UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ----------------------------- Cao Mai Anh PROBLEM OF INTERNAL COMMUNICATION AT INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF BUSINESS (ISB) MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ----------------------------- Cao Mai Anh PROBLEM OF INTERNAL COMMUNICATION AT INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF BUSINESS (ISB) MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION SUPERVISOR: Prof. Tran Ha Minh Quan Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Acknowledgement The final thesis in business administration is a valuable chance for me to consolidate, improve and enhance my knowledge. Through this dissertation, I have been able to use the academic knowledge that I have gain and acknowledge over the past three years in the International School of Business (ISB). Therefore, I would like to express my great gratitude to all wonderful people who have provided huge contribution through my journey.
First of all, I would like to show my deepest thanks to Prof. Tran Ha Minh Quan, my professor, my thesis supervisor. Without his advices, my paperwork never can be accomplished. There is no word to describe how grateful I am, from the appropriate structure to which theories should be used as well as how to contact with relevant staffs for interviewing.
Step by step, he not only formed my study but also provide such catastrophic knowledge to me. Secondly, I would hope to indicate my appreciation for all the ISB’s staffs who spent their precious time for my interviews in being so proactive to deliver information more honesty. The thesis would be less valuable and realistic without their helps. Finally, I would like to express my profound and sincere thanks to all the students who took part in this thesis by spending time to complete the first survey, answer the questionnaires and provide such useful comments.
The ideas from such small conversations formed the basic stand for my idea of identifying symptoms. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Contents Executive summary .1 Background and problem statement .2 Background information of ISB.4 Scope of survey. 3 Chapter 2: Survey design and findings .1 Educational service quality .1 Determine scale for survey .3 Data analysis and findings .1 Students’ characteristic information. 13 Chapter 3: Problem identification .2 Initial cause – effect map.
18 Chapter 4: Problem justification .2 Internal communication measurement. 25 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.1 Causes informed by the theory. 27 Chapter 5: Conclusion and Recommendation .1 Recommendation for the issue “Lack of Top management support” .2 Recommendation for the issue “Poor internal communication channels”. 37 Appendix 2: Interview guide to clarify symptoms.
43 Appendix 3: Interview guide to draw initial cause-effect map. 45 Appendix 4: The consequences of “Internal communication” in the context of ISB. 46 Appendix 5: Causes validation. 47 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PROBLEM OF INTERNAL COMMUNICATION AT ISB 1 List of tables Table 1 – List of scales used for measuring service quality.
5 Table 2 – Five dimensions of HEdPERF scale. 6 Table 3 – The scale for measuring educational services quality of ISB. 7 Table 4 – Students’ characteristic information. 9 Table 5 – Statistics of describing students’ perceptions about ISB services quality.
11 List of figures Figure 1 – Main major of ISB students. 9 Figure 2 – MBA program pie chart. 10 Figure 3 – ISB’s services quality elements. 12 List of diagrams Diagram 1 – Initial cause-effect map.
17 Diagram 2 – Updated cause-effect map. 19 Diagram 3 – Final cause-effect map. 29 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com INTERNAL COMMUNICATION AT ISB 2 Executive summary Nowadays, as the development of education industry, universities found graduating high school students are struggling from the problem of selecting a post graduated institution. The International School of Business (ISB) with its advantage of available brand of the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City (UEH) has more and more confirmed educational service quality in the industry.
Hence, students’ demands about service quality have been known as the decisive element that effect on students’ satisfaction as well as the institution’s reputation. Recognizing and identifying the real problems that are existing in the institution are the purpose and goal of this paperwork. Through the results of a survey of ISB students’ satisfaction with MBA program and in- depth interview with two staffs from Students Service Department, author found out most of MBA students were not satisfied with ISB’s non-academic staffs, which came from “internal communication”. Author continued to analyze the problem based on theory as well as discussion with some ISB staffs to determine the real causes: “lack of top management support” and “poor internal communication channels”.
Finally, author recommended simple actions so as to improve as much as possible the two causes mentioned above. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com INTERNAL COMMUNICATION AT ISB 2 Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter is designed to give the general introduction about the background of the study as well as the reasons for choosing the research topic. The research problems, research objectives will be clearly defined. The overview of research methodology will be also introduced.
Finally, the chapter will end up by explaining the scope of the research.1 Background and problem statement Higher education represents a critical factor in innovation and human capital development and plays a central role in the success and sustainability of the knowledge economy [6]. Hence, higher education has become increasingly important on national agendas and has undergone profound mutations and reforms worldwide over the past decades, as portrayed in a recent OECD review of tertiary education policies [19]. Nowadays, universities consider students as the center of their services, which will result in the satisfaction for their “customers”. However, students’ demands are changing.
Learners increasingly seek courses that enable them to update their knowledge throughout their working lives. In addition, as learners seek to acquire particular knowledge or skills to satisfy labor market needs, more and more prefer to pick and choose courses from the most suitable providers, rather than studying a traditional clearly defined program at one institution [19]. The pressure from the market and customers (parents and students) force universities increasing not only their quality but also their reputation to attract new comers. In the case of International school of business (ISB) – a new educational organization, school’s leaderships have had to try hard to improve their service quality in order to create competitive position in educational market.
As a MBA student of ISB, I did this study with the purposes of contributing to ISB’s development in the future as well as enhancing ISB’s image and reputation in comparison with other universities. With the objectives above, I conducted a survey with a purpose of evaluating current ISB students’ perception about educational service quality which has supplied by institution ISB. Thence, exploring the real problems existing in the process of supplying educational services will help the institution perceive the limited aspects and improve them. The institution’s image and reputation are enhanced if its degrees become more valuable.
TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com INTERNAL COMMUNICATION AT ISB 3 1.2 Background information of ISB International School of Business (ISB), known as a part of University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City (UEH), was established in 2010 with the purpose of create a modern and dynamic educational environment with English has been the main language. The institution has not only experienced Vietnamese lecturers but also professors from many famous universities around the world. Hence, they can support to students a range of practical experiences. Nowadays, the institution runs undergraduate as well as post-graduate programs.
In addition, ISB also has a closest relationship with several of international universities to create opportunities for students can go abroad and receive international degrees.3 Survey objectives Specifically, the topic set out the following objectives: i) Identify the real problems that existing in The International School of Business (ISB) in the process of supplying educational services through the survey of students’ satisfaction with service quality of ISB’s MBA program. ii) Recommendation potential solutions for each problem. iii) Creating the action plan through cooperation with ISB.4 Scope of survey As mentioned above, the scope of the survey is the perception and satisfaction of MBA students about ISB’s current educational service quality. Hence, the survey is aimed at students in the 6th and 7th course of MBA program at ISB.
This condition is more appropriate with the research’s purpose compared to the other years as at the time of registration, students already had enough information to make decision because they are experiencing the MBA program. In addition, the survey was conducted in 2 different systems of ISB’s MBA program: ISB-MBA and WSU-MBA in order to understand what the different factors in students’ perception about ISB’s service quality. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com INTERNAL COMMUNICATION AT ISB 4 Chapter 2: Survey design and findings This chapter is designed to give the literature reviews of service quality in education. After that, a survey questionnaire was studied and designed based on the last research in order to identify the problems of the institution.
It can be said that this chapter is very important because it helps to clearly identify the latent problem of the organization and plays a role of a prerequisite for finding causes as well as solving them in the following chapters.1 Educational service quality According to research of Parasuraman (1985) in [1], service quality was known as the result of comparison that customers make between their expectations about a service and their perception of the way the service has been performed. In the sector of education, [13] defined educational service quality as a student’s overall evaluation of services received as part of their educational experience. This mean students were clients who were to be given a service and whose needs were to be met [11].1 Determine scale for survey Quantitative method was used to gather data which measured the ISB students’ satisfaction about service quality of the institution’s ISB-MBA program in order to find out the abnormal points. The scale used for measuring educational service quality is quite important because it will reflect the students’ satisfaction, attitudes with the service supported by the institution.
The data were collected on the web database such as Emerald, Science Direct, by searching “scales for service quality of higher education” or “scales for service quality of MBA program” in the topic field. The results were shown in the table below: TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com INTERNAL COMMUNICATION AT ISB 5 Table 1 – List of scales used for measuring service quality Scale Author Dimension Objects Several sectors: Q (service quality) = P (service performance) Business economics, – E (client’s expectation) Computer Science, Parasuraman SERVQUAL Include 5 dimensions: “Reliability”, Information science et all (1988) “Responsiveness”, “Assurance”, library science, social “Empathy”, “Tangibles”. science, engineering, educational research…. Q (service quality) = P (performance) Several sectors: Cronin and Based on SERVQUAL Business economics, SERVPERF Taylor Include 5 dimensions: “Reliability”, Computer science, (1992) “Responsiveness”, “Assurance”, Engineering, “Empathy”, “Tangibles”.
educational research… Q (service quality) = P (performance) Based on SERVPERF Abdullah Include 5 dimensions: “Non-academic HEdPERF Higher education (2005) aspects”, “Academic aspects”, “Reputation”, “Access”, “Programme issues”. Based on HEdPERF Include 5 dimensions: “Academic Icli and Anil quality”, “Administrative services quality”, HEDQUAL MBA programs (2014) “Library services quality”, “Supportive services quality”, “Quality of providing career opportunities” Source: Author’s synthesis SERVQUAL and SERVPEF were known as 2 scales used in varieties of previous researches in several sectors, including educational researches. However, these scales revealed a mismatch in the context of measuring students’ satisfaction with MBA programs because they did not adequately reflect the students’ expectations with the quality of the educational services provided by the institution. HEDQUAL was developed based on HEdPERF with its’ target in MBA programs.