1996; Heintzman & Marson, 2005; Van Ryzin, 2007) Once satisfaction was determined, it in turn served as the main predictor of a series of positive outcomes such as citizen trust on and confidence in government

Despite the gained important results, public administration reform and

administrative procedure reform when compared to the requirements of the process of innovation, socio-economic development and international integration, the speed of

administrative procedure reform has remained slow and not very effective Public

administration has revealed some drawbacks The administrative procedures have not been simplified thoroughly The clarity and openness have been still low; many administrative procedures have still been improper, complex and troublesome to agencies as well as citizens The organization of the state administrative apparatus has been still bulky with many hierarchies The rankings in branches and fields between the centre and region and among the local government levels have been still slow and not very distinctive in

functions, duties and the organization in the urban government with the rural one The civil service records of public servants are slowly compiled The quality of officials has not met the demands of innovation and socio-economic development The public service staffs are still not very good at new management skill; also lack the flair and their responsibility for implementing their duty is not high

One area of public services that has been provided by the state is the performing of necessary public administrative tasks such as birth and death registration, armed forces enlistment, marriage registration, passport and identity card issue, licenses, patents, permits for activities relating to public order, and so on The administrative procedures in Vietnam are institutionalized in various legal documents, especially the Government Resolution No 38/CP of May 4, 1994, on reforming administrative procedures in the settlement of affairs

of citizens and organizations, Prime Minister Decision No 136/2001/QD-TTg of

September 17, 2001, on approving the overall program on state administration reform in the 2001- 2010 period and Government Resolution No 30C/2011/NQ-CP of November 08,

2011, on the overall program on state administration reform in the 2011- 2020 period At present, the administrative procedural relationship between the government and citizens is through the use of the new mechanism OSS and Inter-agency OSS (Inter-sector/Inter-level OSS) The administrative reform has been carried out in Vietnam for more than twenty years The reform of administrative procedures is considered as a breakthrough because they are directly related to the exercise of power by state administrators and to the rights and legitimate interests of individuals and organizations Moreover, the administrative procedures are seen as the weakest link in Vietnamese administration

Tay Ho District is an administrative unit of Hanoi established by Decree No 69/CP

of the Government issued 28/10/1995 The People’s Committee of Tay Ho District in recent years have had many advances in improving the quality of public administrative service delivery, which concerns the public more than before At the same time, applying the administration and operation mechanism of quality management system according to

ISO 9001:2008 with a hope to providing the best service, creating favorable conditions for the citizens and improve the effectiveness of public administration

However, to evaluate the citizens’ satisfaction, Tay Ho District only participated with Hanoi City to carry out a survey in a city general programme without having an independent survey For each district, Hanoi City selected only a unit (a commune, a ward

or a township) to collect the opinions Therefore, determining the citizens’ satisfaction towards the public administrative service at the wards belonging to Tay Ho District on a larger scale (only referring to grassroots level) to solve the current drawbacks is a

meaningful research since the district and ward authorities have had many advances in reforming activities towards the citizens As a result, public administrative agencies should understand and propose more practical solutions to meet the reasonable aspirations and benefits of the citizens on the basis of implementing the social administrative functions and duties of local authorities

This study will carry out an evaluation of the citizens' satisfaction with the public administrative services at grassroots level, which is a case study at Tay Ho District - Hanoi (the delivery of the Ward People’s Committees)

This study is carried out to address these following research questions:

- How do citizens perceive public administrative services at the Ward People’s Committees of Tay Ho District?

- What are the factors related to citizens’ satisfaction with public administrative services at grassroots level?

- What are some recommendations for promoting the quality of public

administrative services at grassroots level as well as improving the citizens’ satisfaction?

Objectives of the Study

It was the main objective of the study to evaluate the citizens' satisfaction with public administrative services at the Ward People’s Committees of Tay Ho District

Specifically, the study intends to:

i determine the citizens’ perceptions of components of public administrative

services delivery at the Ward People’s Committees of Tay Ho District;

ii determine the citizens’ satisfaction of the public administrative services at the Ward People’s Committees of Tay Ho District;

iii examine the differences in the citizens’ perceptions of components of public administrative services and the difference in the citizens’ satisfaction according to their personal characteristics;

iv determine the relationship between the citizens’ perceptions of the components

of public administrative services at the Ward People’s Committees of Tay Ho District and the citizens’ satisfaction (using personal characteristics as control variables);

v propose recommendations to promote the reform of administrative procedures, improve the quality of public administrative services at grassroots level, and improve the citizens’ satisfaction

Hypotheses

Based on the inferential objectives of the study, the following hypotheses will be tested:

H1 There are no significant differences in the satisfaction of the citizens with public administrative services at the Ward People’s Committee of Tay Ho District

according to their personal characteristics like gender, age, marital status, educational attainment, occupation and monthly income, frequency of use, relationship, extra fee payment and residence;

H2 There are no significant differences in the citizens’ perceptions of components

of public administrative services at the Ward People’s Committee of Tay Ho District according to their personal characteristics;

H3 There is no significant relationship between the citizens’ perceptions of

components of public administrative services and the citizens’ satisfaction with the public administrative services at the Ward People’s Committee of Tay Ho District;

Theoretical Framework

The topic of this dissertation is mainly focused on service quality and customer satisfaction So in this section, the dissertation proposal will review two models of

measurement of service quality and customer satisfaction

SERVQUAL Model The concept of SERVQUAL model is generally based on gap

theory of Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985), which suggests that “the difference between customers assessment of the actual performance of a specific firm within a

general class of service providers and their expectation about the performance of that class (P-E gap) drives the perception of service quality.”

Service quality = Perception (of the attribute performance) - Customer expectation (of the attribute performance)

1

) (

= SQi

Where:

SQi = SERVQUAL overall perceived quality of stimulus i

k = the number of attributes

Wj = a weighting factor if attributes have differentiated weights

Pij = Performance perception of stimulus i with respect to attribute j

Eij = Service quality expectation for attribute j that is the relevant norm for stimulus i

In 1985, Parasuraman and his associates developed a conceptual model of service quality where they identified five gaps that could impact the consumer’s evaluation of service quality in four different industries These gaps were:

Gap 1: Consumer expectation - Management perception gap

Service firms may not always understand what features a service must have in order to meet consumers’ needs and what levels of performance on those features are needed to deliver high quality services This results in affecting the way consumers

evaluate service quality

Gap 2: Management perception - Service quality specification gap

This gap arises when the company identifies what the consumers want but the means to deliver the expectation does not exist Some factors that affect this gap could be resource constraints, market conditions and management indifference These could affect service quality perception of the consumers

Gap 3: Service quality specifications - Service delivery gap

Companies could have guidelines for performing service well and treating

consumers properly but these do not mean high service quality performance is assured Employees play an important role in assuring good service quality perception and their performance cannot be standardized This affects the delivery of service which has an impact on the way consumers perceive service quality

Gap 4: Service delivery - External communications gap

External communications can affect not only consumer expectations of service but also consumer perceptions of the delivered service Companies can neglect to inform consumers of special efforts to assure quality that are not visible to them and this could influence service quality perceptions by consumers

Gap 5: Expected Service - Perceived service gap

From their study, it has showed that the key to ensuring good service quality is meeting or exceeding what consumers expect from the service and that judgement of high and low service quality depends on how consumers perceive the actual performance in the context of what they expected

SERVQUAL Dimensions In 1988, Parasuraman, Berry and Zeithaml SERVQUAL

instrument consists of 22 attributes which can be classified into 5 dimensions: assurance, tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, and empathy The bases was on capturing the gap between customers’ expectations and experience which could be negative or positive if the expectation is higher than experience or expectation is less than or equal to experience, respectively These five dimensions are also known as RATER model with the

arrangement of Reliability, Assurance, Tangibles, Empathy, and Responsiveness The explanation of each dimension is as follows:

- Reliability dimension: reflects the consistency and dependability of a firm’s

performance In order to assess the service performance on this dimension, some questions can be asked such as does the firm provide the same level of service time after time, or does quality dramatically vary with each encounter? Does the firm keep its promises, bill its customers accurately, keep accurate records, and perform the service correctly the first time?

- Assurance dimension: addresses the competence of a firm, the courtesy it extends

to its customers, and the security of the service This dimension refers to how a firm’s personnel interact with customers and customers’ possession such as courtesy reflect politeness, friendliness, and consideration for the customers’ property

- Tangibility dimension: given the absence of a physical product, customers often

rely on the tangible evidence that surrounds the service in forming evaluation This

dimension includes variety of objects such as desks, lighting, wall color, brochures,

appearance of firm’s personnel, etc

- Empathy dimension: is the ability of the firm’s personnel to experience customers

feeling as their own Empathic firms understand their customers’ needs and make their service accessible to customers

- Responsiveness dimension: reflects the commitment of a firm to provide its

services in a timely manner This dimension concerns the willingness and readiness of personnel to provide a service It reflects the preparedness of the firm to provide the

service

Figure 1 Measuring service quality using SERVQUAL model (Kumar et al, 2009)

SERVQUAL Questionnaire SERVQUAL questionnaires include 22 pairs of

questions designed to capture the perception of customers about their expectation towards

22 attributes of a service and their perceived performance of these attributes These pairs of questions have the same format according to Parasuraman, Berry and Zeithaml (1991) Every respondent would answer the same questions for their expectation and their

perception of each service attribute The gap between their levels of perception minus levels of expectation will decide the service

Managerial implications For each attribute, there are three outcomes from the

above gap First, if level of perception is higher than expectation, the customers are

satisfied This is the most expected result for service providers The smaller the gap

between attribute performance and customer expectation, the higher the quality is

Secondly, if the level of attribute performance is equal to expectation, the service quality is acceptable for customers Finally, if the gap between attribute performance and customer expectation is negative, the customers are not satisfied The smaller the gap between

attribute performance and customer expectation of the attribute is, the lower the quality is Therefore, there is more improvement needed for this attribute rather than others As a result, the priorities for improvement are associated with the magnitude of P-E gaps The larger the P-E gap is, the more benefits can be gained by closing the gap and the higher priority to improve the attribute

Many models of service quality, public service quality have been studied These models have both similarities and differences Parasuraman and his colleagues (1991, 1993), said that SERVQUAL was a good method to measure the quality of the services It

is reliable and can be applied to all types of different services However, due to the specific factors, the public administrative services are built on the basis of political regulations and legal papers

SERVPERF Model Cronin and Taylor (1992) after their research on SERVQUAL

scale showed that it is better to discard E component and let P component alone be used According to the authors, whenever a customer rates their satisfaction/dissatisfaction level (P), he or she implies a comparison with expectation of service attributes

Service quality = Perception (of the attribute performance)

SERVPERF Dimensions The model is based on SERVQUAL model, thus, RATER

is still used to develop a system of criteria to measure service quality Service attributes can be classified into 5 dimensions: tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy The explanation of each dimension is same to SERVQUAL model

Figure 2 Performance Only Model (SERVPERF) (Martinez and Martinez, 2010)

SERVPERF Questionnaires As mentioned above, since the expectation component

is discarded in SERVPERF model, the questionnaire includes 22 questions designed to capture the perception of customers about service attributes It has half of the number of questions in the SERVQUAL model

Managerial Implications The higher the level of customer perception of service

attributes, the higher the service quality The SERVPERF model emphasized that service providers should maximize customer perception of service attributes

As SERVPERF model uses RATER dimensions, it has the same drawback with SERVQUAL model The five-dimension concept has conceptual meaning rather than a framework to design a practical research However, SERVPERF has been considered more advance than SERVQUAL as it has subtracted half of the criteria and thus, seem to be

Overall service quality (P)

Dimension l

(P)

Dimension k (P)

simpler In addition to that, regardless of the gap between P and E, SERVPERF makes it easy for people to measure the variation of the service quality Some researches such as those by MC Alexander et al., (1994); Hahm et al., (1997); Avkiran, (1999); Lee et al., (2000) and Nrady et al., (2002) also came to this conclusion They all proposed to use SERVPERF model to evaluate the customer satisfaction of service rather than

obscure to the respondents At the same time, if being asked about their level of

perception, the citizens tend to make a comparison between the expectation and

performance in their answers

The prior studies concentrated the components affecting citizens with public

administrative services which are: Reliability, Capacity of civil servants, Serving attitude, Empathy, Facilities and the Process of delivery In fact, citizens must pay fee for using some public administrative services at the grassroots level (but some no payment) Citizens won't be satisfied if they have to wait for their turn or spend much time for settling their documents Therefore, time and cost of using public administrative services should be considered It is also possible that the citizens' perception of time and cost of public

administrative services would influence their satisfaction of the public administrative services By qualitative research methods based on prior studies, combining with legal writings and the actual status of public administrative services delivery at the grassroots level, the author adjusted and supplemented the instrument to get components affecting the quality of public administrative services They are: (1) Reliability, (2) Capacity of civil servants, (3) Civil servants’ serving attitude, (4) Empathy, (5) Facilities, (6) Process of delivery and (7) Time and Cost Thus, a research model is proposed to discuss the possible relationships among the citizens’ perception and their satisfaction The proposed model also had some changes comparative to SERVPERF model

In this study, the independent variables included the perception of the citizens about components of the public administrative services and the dependent variable is the citizen’s satisfaction with the public administrative services The antecedent variables were the citizen’s personal characteristics and demographic characteristics and some other personal information Specifically, their gender, age, marital status, educational attainment, occupation and monthly income were included Besides, particular attention should be

given to other personal information when considering the citizens’ satisfaction such as: frequency of using public administrative services, having acquaintances working at the Ward People’s Committee or not, paying extra fees or not and whether they live at the same Ward where they are using public administrative services

It is possible that there would be differences in the perception and satisfaction of the citizens of the public administrative services in the Ward People’s Committee across the different categories of the citizens’ personal characteristics Males may have a different perception and satisfaction of the services than the females in the same manner that

younger respondents may differ in their perception and satisfaction with the older

respondents Differences in perception and satisfaction may be also possible as a result of differences in their marital status, education, occupation and monthly income

When the frequency of the services is high, the citizens would have fuller

knowledge about the services, which could affect their evaluations When meeting the State agency, the citizens tend to make use of the relationships and they can pay more expenses in order to achieve the expected results In fact, most of the public administrative services at the grassroots level are delivered to the citizens living at the same ward or township Therefore, these possible scenarios in this research on citizens’ satisfaction with public administrative services at the grassroots level should be considered It is also

possible that the perception of the citizens of the delivery of public administrative services would influence their satisfaction of the public administrative services Those who have higher perceptions of the public administrative services may also have higher satisfaction These possible differences and relationships are presented in the following Conceptual Framework of the study (Figure 3)

Previous research results showed that the quality of services perceived by the customer could differ in each particular field Moreover, public administrative services are quite unique due to the dealings between citizen and state administrative agencies Besides, the provision of services are made at the grassroots should be considered Therefore, the author also adjusted and supplemented some appropriate measurement scale Referring to some aspects including ethics on state civil service and ensuring legal procedures, is very necessary

Antecedent Variables Independent Variables Dependent Variable

Figure 3 Conceptual Framework of the Study

After using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) to test for the reliability of the different items of the scales, the components of public administrative services were

changed After seven analyses, six items were dropped and the remaining 27 items loaded

Citizens’ Satisfaction with Public administrative services

-Facilities -Process of delivery -Time and Cost

only to five factors Thus, the initial seven components were reduced to five components Facilities, process of delivery and time and cost still remained but reliability, capacity of civil servants, civil servants serving attitude and empathy were collapsed into two factors and were labeled as transaction and civil servants capacity and public duty ethics The conceptual framework of the study was therefore adjusted to suit the research results

Antecedent Variables Independent Variables Dependent Variable

Figure 4 Conceptual Framework of the Study (Adjusted after EFA)

Operational Definitions

In the conceptual framework of the study, citizens’ satisfaction with public

administrative services is the dependent variable; while citizens’ perceptions with the quality elements of the public administrative services are the independent variables These

Citizens’ Satisfaction with Public administrative services

variables with some terminologies that the author has used in this dissertation need to be unveiled

Citizens’ satisfaction with public administrative services is the satisfaction about

the public administrative services provided to the citizens The satisfaction of the citizens

is a subjective status Additionally, the public administrative service is a state specific service that the citizens have to use Therefore, to examine the citizens’ satisfaction with the public administrative service, this study has employed the method to measure the citizens’ perceptions towards the public administrative service Specifically, this was measured by a three-item satisfaction index answerable by 1) Highly Dissatisfied; 2) Dissatisfied; 3) Neutral; 4) Satisfied; and 5) Highly Satisfied Based on the scores, the mean satisfaction score was computed The higher the mean score, the higher the

satisfaction of the respondents For description purposes, mean scores were classified as; Very Low (1.0-1.80), Low (1.81-2.60), Fair (2.61-3.40), High (3.41-4.20) and Very High (4.21-5.00) This was still the same after the EFA

Reliability is the citizens’ perceptions about the commitments of the Ward People’s

Committee to the citizens in maintaining the function of successfully delivering the public administrative services This was measured by a four-item index answerable by 1) Strongly Disagree; 2) Disagree; 3) Neutral; 4) Agree; and 5) Strongly Agree Based on the score, the mean score was computed The higher the mean score, the higher is the reliability of the committee as perceived by the respondents For description purposes, mean scores were classified as; Very Poor (1.0-1.80), Poor (1.81-2.60), Fair (2.61-3.40), Good (3.41-4.20) and Very Good (4.21-5.00) This was dropped after the EFA

Capacity of civil servants is the knowledge, skills, working abilities of the civil

servants to carry out the assigned duties, which specifically in this study is the delivery of public administrative services to the citizens This was measured by a five-item index answerable by 1) Strongly Disagree; 2) Disagree; 3) Neutral; 4) Agree; and 5) Strongly Agree Based on the scores, the mean score was computed The higher the mean score, the higher the working capacity as perceived by the respondents For description purposes, mean scores were classified as; Very Poor (1.0-1.80), Poor (1.81-2.60), Fair (2.61-3.40), Good (3.41-4.20) and Very Good (4.21-5.00)

After the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) this was changed to Civil servants’

capacity and public-duty ethics which refers to the knowledge, skills, working abilities of

the civil servants to carry out the assigned duties, which specifically in this study is the delivery of public administrative services to the citizens Civil servants also have to

comply with the prescribed standards when performing their official duties to avoid

making the citizens annoyed Also, providing the public administrative services should be fair, democratic and transparent This was measured by a seven-item index answerable by 1) Strongly Disagree; 2) Disagree; 3) Neutral; 4) Agree; and 5) Strongly Agree Based on the scores, the mean score was computed The higher the mean score, the higher is the civil servants’ capacity and public-duty ethics as perceived by the respondents For

description purposes, mean scores will be classified as; Very Poor (1.0-1.80), Poor 2.60), Fair (2.61-3.40), Good (3.41-4.20) and Very Good (4.21-5.00)

(1.81-Civil servants’ serving attitude means the civil servants’ behaviors when dealing

with the citizens Specifically, they are gestures, manners and thoughts related to the

carrying out of the public administrative services This was measured by a six-item index

answerable by 1) Strongly Disagree; 2) Disagree; 3) Neutral; 4) Agree; and 5) Strongly Agree Based on the scores, the mean score was computed The higher the mean score, the higher the civil servants serving attitude as perceived by the respondents For description purposes, mean scores were classified as; Very Poor (1.0-1.80), Poor (1.81-2.60), Fair (2.61-3.40), Good (3.41-4.20) and Very Good (4.21-5.00)

After the EFA, this was changed to Transaction represents the interaction between

citizens and officials working at the Ward People’s Committee Specifically, they are accessing the public administrative services, handing over documents or solving the

complaints of the people They consider the civil servants’ attitude when dealing with them because it reflects not only the cultural behavior in the workplace but also the service quality This is measured by a five-item index answerable by 1) Strongly Disagree; 2) Disagree; 3) Neutral; 4) Agree; and 5) Strongly Agree Based on the scores, the mean score was computed The higher the mean score, the higher transaction quality as perceived by the respondents For description purposes, mean scores will be classified as; Very Poor (1.0-1.80), Poor (1.81-2.60), Fair (2.61-3.40), Good (3.41-4.20) and Very Good (4.21-

5.00)

Empathy refers to the civil servants’ concern for the needs and problems of the

citizens as part of their expression of committed service by looking for proper solutions in situations to solve the citizens’ requirements This was measured by a four-item index answerable by 1) Strongly Disagree; 2) Disagree; 3) Neutral; 4) Agree; and 5) Strongly Agree Based on the scores, the mean score was computed The higher the mean score, the higher is the civil servants empathy as perceived by the respondents For description

purposes, mean scores were classified as; Very Poor (1.0-1.80), Poor (1.81-2.60), Fair

(2.61-3.40), Good (3.41-4.20) and Very Good (4.21-5.00) This was dropped after the EFA

Facilities include the factors related to the places of services delivery, equipment,

tools and technological means to meet the requirements of performing the duties of state bodies as well as the citizens’ demands This was measured by a five-item index

answerable by 1) Strongly Disagree; 2) Disagree; 3) Neutral; 4) Agree; and 5) Strongly Agree Based on the scores, the mean score was computed The higher the mean score, the better the facilities as perceived by the respondents For description purposes, mean scores were classified as; Very Poor (1.0-1.80), Poor (1.81-2.60), Fair (2.61-3.40), Good (3.41-

4.20) and Very Good (4.21-5.00) This remained even after the EFA

Process of delivery considers the requirements, elements of input documents, and

processing procedure in the delivery of public administrative service The process of

delivering public administrative service has the feature that it is specifically regulated in terms of legal documents required by public administrative agencies This was measured

by a four-item index and after the EFA by a six-item index answerable by 1) Strongly Disagree; 2) Disagree; 3) Neutral; 4) Agree; and 5) Strongly Agree Based on the scores, the mean score was computed The higher the mean score, the better the process of

delivery as perceived by the respondents For description purposes, mean scores were classified as; Very Poor (1.0-1.80), Poor (1.81-2.60), Fair (2.61-3.40), Good (3.41-4.20) and Very Good (4.21-5.00)

Time and Cost refers to the perceived amount of time the citizens have to spend to

complete their transaction with the state administrative agencies (the Ward People’s

Committee) and the fees they have to pay to receive the results of the public administrative

service This was measured initially by a five-item index and after the EFA by a four-item index answerable by 1) Strongly Disagree; 2) Disagree; 3) Neutral; 4) Agree; and 5)

Strongly Agree Based on the scores, the mean score was computed The higher the mean score, the more reasonable the time and cost as perceived by the respondents For

description purposes, mean scores were classified as; Very Poor (1.0-1.80), Poor 2.60), Fair (2.61-3.40), Good (3.41-4.20) and Very Good (4.21-5.00)

(1.81-In this dissertation, the author has used some terminologies that need to be unveiled such as:

Administrative procedure is the order and method of implementing the services, the

documentary requirements and conditions which are regulated by state agencies and

authorized people required for a specific job related to an organization or individual

Grassroots level is the lowest level in the four-level administrative machinery

(including communes, wards and townships)

Significance of the Study

This research is going to be significant in the following aspects:

The Ward People’s Committees of Tay Ho District: This study can provide

valuable information about the citizens’ satisfaction with the public administrative services

of the wards, which can be used as a reference to improve the quality of serving the

citizens

The administrators: The administrators in general and the leaders of Tay Ho

District in specific can know the context of the citizens’ satisfaction towards the delivery

of the public administrative services at grassroots level The administrators can see the

effectiveness of the efforts in innovating the activities of the grassroots authorities This can be used as a reference with a more comprehensive view about some issues and

adjustments which are needed in implementing the administrative procedure reform in the

future

The researcher: The author of this research can gain more in-depth knowledge

about public administrative service and administrative procedure reform The author can also improve his ability to carry out a study quantitatively and can implement new

researches at a higher level in the future

The future learners: This can be a useful reference with a relatively abundant

amount of information about the field of administrative procedure reform and citizens’ satisfaction measurement Through this dissertation, the future learners can conceptualize related researches

Scope and Limitations

The researcher conducted a one-month survey in June 2016 The survey was

conducted in all Ward People’s Committees of Tay Ho District (including 8 wards) The respondents of the survey were the citizens who use the public administrative services at Ward People’s Committees This study focused on the public administrative services which are carried out via the OSS mechanism

To measure the citizens’ satisfaction with the public administrative service at grassroots level in Tay Ho District, the survey was carried out on the citizens’ using the public administrative services in all the eight wards Satisfaction was expressed together with the delivery of the Ward People’s Committee, but not separately evaluating each

public administrative service Perhaps some respondents were hesitant with the evaluation

of the public administrative agencies; therefore, some people may not be able to express their real opinions of the context of the public administrative services at the Ward People’s Committees In this context, the respondents may not be required to write their names in the instrument to ensure confidentiality in their responses

Tay Ho District belongs to Hanoi urban areas Thus, the findings gained can be most useful to the wards in cities where the grassroots level are the wards The other

districts can use the results as a source of reference

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter presented the review of literature and studies related to the study The author started with the review of service quality, some other models of service quality measurement, relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction and then review of public administrative service and citizens’ satisfaction In the next section, a review of some researches about citizens’ satisfaction with public administrative services was presented

Service Quality

The term quality has been used for years and understood in different ways Under ordinary Vietnamese Dictionary, it is the total of basic nature and characters of things (events)… to distinguish one thing with the others According to TCVN 9001: 2008,

quality is the level of a set of inherent properties to meet the requirements

Quality is also likely to meet the needs of the market with the lowest cost (Kaoru Ishikawa, 1968) Quality is a matter of personal perception Each person has different needs and different requirements on products, processes and organizations Therefore, their perception of quality is that how their needs are satisfied

There are many researches on the service quality According to Wismiewski and Donnelly (2001), service quality is defined in many different ways depending on the

objects of the study It shows at which level a service can meet the needs and expectations

of the clients Zeithaml (1996) explained that the quality of service is the customer's

appreciation for effectiveness of the service It is a kind of attitude which results from the comparison between what is expected and what one get

Service quality is often seen as a vital factor impacting on competing, relating and maintaining the relationships with customers When a person is concerned about the

quality of services, it could make a difference in one’s own company from others and gain competitive advantages in the long run (Moore, 1987) Lehtinen (1982) thinks that

services’ quality must be assessed on two aspects: the process of service delivery and the results of the service Nevertheless, according to Grongoos (1984), technical quality is related to what is served, and the quality of their skills tells how they are served

By analyzing service quality, the following basic characteristics may be observed:

- There is more difficulty in assessing the quality of services than that of goods

- Awareness of the quality of services is the result of the comparison between the expectations of and the levels of how actual performance meets those expectations

- Customers evaluate not only the results, but also its supply processes

The services delivered directly by the state administrative agencies to people are associated to the state management function with the expectations and interest groups and organizational goals This kind of service quality is evaluated based on strict law

enforcement and liability rules, the performance attitude of public servants, the rights and legitimate interests of citizens, security and social development

The multi-attribute concept about service states that a service can be viewed as a bundle of benefits and costs Whenever anyone would like to consider and examine a service or product, he or she can focus on its attribute (Wilkie & Pessemier, 1973)

Although this concept has advantage of yielding feasible improvement direction, attributes

are perceptual rather than objective product Each attribute has two measures, importance weight and belief rating Both of them are presumed to add explanatory power; belief rating contributes to product differences while importance weight provides differential stress on attributes The weight and belief rating are the potential weakness of the concept

In applying this kind of model, a service can be divided into many attributes Based

on customers’ perception about each attribute, the concept may be measured In this way, the researcher can give an overview of the models by measuring the quality of services

So far, many multi- attribute models have been designed to measure service quality

up to this time such as SERVQUAL (Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry, 1985, 1988, 1991), SERVPERF (Cronin & Taylor, 1992), Evaluated performance (EP) model and Normed quality model (Teas, 1993), Kano (1996) Among them, SERVQUAL and SERVPERF are most well-known for adapting In addition, Kano’s quality model is also a multi- attribute model even though it is a quality identification model rather than a quality measurement model

As mentioned above, the SERVQUAL model and SERVPERF model are widely applied in Vietnam to investigate services in general Their specific content has been presented in chapter I The next content is going to present some models about measuring the quality of services

Review of Nordic Model

In 1984, Gronroos developed the Nordic conceptualization of service quality It examined how technical quality of functional quality affects the expected and perceived service quality of a service encounter While this investigation only provides preliminary

support for the role of technical quality in the formation of overall quality evaluations, subsequent investigation empirically confirm its effects defined as” what the customer is left with when the production process is finished” This model is shown in Figure 5

Figure 5 The Nordic Model by Gronroos (1984)

In the Nordic model of service quality, total perceived service quality is the

outcome of an evaluation process where the customer compares context specific

expectations of quality with the experienced quality The expectations of quality are

context specific to the firm under consideration and not based on the total class of service providers The expected service is affected by the marketing activities of the service

provider and external influences, such as word-of-mouth, corporate image and customer needs

The outcome of the service and the process of service delivery are both recognized

as forming part of the experienced quality Services are characterized by the inseparability

Service Quality

Image

Technical Quality Functional Quality

of production and consumption and the technical outcome of this production process is that which the consumer receives as the result of interacting with the service provider In the Nordic model this outcome is expressed in the technical quality of the service, which can

be assessed by the customer like the technical dimensions of a product But as services are produced in interaction between the consumer and the service provider, technical quality alone cannot account for the quality as perceived by the customer Customers are not only interested in the outcome of a service process; they are also interested in how the service was provided They are interested in the functional quality of the service The third quality dimension identified by Gronroos (1984) is the image of the service provider, which

moderates both technical and functional quality to arrive at a perceived level of service The public image of the service provider appears in both sides of the total perceived

quality equation as it is also considered to moderate expected quality Gronroos (1984) indicated that technical and functional quality are interrelated, but argued that functional quality was more important to the quality of the service, as perceived by customers, than the other factors and that the performance of the staff in direct contact with customers can compensate for a lower technical quality

Review of Kano model

In JIS (Japanese Industrial Standards) Z8107, Kano in 1996 defined quality as “the totality of quality characteristics or level of performance that determines whether a product

or service satisfies the purpose of use”

Quality concept is divided into two components, performance and satisfaction Having more meaning than quality definition is SERVQUAL, this definition does not stop