Performance evaluation of the suggestion system

Performance Evaluation of the Suggestion System

DOI: 10.5455/medarh.2013.67.131-133 Med Arh. 2013 Apr; 67(2): 131-133 Received: January 18th 2013 | Accepted: March 25th 2013

CONFLICT OF INTEREST: NONE DECLARED

Professional paper

Performance Evaluation of the Suggestion System Mohammad Hadi1, Haniye Sadat Sajjadi1, Sara Baratpour1, Ali Toghiani2 Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran1 Islamic Azad University, Najafabad Branch, Isfahan, Iran2

T

his cross-sectional research evaluated the suggestion system of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences (IUMS) using CIPP model. Methods: The population consisted of all members of executive committee of suggestion system and the members of professional and general committee of IUMS; regarding to some limitations, sampling was not done. The tool of gathering data was a self-constructed questionnaire that its content validity approved by the professors’ ideas, and calculating Cronbach’s α confirmed its reliability. Collected data was analyzed using SPSS software. Results and Discussion: Analyzed data showed that the average score of the performance of the mentioned system was 50.47±14.8; based on this result it can be claimed that most of the participants (about 91%) evaluated the performance of the system moderate. The comparison of the average score of the four dimensions of CIPP model showed that the input dimension had the highest score and process, product and context dimensions were next on the hierarchy. Conclusion: Planning some programs for paying awards, facilitating and accelerating the personnel’s and notifying the procedures of the suggestion system implementation are some useful strategy that could be used to increase the staff ’s participants. Key words: suggestion

system, performance evaluation.

Corresponding author: Haniye Sadat sajjadi. Email: [email protected]

1. Introduction Classic management is almost ineffective in today’s complicated and changeable environment and the existence of some problems in official structure of our country necessitate using appropriate and new methods to manage the public organizations and overcome their problems (1). One of the new methods is using participative management style that its implementation in industrial and commercial enterprises had favorable material and spiritual consequences (2). This method can also assist organization particularly in tackling the problem of human resources and appropriate use of their potential abilities and at the result prepare them to compete with other organizations. As evidenced by many reports, the success of most big

companies is deeply indebted to proper use of this management method and it resulted to reveal the personal talents of the staff and making them more selfconfident and responsible. Participative management is a system in which the organization’s staff has intellectual and practical cooperation with managers at different levels of the organization. In this system all members of the organization actively think about the problem-solving techniques and promote organizational efficiency and finally present their finding in the form of the plans and suggestions. So, there is an organization dedicated to allow the free exchange of ideas and information to reach the goals and the manager will have a valuable storage of plans, idea and solutions to achieve organizational goals. The increase of the

job motivation and satisfaction, mental health, creativity, innovation, knowledge and training are some positive consequence of implementation of this system (3, 4). One of the strong and basic tools of this management style is the suggestion system which is an effective factor in changing the work condition and creating a desirable environment for staff participation (1, 5). In this system the organization’s staff deeply thinks to promote the quality and quantity of the organization services and activities and suggest some recommendations and tips to solve the problems and obstacles. Suggestions are the continuation of the innovation and progress in the organization aiming to create a relationship between the lowest level of the organization and the highest one; and usually involved all organization’s staff (4, 6). Suggestion system creates by presenting personal suggestions aim to establish an effective system. The suggestions will be assessed by the professional experts to determine whether to implement them or not. Suggestions typically declare to increase the quality, production, services, work motivation, efficiency and customers’ satisfaction and decrease damages and cost price (2). The necessity of increasing the level of staff participation in our official system persuaded the high council of official affairs to give its seal of approval to the implementation of the sugges-

Med Arh. 2013 Apr; 67(2): 131-133 • Professional paper

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Performance Evaluation of the Suggestion System

tion system based on the circular NO. 1900/195940 dated 14.01.2003 and approval NO. 013/430 T dated 05.03.2001 in the form of proclamation NO. 50043 dated 28.06.2004; and notified to all executive systems. IUMS align with the other organizations has begun the implementation of the above mentioned system since 2006. IUMS established the council of suggestion system to get the staff’s attention on participating and using their talents and benefit from their intellectual ability in planning and developing the goals of the organization and exchange ideas to improve its activities. After 3 years of the implementation of suggestion system in this university, it is essential to evaluate its performance to be necessarily improved and reformed. Evaluation is inseparable from each implementation activities and by using measurable data follows them to make some improvements (7). As it mentioned earlier and regarding to the necessity of evaluating suggestion system of IUMS, it was decided to evaluate this system using CIPP model. This model is able to assess the performance of a system simultaneously on different dimensions of inputs, process and product; therefore such a comprehensive evaluation can present some proper helps for reformation and improvement. CIPP stands for Content, Input, Process and product (3).

2. Materials and Methods This was a descriptive cross-sectional study which has done in 2010. The study population included all members of executive committee of suggestion system and the members of the professional and general committee (n=100); Due to the small size of study population, we studied all population and did not use any sampling methods. . The tool of gathering data was a selfconstructed questionnaire compiled from Internet and library searches. Then its context validity gained through collecting the ideas of the professors and experts. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.93, which showed the reliability of the questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of 38 closed questions and 1 open. Questions 1-10 in part A evaluated the performance of the suggestion 132

system in context dimension with three major issues of “completely effective”, “fairly effective” and “hardly effective”. Questions 11-19 in part B assessed the performance in input dimension with three issues of “completely appropriate”, “fairly appropriate” and “hardly appropriate”. Questions 20-28 in part C examined the performance in process dimension with 3 degrees of “good”, “moderate” and “week”. Questions 2938 in part D evaluated the performance in product dimension with 3 issues of “completely effective”, “fairly effective” and “hardly effective”. The collected data was analyzed with SPSS software. The evaluation score ranges from 0 to 100, the score lower 30 indicates the poor performance and between 30-70 and higher 70 show moderate and good performances, respectively.

3. Results Data analysis showed that 63% of the participants evaluated the performance of the IUMS’ suggestion system in context dimension fairly effective. According to the average score of the mentioned system performance in context dimension which was 49.79±17.4, 1 it can be concluded that it is moderate. The comparison of the average score between ten questions of the context dimension showed that the major effect of the system implementation was related to regulate gathering suggestions with average score of 1.2±0.7. In this comparison, the lowest and highest scores were 0 and 2, respectively. Data analysis indicated that 61% assessed the performance of the IUMS’ suggestion system in input dimension completely appropriate. Regarding to the average score of the performance in input dimension which was 68.48±26.73, the performance considered moderate. The comparison of the average score between nine questions of the input dimension in the evaluation model showed that the great effect of the system implementation was related to the compilation of the suitable regulations to implement the system and timely correction with average score of 1.7±0.57. The lowest and highest scores were 0 and 2, respectively.

Med Arh. 2013 Apr; 67(2): 131-133 • Professional paper

About the evaluation of the performance of the IUMS’ suggestion system in process dimension, data analysis declared that 55% assessed the moderate performance for the system. According to the average score of the performance in this dimension 48.07±21.28, the performance was moderate. The comparison of the nine questions of the process dimension in the evaluation model showed that the major effect of the system implementation was related to the establishment of a secretariat for the system in the university with average score of 1.6±0.48. In this comparison, the lowest and highest scores were 0 and 2, respectively. Data analysis indicated that 67% of the participants considered the performance of the IUMS’ suggestion system in product dimension fairly appropriate. According to the average score of the performance of the system in this dimension which was 44.11±15.78, the performance was moderate. The comparison of the ten questions of the product dimension in the evaluation model showed that the great effect of the system implementation was related to generate research enthusiasm in university with the average score of 1.2±0.45. The lowest and highest scores were 0 and 2, respectively. In general, Data analysis using CIPP model declared that 91% of the participants evaluated the performance of the IUMS’ suggestion system moderate. Average score of the performance was 50.47±14.8 which can be concluded that the system had a moderate performance. The comparison of the average score of the four dimensions of the model highlighted that the input dimension had the highest score and process, product and context were next on the hierarchy. Furthermore, Comparison the performance of the IUMS’ suggestion system based on the CIPP model and from the viewpoints of the studied group regarding to their personal characteristics showed a significant difference between the performance of the suggestion system and their age. There was no significant difference between the performance of the suggestion system and the participants’ gender and the kind of their membership.

Performance Evaluation of the Suggestion System

4. Discussion and Conclusion Based on the present study results, it can be concluded that the performance of the suggestion system in IUMS in context dimension was moderate. In other words, what the university has planned for the fulfillment of this system could have moderately provided its implementation. The necessity of providing an adequate condition to implement the suggestion system which is an effective way to develop the participative management style was also emphasized in the previous studies. Taslimi in his study declared that promoting suggestion system as an important field for developing a suitable environment for elites and achieving the best solution for the problems is based upon recognizing the basic behavioral obstacles and removing them from this process (8). Mazloumi has also introduced some suggestions such as training, encouraging to teamwork, reading books, providing thinking room, training consultant for officers, creating organizational identity, initiating insensitive filters to record suggestions, increasing the personnel’s awareness of organization activities and producing suggestion system mechanism which can positively affect on public organizations by increasing the quality of the suggestions (9). Another study conducted by Roohi et al also emphasized on making and improving suitable culture and institutionalizing the suggestion system. They considered the improvement and adjustment of the organizational culture as two effective ways to facilitate the implementation of the participative management (10). Other studies introduced the chief executive officer’s commitment (11, 12, 13), participation of the supervisor (11), formulation the policy (14, 15), strategies, methods, identified rules and developing infrastructures (11) as the important prerequisites for successful implementation of the suggestion system in the organizations. Regarding to the importance of the adequate embedding to implement the suggestion system and also the moderate performance of this system in university, it is recommended to strengthen the implementation of the context dimension in this system and the policy maker and responsibilities in the university try to develop organizational participation culture in the university. About the evaluation of the suggestion system in university in input dimension, the

results reported a moderate conditions; it means that the present system in university could have fairly provide the prerequisites to implement the system. Some required items includes compiling regulations and action plans for the system, designing proper planning and implementing teams, providing the necessary funding and financial recourses and etc. Suggestion system like other systems needs to be benefited from some facilities, resources and data to reach a comprehensive confirmation; if the required resources of the implementation are not provided appropriately, it cannot be expected to implement correctly. Careful macro-policies and planning (16), appropriate management and leadership styles (10, 17), creating sufficient motivators for participation (18), funding (11), precise implementation and action plans (11) and creating different work teams (19) are some of the instances of inputs introduced to establish a suggestion system in the previous studies. Regarding to the necessity of providing and using necessary resources and inputs to implement the suggestion system and also the moderate score of the university in this dimension, providing requisite resources and fundamental prerequisites are inevitable to establish this system. Identifying the performance of the suggestion system in process (the implementation procedure) and product (the effects resulted from the implementation) dimensions have also showed similar findings with the reports of the previous dimensions. Moderate evaluations of this system claim more planning and trying to improve the implementation procedure, assessing and resisting most of the effects and its implementation results. Positive effects of some factors like adequate paying award mechanism and acknowledgment (13, 20), public advertising (13), collecting fair alternatives to assess the suggestions (12, 21), selecting skillful and qualified managers (11), trying to implement applicable and useful suggestions and the implementation of the mentioned system based on the policies and instructions in improvement and reformation of the suggestion system (11) were confirmed in the previous studies in two later dimensions. In our study, total evaluation of the suggestion system using CIPP model showed fairly positive and effective performance which was similar to the previous studies

in our country (22). The evidences reported that suggestion system is a strong tool for managing the organization apart from providing a suitable environment for presenting ideas or considering the staff as the potential resources of ideas. Therefore, it is suggested to design a comprehensive and effective system for recognizing, encouraging and following the implementation of the suggestions in the organization (23). Regarding to the proven effects of the implementation of the mentioned system and participative management style in improvement and effectiveness of the organization (24, 25), it is helpful to reform the present performance of the university suggestion system in context, product, process and input dimensions, respectively.

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