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A validation Study of<br />
House of Quality key<br />
performance indicators<br />
“The case of De Unie’s Online union”<br />
Name: Ferdinand Kieboom<br />
Number: 283241<br />
Department: Marketing Management<br />
Coach: Prof. Dr. F.M. Go<br />
Co-Reader: Dr. D.M. Halemane<br />
RSM <strong>Erasmus</strong> University <strong>Rotterdam</strong><br />
December, 2007
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
ii<br />
Preface<br />
The author declares that the text and work presented in this Master thesis is original and that no<br />
sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating the<br />
Master thesis.<br />
The copyright of the Master thesis rests with the author. The author is responsible for its contents.<br />
RSM <strong>Erasmus</strong> University is only responsible for the educational coaching and beyond that cannot be<br />
held responsible for the content.<br />
Ferdinand F. Kieboom<br />
Department of Marketing Management<br />
RSM <strong>Erasmus</strong> University <strong>Rotterdam</strong><br />
November, 2007
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
iii<br />
Foreword<br />
“The metropolis setting makes it possible and necessary for an individual to preserve his autonomy<br />
and individuality in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture,<br />
and of the technique of life”<br />
Simmel 1922<br />
By the end of 2006, the RSM <strong>Erasmus</strong> University and Microsoft Netherlands started the research<br />
project “The New World of Work”. This research project aimed to provide insights in the changing<br />
way of working for the workforce, enabled by information and communication technology (ICT). One<br />
of the organizations that joined the research project was Dutch labor union De Unie. Each student,<br />
participating in this research investigated a single case study, from which the case study of De Unie<br />
served as my Master’s Thesis.<br />
At the start of this research project I only knew labor unions from strikes presented in the<br />
newspapers and on television, and I was wondering why a Dutch labor union would like to participate<br />
in our research project. To my opinion, labor unions were a little old-fashioned and conservative.<br />
I already knew that representative organizations were facing a decline in memberships for the past<br />
years. By the time I was wondering the above, I came to the understanding that in fact it was not<br />
strange at all for a workforce representative organization such as De Unie to participate in this<br />
research project.<br />
As labor unions are facing difficulties on the recruitment and retention of members the primary<br />
concern for unions will be to identify new concepts that adapt to the needs of the changing<br />
workforce and rejuvenate the traditional union. Fortunately, I noticed the management of De Unie to<br />
be aware of the urgency for workforce representative organizations to develop new concepts. And as<br />
a result, De Unie recently started with the first virtual union in the Netherlands. My opinion about De<br />
Unie changed; this might be a progressive organization!<br />
Traditionally, labour unions centres on maintaining the elusive balance in the group-individual<br />
member relationship. I came to the understanding that one of the forces that is changing the group-<br />
individual relationship is the growth of the internet and other ICT tools. The latter increases the<br />
speed and availability of information and turn the group-individual relationship on its head, due to<br />
the emergence of ICT-enabled individualization. For De Unie, understanding members’ needs for
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
individualization and reconciling these with the requirements of the group will be a precondition to<br />
the online union’s success.<br />
Towards the end of my thesis I realized that with the start of the online union, although at the<br />
moment very small and not fully developed, De Unie explored a complete new concept with high<br />
potential to succeed. By this research study, I have tried to provide De Unie direction for the ongoing<br />
way of improving the online union to adapt to the needs of the changing workforce.<br />
Providing direction is phase I in the process of improving the online union. Translating the needs of<br />
the members into the design will be the second phase. During my last contact with De Unie, the<br />
project manager of the online union mentioned: “Okay, I was thinking about the following technical<br />
requirements in order to translate the needs.......how do you think about it?” At that point, my<br />
opinion about labor union De Unie was definitely changed; this organization certainly can be<br />
progressive.<br />
iv
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
v<br />
Acknowledgements<br />
The research study you are about to read has been written as my Master’s thesis. In writing this<br />
paper I was fortunate with the support and advice of many people with different fields of expertise.<br />
In this section I’d like to dedicate some words of appreciation to those who guided me in my journey<br />
towards this final thesis.<br />
First of all I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Prof. Dr. Frank Go for his time, guidance,<br />
overwhelming support and enthusiasm when writing this thesis. His knowledge, rich interpretations<br />
and critical view led to many hours of great conversations that were of great importance for the final<br />
result of this Master’s thesis. For his invaluable contributions I am very grateful.<br />
I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to my co-reader, Dr. Murthy Halemane. I would like<br />
to thank him for his time, critical view and overwhelming commitment. Also thanks for the nice<br />
conversations, practical advices and interest in the research subject.<br />
Furthermore, I would like to thank Ad Breukel for the valuable conversations we had in Utrecht. His<br />
knowledge and experience in the field of research are tremendous. I would like to thank him for the<br />
time he made free for us and for his valuable advices. In this way I will also show my respect to Dr.<br />
Robbert Govers for his contributions at the start of our research.<br />
A special word of thanks will go to Prof. Dr. Ir. Eric van Heck, Dr. Peter van Baalen and Drs. Marcel<br />
van Oosterhout for their constructive criticism, contributions and support to our team during the last<br />
year we worked on the New World of Work project. I really appreciated our cooperation. I would<br />
also like to thank my “teammates” Robbert Engels, Marcel Legerstee, Vincent Vermeulen and<br />
Wieteke Dupain; we made it!<br />
For this research for the online union I will also express my gratitude to many people of De Unie for<br />
the discussions, advice and support. I would also like to thank all members of the online union who<br />
took the time to fill in my survey and t<strong>here</strong>fore contributed with valuable information.<br />
Last, but certainly not least, I would like to express my deepest respect and gratitude towards my<br />
family; my parents and my brother. Their never ending support and encouragement was of great<br />
importance to me. I feel very fortunate to have a family like you!<br />
Ferdinand Kieboom, November 2007
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
This thesis is dedicated to the memory of R. van Zevenbergen-Huisman<br />
vi<br />
Dedication<br />
(1917 – 2007)
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
vii<br />
Executive Summary<br />
Workforce representative organizations in the Netherlands are witnessing a decline in the number of<br />
memberships for about 10 years. Under influence of ICT, the design of work is changing from a<br />
centralized to a decentralized form. As a result, the function and role of representative organizations,<br />
such as De Unie, are changing as well. In response, representative organizations are searching for,<br />
and experimenting with new service concepts in order to recruit new members and increase the<br />
position of the organization as well as the organization’s cash flow. Under influence of the<br />
aforementioned forces, De Unie started to develop a new union concept that is more responsive to<br />
the members’ contemporary needs. As a result, De Unie recently launched the first online union in<br />
the Netherlands; “De Internetvakbond”.<br />
The current research study serves to improve decision makers’ understanding of the demands of the<br />
members, and offers objective knowledge about the key performance drivers of the online union.<br />
Hence, it will provide De Unie direction to the ongoing process of designing an online union that<br />
adapts to the demands of the changing workforce. By both identification of the most important<br />
needs of the members, by collection of empirical data and; by translating the needs into appropriate<br />
technical requirements.<br />
This research starts with a literature review followed by exploratory research to the needs of the<br />
members and the performance drivers of the online union. The present study applies the SERVQUAL<br />
model to measure the quality of the services offered by the online union. By including Kano’s model<br />
we were able to identify how well the different service attributes of the online union are satisfying<br />
the needs of the members. By integrating the SERVQUAL and Kano model into the concept of the<br />
House of Quality, we were able to translate the needs and requirements of the member into the<br />
design process of the online union.<br />
By exploratory research we identified five dimensions that are considered to determine the overall<br />
performance of the online union; interaction, solidarity, information, safety and interaction.<br />
Statistical analysis merged the dimensions interaction and solidarity and indicated a significant<br />
positive relationship between tangibles and the overall performance of the online union. The House<br />
of Quality indicated Digitalization to be the most important technical requirement in the ongoing<br />
process of improvement and enables the online union to meet the widest collection of members’<br />
needs. Digitalization in this case offers the online union possibilities for value-based pricing of<br />
services, connect different parties in the network and enables interaction between the De Unie, it’s<br />
members and third parties. From this perspective it increases the value of the online union.
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
viii<br />
Table of Contents<br />
Preface ........................................................................................................................................ ii<br />
Foreword .................................................................................................................................... iii<br />
Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... v<br />
Dedication ...................................................................................................................................vi<br />
Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................... vii<br />
Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................... viii<br />
List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... xi<br />
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................ xi<br />
Chapter 1 - Introduction ............................................................................................................. 13<br />
1.1 Research Background .................................................................................................................. 13<br />
1.2 Theories of service improvements .............................................................................................. 14<br />
1.3 Problem Definition and Research Questions .............................................................................. 16<br />
1.3.1 Research Questions .............................................................................................................. 17<br />
1.4 Research objectives ..................................................................................................................... 18<br />
1.5 Research Design .......................................................................................................................... 18<br />
1.6 Thesis Structure ........................................................................................................................... 19<br />
Chapter 2 - Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................. 21<br />
2.1 Online trade unions ..................................................................................................................... 21<br />
2.2 New Media challenges ................................................................................................................ 23<br />
2.3 Virtual Communities .................................................................................................................... 26<br />
2.3.1 Concept of virtual communities ........................................................................................... 26<br />
2.3.2 Typology of virtual communities .......................................................................................... 29<br />
2.3.3 Function of Virtual Communities in Marketing .................................................................... 31<br />
2.4 SERVQUAL ................................................................................................................................... 33<br />
2.5 Quality Function Deployment ..................................................................................................... 34<br />
2.5.1 The Four-Phase Model ......................................................................................................... 35<br />
2.5.2 House of Quality ................................................................................................................... 36<br />
Customer Needs (WHAT’S) ............................................................................................................ 37<br />
Planning matrix (WHY’S) ............................................................................................................... 39<br />
Technical Response (HOW’S) ........................................................................................................ 39<br />
Relationship matrix ....................................................................................................................... 39<br />
Technical Correlation Matrix ......................................................................................................... 40<br />
Technical Matrix ............................................................................................................................ 40
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
2.6 Conceptual model ....................................................................................................................... 40<br />
Chapter 3 – Methodology ........................................................................................................... 43<br />
3.1 Research Design .......................................................................................................................... 43<br />
3.2 Data description .......................................................................................................................... 43<br />
Phase I: Exploratory research; defining member’s needs ............................................................. 44<br />
Phase II Quantitative research; online survey ............................................................................... 44<br />
Phase III Establishing the House of Quality ................................................................................... 45<br />
3.3 Instrument development and quality ......................................................................................... 45<br />
Chapter 4 - Results Empirical Study ............................................................................................ 49<br />
4.1 Phase I: Results exploratory research ......................................................................................... 49<br />
4.1.1 Interviews with employees of the online union ................................................................... 50<br />
4.1.2 Interviews with the members of the online union ............................................................... 51<br />
4.2 Results Quantitative research ..................................................................................................... 54<br />
4.2.1 Sample description ............................................................................................................... 54<br />
4.2.2 Factor analyse ....................................................................................................................... 57<br />
Scale Reliablity ............................................................................................................................... 59<br />
Correlations ................................................................................................................................... 60<br />
4.2.3 Multiple Regression Analysis ................................................................................................ 60<br />
4.3 Establishing the House of Quality; translating “What” into “How” ............................................ 62<br />
4.3.1 Gap analysis ......................................................................................................................... 62<br />
4.3.2 Kano Analysis ........................................................................................................................ 64<br />
4.3.3 Data Collection House of Quality ......................................................................................... 65<br />
4.3.4 The House of Quality ............................................................................................................ 66<br />
4.4 Summary empirical results .......................................................................................................... 69<br />
4.4.1 Exploratory research ............................................................................................................. 69<br />
4.4.2 Conclusions Quantitative results .......................................................................................... 69<br />
4.4.3 Conclusions House of Quality ............................................................................................... 70<br />
Chapter 5 - Conclusions, Implications and Recommendations ...................................................... 71<br />
5.1 Synopsis ....................................................................................................................................... 71<br />
5.2 Central Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 71<br />
5.3 Implications ................................................................................................................................. 72<br />
5.4 Methodological value .................................................................................................................. 73<br />
5.5 Recommendations for future research ....................................................................................... 73<br />
References ................................................................................................................................. 75<br />
ix
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Appendix 1: Survey Data............................................................................................................. 81<br />
1.1 Expectation vs. Perceptions ........................................................................................................ 81<br />
Appendix 2: Independent correlations ........................................................................................ 82<br />
Appendix 3 ................................................................................................................................. 84<br />
3.1 Kano matrix ................................................................................................................................. 84<br />
Appendix 4: Case description De Unie ......................................................................................... 85<br />
Appendix 5: Interviews employees’ online labor union. ............................................................... 88<br />
5.1 List of interviewed employees .................................................................................................... 88<br />
5.2 Questions ..................................................................................................................................... 88<br />
5.3 Conclusions interviews with employees ..................................................................................... 90<br />
Appendix 6: Interviews with members online labor union. .......................................................... 93<br />
6.1 List of interviewed members ....................................................................................................... 93<br />
6.2 Questions ..................................................................................................................................... 93<br />
6.3 Conclusions interviews with members. ....................................................................................... 95<br />
Appendix 7: Survey Internetvakbond De Unie ............................................................................. 98<br />
Appendix 8: Statistical Analyses ................................................................................................. 108<br />
8.1 Factor Analysis ........................................................................................................................... 108<br />
x
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
xi<br />
List of Figures<br />
Figure - 1 House of Quality .................................................................................................................... 16<br />
Figure - 2 Thesis Outline ........................................................................................................................ 19<br />
Figure - 3 Polyinclusion (Go & Fenema, 2003) ...................................................................................... 24<br />
Figure - 4 The Four-Phase model of QFD (Cohen 1995) ........................................................................ 35<br />
Figure - 5 House of Quality .................................................................................................................... 36<br />
Figure - 6 Kano’s model (ReVelle et al, 1998) ....................................................................................... 38<br />
Figure - 7 Conceptual Model (Based on Go, 2005) ............................................................................... 41<br />
Figure - 8 Empirical research design after phase I. ............................................................................... 53<br />
Figure - 9 Frequency site visits .............................................................................................................. 56<br />
Figure - 10 Reason to visit website ........................................................................................................ 56<br />
Figure - 11 Overview gap scores ........................................................................................................... 63<br />
Figure - 12 Kano Categorization ............................................................................................................ 65<br />
Figure - 13 The House of Quality for the online union .......................................................................... 66<br />
List of Tables<br />
Table 1 - Virtual Community benefits for consumers and producers (De Valck, 2005) ........................ 32<br />
Table 2 -Service dimensions Online union ........................................................................................... 53<br />
Table 3 - Demographic Characteristics .................................................................................................. 55<br />
Table 4 - Sector of the organization ...................................................................................................... 56<br />
Table 5 - Function of members ............................................................................................................. 56<br />
Table 6 -Rotated component matrix .................................................................................................... 58<br />
Table 7 - Dimensional structure after Factor Analysis .......................................................................... 59<br />
Table 8 - Internal Reliability ................................................................................................................... 60<br />
Table 9 - Correlation matrix .................................................................................................................. 60<br />
Table 10 - Regression Coefficients ........................................................................................................ 61<br />
Table 11 - Technical Correlation Matrix ................................................................................................ 68<br />
Table 12 - Importance rankings How's .................................................................................................. 69
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
xii
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Chapter 1 - Introduction<br />
“Your workplace is w<strong>here</strong>ver you are”<br />
1.1 Research Background<br />
- Motto from Interpolis Insurances Tilburg<br />
Just looking at the captioned statement some people may probably remark: “Yeah, perhaps in your<br />
dreams ....”. However, one of the leading insurance companies in the Netherlands succeeded in<br />
turning its ‘your workplace is w<strong>here</strong>ver you are’ dream scenario into an innovative office concept<br />
back in 1995. Its imaginary power harnessed in a ‘new world of work’ dream scenario and ability to<br />
mobilize superb implementation skills, supported by sound planning. This enabled Interpolis to<br />
achieve concrete business savings in reality. For instance, its new building offers 64% more<br />
workplaces and accommodates 103% more employees than its traditional office building (Veldhoen,<br />
2005). Hence, this case provides both inspiration and an appropriate introduction to frame the<br />
present case research. In particular, it conceives a test to validate the House of Quality technique<br />
through a statistically reliable sample of the De Unie’s member population in the Netherlands.<br />
Nowadays the way we design our work is strongly influenced by Information Technology. Sinha and<br />
van de Ven (2005) indicate that the design of work, i.e. the way in which work is performed, is<br />
changing from centralized to decentralized structures. Sinha and van de Ven (2005) attribute this<br />
change to IT, which divides, distributes and coordinates work across organizational and national<br />
boundaries. From the performance perspective IT can be viewed as an enabler of work design<br />
changes rather than a just another tool to automate processes (Dederick, 2003).<br />
This research study is part of the overall research project The New World of Work (NWoW). This<br />
research project is conducted by the RSM <strong>Erasmus</strong> University in systematic- and comprehensive<br />
collaboration with Microsoft Netherlands, Rabobank and the Dutch trade union organization De<br />
Unie. The research team consists of nine members from three different departments of the RSM<br />
<strong>Erasmus</strong> University; marketing management, decision and information sciences and strategic<br />
management. The five student members investigated each one case study. The research project<br />
results are culminated in a report, including the case studies, for the participating companies and,<br />
separately, presented in a Master’s thesis, of which the present study serves as one.<br />
13
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
The present case study focuses on the Dutch labour union De Unie. Recently, De Unie started its<br />
journey to discover new concepts of working. For example; a new building with different features to<br />
facilitate new ways of working was built in the year 2003. Within 2006 De Unie started the first<br />
online labour union in the Netherlands; “the online union” (De Internetvakbond). Labour unions<br />
worldwide are facing a decline in the number of members for almost twenty years now (Greene<br />
2000, Ward 2002, Heery 2004). Problems on recruitment and retention of members are the primary<br />
concern for unions to identify new concepts that adapt to the needs of the changing workforce and<br />
rejuvenate the traditional union. Also in the Netherlands unions are challenged with the above<br />
described decline in the number of members.<br />
In essence a labour union centres on maintaining the delicate balance in the group-individual<br />
member relationship. The latter is shifting as a consequence of two main forces. First, the changing<br />
power balance altering the traditional configurations and relations in the market; second, the growth<br />
of the internet and other information and communication technologies (ICT). The latter accelerate<br />
the velocity of information and business processes and turn the group-individual relationship on its<br />
head, due to the emergence of ICT-enabled individualization.<br />
Fortunately, the leadership of De Unie is aware of the significance of the aforementioned forces and<br />
the urgent need to develop a new union concept that is more responsive to the members’<br />
contemporary needs. It merely started an online union as an experiment to rejuvenate the<br />
organizational concept that would fit to the needs of the “new workforce” and new members.<br />
Hence, understanding members’ needs for individualization and reconciling these with the<br />
requirements of the group is a precondition to the online union’s success. At present, t<strong>here</strong> is a lack<br />
of information regarding members’ identities and motives. Such data is vital to plot an adoption<br />
strategy for the online union. T<strong>here</strong>fore, this research seeks to provide insights about members’<br />
identities and motives in relation to the online union. Moreover, it provides recommendations on<br />
how De Unie can improve its processes to align the online union with the conventional organization,<br />
which is rooted in the co-located form of conducting work, that the majority of members are familiar<br />
and comfortable with.<br />
1.2 Theories of service improvements<br />
In order to translate customer’s requirements into the development process of new products or<br />
services, nowadays different methods exist to control, measure, manage and improve quality in<br />
different areas. One method to measure the quality of a service is the SERVQUAL model of<br />
Parasuraman et al (1985). The model determines the quality of a service by measuring customer’s<br />
expectations and perceptions on different service attributes. A gap exists when the expectation of a<br />
14
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
service exceeds the perception of a service. In order to measure how well different service attributes<br />
are able to satisfy the needs of customer the Kano model was developed (Kano, 1984). Kano’s model<br />
classifies the attributes into three categories, according to the level of satisfaction.<br />
The present study applies the SERVQUAL model to measure the quality of the services offered by the<br />
online union. By including Kano’s model we are able to identify how well the different service<br />
attributes of the online union are satisfying the needs of the members. The SERVQUAL model only<br />
identifies gaps between member’s expectations and perceptions but does not mention how the<br />
explored gaps can be closed in order to improve the performance of the online union. T<strong>here</strong>fore,<br />
based on the concept of Tan and Pawitra (2001), the needs of the members identified by the<br />
SERVQUAL model will be integrated into the concept of Quality Function Deployment (Akao, 1990).<br />
This in order to provide information how De Unie can improve the design the online union.<br />
Quality Function Deployment (QFD) represents a powerful structured methodology for exploring and<br />
steering interaction between different contributors in the product or service development or<br />
improvement process (Tidd 2001). This is also the case when designing IT-related products of<br />
services, like in this case the online union. Within the theory of QFD t<strong>here</strong> are two dominant models;<br />
the four phase model and Akao’s Matrix of Matrices Model. This research study will make use of the<br />
four phase model of QFD. The Four-Phase model divides a product or service development process<br />
into four phases. For each phase a matrix in shape of a house is used.<br />
In order to translate the needs and requirements of the member into the design process, the needs<br />
explored by the SERVQUAL model will be integrated into the first house of the four phase model; the<br />
House of Quality (HOQ). The HOQ is used to depict customer requirements, technical measures,<br />
target values, and competitive analysis (Eureka and Ryan, 1994). T<strong>here</strong>fore the HOQ will be an<br />
important instrument in this ongoing process of improvement in order to match the needs and<br />
requirements of the members and the design requirements of the online union.<br />
15
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
16<br />
Figure - 1 House of Quality<br />
As showed in Figure - 1, the House of Quality is formed by a number of elements (rooms) on different<br />
levels. The left room lists the member’s needs or requirements, the “Whats”. The room below the<br />
roof consists of the “Hows”, the technical (design) requirements. Function of the “Hows” is to<br />
translate the “Whats” into terms that are measurable. The body of the house presents the<br />
correlation between the “Whats” and “Hows”. Through this correlation matrix we are able to analyze<br />
the extent to which each “How” affects each “What”.<br />
1.3 Problem Definition and Research Questions<br />
Nowadays an information worker has got many technological tools available. The present study<br />
levers IT as an enabler of work design. In the communications context and the array of tools available<br />
for social interaction, IT tools are applied both on the co-located and remote work level. The<br />
information environment helps workers to solve increasingly complex and ambiguous problems.<br />
However, research that mapped information flows among executives indicated ‘that t<strong>here</strong> was only<br />
limited collaborative activity in pockets of the organization’; ‘in general this lack of collaboration was<br />
a product of people not knowing what other people knew’ (Cross, 2001).<br />
From an information environmental perspective ICT enables organizations to decentralize their<br />
decision making system. By extension decentralized types of organizations provide people the<br />
opportunity to make decisions that matter to them (Malone, 2004:6). Hence, it offers workers more<br />
freedom in how and w<strong>here</strong> to carry out their job. In spite of such promise, the new ways of working<br />
paradigm faces a formidable challenge for organizations. Namely, they have to initiate a “change” in<br />
the mind of the information workers, especially on how to deal with their new-found freedom on the<br />
job.
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Providing employees with the “right” IT tools as an enabler of work is only a first step. The second<br />
step is crucial, that is determining workers’ intentions and competences to bring about an<br />
appropriate match between ‘man-machine’. Only then is it feasible to determine the requirements,<br />
i.e., what is wanted and to translate such data into how organizational processes should be ordered<br />
in an appropriate design.<br />
As a workforce representative organization, De Unie will have to adapt to the changing workforce<br />
and design new concepts that support the needs and requirements of her members and from this<br />
become a valuable partner in terms of work related support and personal development. The<br />
individualization of the workforce is gathering pace in the context of urbanization. It places a<br />
premium on “an individual to preserve his autonomy and individuality in the face of overwhelming<br />
social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life” (Simmel, 1922).<br />
As the world (and organizations) becomes flat (Friedman, 2004) and the sourcing of human resources<br />
increasingly flexible, in nature it is only logical that De Unie abandons centralized thinking and acting<br />
in favour of a decentralized model of organization. Within this context, De Unie developed the online<br />
union; that is supposed to function as a ‘virtual community’. Some of the main characteristics of a<br />
virtual community are: a set of relationships between individual members and the group,<br />
represented by De Unie and sub-units within the labor union.<br />
But what happens when an organization migrates from a centralized to a decentralized model of<br />
organizational structure and strategic decision making? How are geographically dispersed members<br />
and branch offices of De Unie responding to the concept of the online union? Do stakeholders<br />
perceive the online union primarily as a new way of social interaction? Or as a vehicle that corrodes<br />
the character of relations that are based on face-to-face encounters and relations which have<br />
evolved over time?<br />
1.3.1 Research Questions<br />
As mentioned in previous sections, this research is part of an extensive research for Microsoft<br />
Netherlands. This specific research study for the online union will be conducted at De Unie. The<br />
following research question and five sub questions are formulated:<br />
Research question:<br />
How does De Unie address to the implications for the New World of Work through the design<br />
and implementation of the online union?<br />
17
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Theoretical based sub questions:<br />
1) How to use the theory of House of Quality?<br />
2) To what extent can the online labour union be defined as a Virtual Community?<br />
Practical based sub questions:<br />
3) What are the needs of the members of the online labor union?<br />
4) Who are the existing members and who can be potential members?<br />
General sub question:<br />
5) How does De Unie needs to change the organizational design of the online labour union<br />
in order to fit with the needs of its members which are collected through the House of<br />
Quality?<br />
1.4 Research objectives<br />
The research objective enables us to chart the course for this research. The objectives of this in-<br />
depth study can be divided into a theoretical and practical objective.<br />
Theoretical objective :An extensive theoretical review of the existing literature about online unions,<br />
virtual communities and methods for measuring and managing the quality of a service will provide us<br />
a better and deeper understanding of factors influencing the service performance of the online<br />
union. The literature t<strong>here</strong>fore will create a stable foundation for this research study.<br />
Practical objective: Based on the integration of the SERVQUAL model and the Kano model into the<br />
method of Quality Function Deployment, this study for the online union seeks to identify different<br />
factors which help to match the design of the online labour union with the needs and requirements<br />
of the members. The main goal for this research study is:<br />
To improve the design of the (already existing) online union, in order to be more effective in its way<br />
to serve the needs and requirements of its members. In other words; to get this community working<br />
well for De Unie and its members, it will be crucial to get a clear understanding of the expectations<br />
and needs of its members.<br />
1.5 Research Design<br />
A single case study will be conducted (Yin, 2003) to investigate the needs and requirements of the<br />
members and from these findings redesign the online union. This research starts with a literature<br />
study followed by preliminary research in terms of qualitative interviews with workers of the online<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
union as well as members of the online union. Based on the literature study and the preliminary<br />
research, the explored performance drivers and needs of the members will be processed into an<br />
extensive questionnaire. A survey will be conducted under the member population of the online<br />
union in order to quantify the findings of the literature study and the preliminary research.<br />
The results of the survey will be processed into the House of Quality as “Whats”. In strong<br />
collaboration with the management team of the online union, the process requirements to adapt to<br />
the needs of the members will be identified and processed into the HOQ as “How’s”. By adding the<br />
strength of the relationship between the “How’s” and the “What’s” we will be able to determine the<br />
importance of each process requirement. By doing so we will be able to make pronouncements on<br />
how to improve the online union.<br />
1.6 Thesis Structure<br />
A visualization of the thesis structure is presented in Figure - 2 (Verschuren en Doorewaard,’2002),<br />
followed by a brief description of the content of each of the chapters included.<br />
Chapter 1<br />
-Introduction-<br />
Chapter 2<br />
-Literature review-<br />
Chapter 3<br />
-Methodology-<br />
Figure - 2 Thesis Outline<br />
Chapter 2<br />
-Conceptual model-<br />
Chapter 5 Conclusions<br />
Chapter 1 (Introduction): presents an introduction into the current research study and the subjects<br />
included. Furthermore this chapter describes the problem statement, research objectives, research<br />
design and description, contribution of thesis (relevance), and structure of thesis.<br />
19<br />
Chapter 4<br />
Phase I<br />
Exploratory research<br />
Chapter 4<br />
Phase II:<br />
Survey Analysis<br />
Chapter 4<br />
Phase III: Establishing<br />
House of Quality
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Chapter 2 (Theoretical Framework): presents the results of the literature review. This chapter will be<br />
divided into four parts. The first part will discuss the content of this research in terms of the current<br />
situation for representative organizations like unions and potentials for new concepts. The context<br />
will be described within the second part and focuses on virtual communities w<strong>here</strong>as the third part<br />
will discuss the process of improvement by an extensive review of the SERVQUAL and Kano models<br />
and the concept of the Quality Function Deployment. The literature review will constitute as the<br />
foundation for the conceptual framework that is present in the last part of this chapter.<br />
Chapter 3: (Methodology) discusses the methodology for the current research study. This chapter<br />
presents the research design, data description, instrument development and validity and reliability<br />
aspects of the measures.<br />
Chapter 4: Results Empirical study; this chapter is divided into three parts. The first part will discuss<br />
the process and findings of the exploratory research to the needs of the members, indicated as key<br />
performance drivers of the online union. Results of the interviews with employees as well as a group<br />
of members of the online union will be presented. From these results several propositions are<br />
formulated. The second part of this chapter presents an extensive analysis of the results of the<br />
conducted online survey. To find empirical evidence for the formulated propositions, several<br />
statistical tests like Factor analysis and multiple regression analysis will be discussed. Furthermore,<br />
the information gat<strong>here</strong>d by the online survey will function as input for the construction of the<br />
House of Quality in the third part of this chapter. The third part presents a broad description of the<br />
construction of the House of Quality for the online union. The House of Quality is used to provide De<br />
Unie direction for informed decision making in the ongoing process of improving the online union, as<br />
the House of Quality directly links the technical requirements to the needs of the members.<br />
Chapter 5: (Conclusions and recommendations) will discuss the conclusions, implications and ideas<br />
for further research. This chapter will describe an answer to the problem statement, realization of<br />
objectives, theoretical and empirical conclusions from the research, managerial implications and<br />
limitations and directions for further research.<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Chapter 2 - Theoretical Framework<br />
This chapter will provide an overview of previous research related to the subjects that will be<br />
discussed within this study. The first section, 2.1, will discuss literature findings about the topic of<br />
this research study; online unions. It discusses the current situation of representative organizations<br />
like a labor union and potentials for new concepts. Furthermore three future scenarios will be<br />
presented. In relation to new union concepts, section 2.2 will discuss the influence and opportunities<br />
of new media types. Especially the significance of changing ways of interactions between a supply<br />
and demand sides will be highlighted.<br />
One specific type of new media are virtual communities. A review of the concept, types and<br />
relevance of virtual communities will be provided in this section 2.3. Section 2.4 presents the<br />
SERVQUAL model which will be used to measure the performance of the online union. Data provided<br />
by the SERVQUAL model will be processed into the method of Quality Function Deployment. This<br />
research study will focus on the design process of the online union. The House of Quality presented<br />
in section 2.5.2 will be used to design the concept of the online union to the needs of its members.<br />
The established theoretical framework forms the foundation for the conceptual model. Section 2.5<br />
presents the conceptual model for the current research study<br />
2.1 Online trade unions<br />
Problems in recruitment and retention of members over the past two decades form the foundation<br />
for the decline of traditional labor unions. In order to reverse this decline, unions should adapt to the<br />
needs of the changing workforce and from this perspective develop new types of unions that are in<br />
shape with the needs of the workforce and are appropriate to the 21th century (Heery et al, 2000).<br />
The existing decline increases the need for renewal of union memberships. According to Greene et al<br />
(2000) it is important that renewal of a union is not limited to existing areas but unions should also<br />
be aware of recruitment possibilities in traditionally non-unionized sectors and growth areas of the<br />
economy like the service sector. Heery et al (2000) mentioned in this case also the increase of the<br />
contingent workforce, which includes temporary work, agency work and freelance work.<br />
The growth of the internet and many different information and communication technologies is also<br />
challenging the role of traditional representative organizations like labor unions. Greene et al (2000)<br />
argue that for their renewal labor unions should use IT options like internet, to organize in a more<br />
innovative and potentially more effective way. In particular, the use of the internet in the labor union<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
context is referred to as ‘e-union’, ‘virtual union’, ‘cyber union’ (Ward, 2002). The e-union includes<br />
options, such as web sites, e-mail, chat rooms, bulletin boards and online applications and voting<br />
mechanisms that attract new and younger members (Ward, 2002) and afford De Unie opportunities<br />
to organize its activities in a decentralized manner. The shift to a decentralized organization model<br />
has consequences, especially in three areas:<br />
Space, time and distance: Employees and employers who were traditionally separated from<br />
organization and solidarity due to physical barriers are able to participate by the use of IT. Distances<br />
will decrease as IT applications make it possible to connect geographically dispersed members and<br />
organizations. As a result of the dispersed and flexible work patterns of various work sectors, physical<br />
relationships are hard to establish. E-unions can provide features of a strong community based<br />
relationship between and with her members.<br />
Transparency: As the internet offers members the opportunity to employ local, national and<br />
international online union related resources, it increases the transparency of the behavior of union<br />
officials to her members. Online unions can also provide a critical alternative source in a trade union<br />
context, as they provide elements of civic participation, political activism and transport policy-making<br />
(Greene et al, 2000 p4).<br />
Solidarity and Activism: Online labor unions create opportunities for enhanced forms of solidarity<br />
and communication at local as well as global levels. An online labor union can connect members with<br />
the same interests or aims and t<strong>here</strong>fore creates new ways to maintain collectivism and solidarity<br />
without physical barriers. The Internet can also establish faster and more frequent communications<br />
which can increase membership loyalty to collective actions (Pliskin et al, 1997).<br />
In case of the changing workforce and the future of work, Beck (2000) described different scenarios.<br />
Central in his scenarios is the change from the work society to the knowledge society. New<br />
information technologies, globalization, individualization and ecological factors influence society and<br />
the future of work. From Beck’s perspective it seems that new technologies and especially the<br />
emergence of the internet also influence the nature and structure of union organizations. Within this<br />
context Ward and Lusoli (2002) developed three scenarios:<br />
1. Erosion: Although full-scale erosion is very unlikely, by the increasing influence of new information<br />
technologies, limited erosion of the traditional functions of representative organizations is predicted.<br />
First of all, new media types like e-commerce are challenging the traditional areas from which labor<br />
unions have recruited their members. Secondly, the increasing use of new IT applications will result<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
in a more individualistic and consumption orientated culture. Third, the traditionally hierarchical<br />
structure and conservative culture of unions makes it difficult to benefit from new technologies.<br />
2. Modernization: Within the scenario of modernization, unions will use the opportunities of new<br />
information technologies to modernize traditional union functions. IT is used to establish a more<br />
positive and modern image for labor unions. For example websites can be uses as online information<br />
databases. Online services can be improved by providing not only commercial services but also<br />
online professional assistance and training. But new information technologies can also be used for<br />
targeting and recruiting new members like for example the so called e-generation; people who have<br />
grown up with technology.<br />
3. Democratization: The scenario of democratization moves further than the modernization scenario<br />
w<strong>here</strong> information technologies are used for modernization, online services or recruitment. The<br />
increasing speed and the volume of information obtainable via diverse computer mediated<br />
communications, offer members the ability to communicate their opinions on policy matters on a<br />
more frequent and direct base to a local, national and global audience. T<strong>here</strong>fore IT facilitates<br />
change towards both decentralized organizations and participation in the decision making of<br />
individuals. However, if not coordinated in an effective manner it may lead to activism that may take<br />
the form on the internet by the foundation and ‘wild-growth’ of independent online unions.<br />
2.2 New Media challenges<br />
Over the past decades transportation and information technology have transformed human<br />
interaction with space. (Go and Fenema 2003). Information technologies made it possible to connect<br />
people at different ends of the globe and accelerated the sharing of information (new facts) and<br />
concepts (Simon 1991). Simmel (1922) t<strong>here</strong>fore talked about “the metropolis” as a modern life<br />
compared with small town/rural life. The used citation of Simmel in the foreword of this thesis<br />
illustrates this idea.<br />
The result of technology developments can be presented in two models. First, people may be<br />
included in one or more spaces sequentially or in parallel. The different spaces in which people may<br />
be included are depicted Figure - 3. In this model the material space represents situations w<strong>here</strong><br />
artefacts and people exist together in the same context. Information space is the use of “network of<br />
networks” (i.e. Lievrouw & Livingstone, 2006). Mind spaces are connected when people and/or<br />
machines interact. Social spaces occur when people include themselves in multiple social contexts<br />
and relationships (Go & Fenema, 2003). In this context the forming of mind space and social space<br />
are faced with a shift from material spaces to information spaces. In theory a lot is written about<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
“virtual communities” in which social spaces and mind spaces are formed in the virtual environment.<br />
People are articulating their mind space by means of information technology, and direct one to one<br />
interactions are mediated (“co-presence”).<br />
Gutek (2003) argues that t<strong>here</strong> are three patterns of interaction, namely; relations, encounters and<br />
pseudo relationships. Relations exist when consumers have repeatedly contact with an organization.<br />
In this context, both sides know each other in a more personal way. Encounters, on the other hand,<br />
are patterns of interaction that happens once and episodically. Nowadays interactions shift more and<br />
more from relationship to encounter but a relationship will not disappear. It is possible to deal with<br />
“encounter” customers like they are “relation” customers. This is mainly a result of the changing<br />
media. Within the so called pseudo relations t<strong>here</strong> is no need for face-to-face interaction between<br />
the organization and the customer. This implies that the relationship can be social and technical at<br />
the same time. The relationship of the online union with her members can be described as a pseudo<br />
relationship as t<strong>here</strong> are in the first place no face-to-face interactions, interactions are mainly<br />
through new media types but are still based on a more personal relation between De Unie and the<br />
members.<br />
Information<br />
space<br />
space<br />
Mind space<br />
Material<br />
space<br />
Figure - 3 Polyinclusion (Go & Fenema, 2003)<br />
It is argued by Prahalad & Ramaswamy (2004: p.5), that the processes of value creation are rapidly<br />
shifting from a product view to personalized co-experiences. As value shifts to experiences, the<br />
market is becoming a forum for conversation and interactions between consumers, consumer<br />
communities, and firms. T<strong>here</strong>fore and in contrast to Gutek (2003), Prahalad and Ramaswany also<br />
take into account the existence of networks. They distinguish four different dimensions of<br />
interaction: dialog, access, risk-benefits, and transparency. A dialog implies interactivity, deep<br />
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Social<br />
space
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
engagement and the ability and willingness to act on both sides. But a dialog will be difficult if<br />
consumers do not have the same access and transparency to information. Nowadays it is possible to<br />
connect to information as much as people needs from the community, from other consumers but<br />
also from the organization. Both access and transparency are important to have a dialog.<br />
Furthermore, these dialog, access and transparency can lead to a clear assessment of the risk-<br />
benefits of a course of action and decision (Phahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004: p.9). The internet has got<br />
a primary role in this ongoing process as the internet makes is possible to share personalized<br />
experiences in an easy way by for example virtual communities.<br />
Research has consistently shown that “who you know” has a significant impact on what you come to<br />
know, as relationships are critical for obtaining information solving problems and learning how to do<br />
your work. Particularly in knowledge intensive work, creating an informational environment that<br />
helps employees solve increasingly complex and often ambiguous problems holds significant<br />
performance applications (Cross et al 2001). A lack of collaboration is typically a product of people<br />
not knowing what other people know. In order to create a strategic pay-off for the organization it is<br />
important that the organization first recognizes and secondly understands how to cope with<br />
knowledge and information flows. Cross et all expect emerging collaborative technologies to<br />
facilitate virtual work and skill profiling systems to help with the location of relevant expertise.<br />
However these emerging technologies are very important; to be effective and efficient just<br />
technology is not enough and organizations need more information on how people seek out<br />
knowledge, learn from and solve problems with other people in organizations. Within this context<br />
Cross et al indentify four features that distinguish effective from ineffective relationships:<br />
- 1 knowledge; knowing what another person knows and thus when to turn to them;<br />
- 2 Access; being able to gain timely access to that person;<br />
- 3 Engagement; willingness of the person sought out to engage in problem solving rather than dump<br />
information,<br />
- 4 Safety; i.e., a degree of safety in the relationship that promoted learning and creativity.<br />
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2.3 Virtual Communities<br />
This part of the theoretical review will discuss the subject of virtual communities. The way this<br />
section is organized is adopted from the description of virtual communities by De Valck (2005).<br />
Section 2.4.1 will discuss the concept of (virtual) communities and provides a definition. Section 2.4.2<br />
will describe different types of virtual communities and section 2.4.3 will discuss the role of virtual<br />
communities in marketing, particularly their potential effectiveness in stimulating participation<br />
patterns of members (De Valck, 2005).<br />
2.3.1 Concept of virtual communities<br />
As a result of the development of the internet, nowadays it is easy for people to get in contact with<br />
people from all over the world. The internet makes it possible to form direct interactions with people<br />
who are geographically dispersed, have different backgrounds and live in different time-zones. This<br />
offers people the possibility to interact with others about a common topic of interest or a common<br />
problem.<br />
When computer networks link people as well as machines, they become social networks, also called<br />
computer supported social networks (CSSN’s) (Wellman et al 1996). A specific type of a CSSN is the<br />
virtual community. Traditionally the term community is linked to a geographic place like a<br />
neighborhood w<strong>here</strong> people live together (Wellman and Gulia 1999b). Today, a community is no<br />
longer limited to the physical place it occupies in society, but is regarded as a set of relationships<br />
w<strong>here</strong> people interact socially for mutual benefit (Wellman 1997). The term “virtual” indicates that<br />
primary interactions are electronic or enabled by technology (Ridings 2004). This brings us to the<br />
main difference between communities in the traditional environment and virtual communities: the<br />
common space of a virtual community is the cyberspace. Go & Fenema (2003) emphasize that within<br />
the virtual environment social spaces and mind spaces are formed. “People are articulating their<br />
mind space by means of information technology, and direct one to one interactions are mediated<br />
(“co-presence”)” (Go & Fenema 2003, p 9).<br />
The concept of virtual communities finds it origin in the development of the internet and exists for<br />
almost a quarter of a century (Reingold 2000, Ridings 2004). One of the first definitions of virtual<br />
communities was made by Howard Reingold. He describes virtual communities as “a collective of<br />
geographically distributed individuals bound by a common interest exploiting Internet technologies<br />
to enable communication” (Reingold 1993). Ridings et al (2002, p 273) define virtual communities as<br />
“groups of people with common interests and practices that communicate regularly and for some<br />
duration in an organized way over the Internet through a common location or mechanism”.<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
When we look to similarities between traditional and virtual communities, three core components<br />
are found to be similar (Kozinets 2001, Muniz & O’Guinn 2001 p.418):<br />
Consciousness of kind: members of the virtual community feel a strong connection towards<br />
each other and see themselves as a group although they have never met. This sets them<br />
apart from non-members.<br />
Shared rituals and traditions: members of a community act and behave to the norms and<br />
values of the community w<strong>here</strong> they belong to.<br />
A sense of Moral responsibility: members of a community feel a sense of responsibility to<br />
each other and the community itself.<br />
As mentioned above, t<strong>here</strong> are similarities between virtual communities and traditional<br />
communities. Besides the main difference in the common space in which traditional and virtual<br />
communities occur, another important difference is that members participating in virtual<br />
communities participate on a voluntary base (De Valck, 2005). The “only” consequence of leaving the<br />
virtual community is the end of a membership. Within traditional communities joining and leaving<br />
the community is much more difficult because often members grow up in these communities.<br />
Hagel and Armstrong (1997) developed the virtual community business model which identifies five<br />
defining characteristics of virtual communities:<br />
Distinctive focus: within the virtual community people with the same interests come together. A<br />
distinctive focus helps (potential) members to understand what resources can be found within the<br />
community. Organizers of the community create a specific climate and create a set of norms and<br />
values. Members have to act to these norms and values.<br />
Ability to integrate content and communication: the virtual community makes it possible to share a<br />
lot of different published information. Members not only interact with each other about the<br />
credibility of the content, but also with the publishers. This can result in credible, valuable and<br />
reliable information which for example can be used in the purchasing process of a product of service.<br />
Appreciation of member-generated content: members participate within the community by giving<br />
opinions, sharing experiences, discussing products or services. The information and knowledge<br />
provided by a certain member can be valuable for the community and its members. These virtual<br />
exchanges of a certain member can for example influence certain buying behaviour of other<br />
members.<br />
Access to competing publishers and vendors: much more as in the traditional environment, the<br />
virtual environment offers (potential) online consumers the possibility to compare many publishers<br />
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and suppliers to each other. Within the virtual environment consumers can compare different<br />
products, services, quality, prices and locations which will help them to make a more well-defined<br />
decision. In this case the virtual community acts as an organizing community to its members.<br />
Commercial orientation: some companies create their own communities; commercial communities.<br />
Companies provide valuable information about the company or/and her products to the members of<br />
the community. This information can lead to more appreciation of the company and her products by<br />
the members of the community. This makes the virtual community an attractive tool for companies.<br />
When discussing the concept of virtual communities an important aspect is to understand why<br />
people join a virtual community. What is their main purpose, why do they actively participate and<br />
why do they come back to the community every time? One of the reasons for participating in a<br />
virtual community can be either functional, such as information exchange (Wellman 1996) or from a<br />
hedonic aspect as the creation and consumption of a positive experience through interaction<br />
(Bargozzi and Dholakia, 2002). Interaction is recognized on three levels of communication; two-way<br />
non interactive communication; reactive communication and fully interactive communication (Jones,<br />
1997). Within the community information and knowledge can be seen as a valuable currency or as<br />
social resource (Hitz and Wellman 1997). Different form traditional communities, useful information<br />
and knowledge can be spread within the virtual community through so called “weak-ties” because<br />
members are relative strangers to each other. The virtual community can also be considered as an<br />
important reference group for its members, mostly in a secondary but sometimes also in a primary<br />
way (Constant et al, 1996).<br />
Another reason for participating in a virtual community is the social aspect provided by the<br />
community. It is stated by Heering (1996) that the freedom to express views and to receive social<br />
support are one of the main reasons for individuals to join and participate in a virtual community.<br />
Wellman (1997) defines virtual communities as social networks that use computer support as the<br />
basis of communication among members instead of face-to-face interaction. Furthermore, virtual<br />
communities make it possible to find individuals who are in the same situation and provide<br />
emotional support, social support, a sense of belonging and companionship (Wellman et al, 1999a).<br />
According to Hagel and Armstrong (1997) following types of needs can be distinguished why people<br />
participate in a virtual community:<br />
Interest; within the virtual community members come together because of a common<br />
interest. Members exchange information and share knowledge about this common interest<br />
by sharing resources or giving opinions and advices. Preece (2000) defines the virtual<br />
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community as a group of individuals who cooperate to share resources and satisfy each<br />
other’s needs.<br />
Relationships; virtual communities offer people with the same interests of/ or problems the<br />
possibility to come together within the virtual community. By frequently interacting within<br />
the virtual community, strong and personal relationships may be formed. Sociability, or social<br />
interaction, is a key ingredient in building social capital in virtual communities. Social capital<br />
is fundamental to the sustenance of the community and encourages members to collaborate<br />
and cooperate with each other for a common purpose (Preece 2002).<br />
Fantasies; members in virtual communities can share different fantasy experiences they<br />
have. For example; members can engage in role-playing games w<strong>here</strong> everything seems to<br />
be possible.<br />
Transaction; in the virtual community members can make economical transactions. For<br />
example goods can be sold to other members like at markplaats.nl<br />
As a growing interest and influence of virtual communities is assured, Kozinets (1999) emphasizes<br />
that “unlikely to replace physical encounters or information from traditional media, online<br />
interactions are becoming an important supplement to social and consumption behavior”.<br />
2.3.2 Typology of virtual communities<br />
According to De Valck (2005) virtual communities can be used for a wide range of different topics but<br />
vary greatly due to (1) their main purpose, (2) the computer-mediated context in which they occur,<br />
and (3) their organizational structure. The first type of segmentation, main purpose, is most relevant<br />
for this particular research and will be discussed more deeply below followed by a brief discussion of<br />
the other two types of segmentation.<br />
Segmentation by main purpose<br />
As mentioned above, virtual communities are organized around different topics. Also many different<br />
typologies to distinguish virtual communities are known. The most well known typology is made by<br />
Hagel and Armstrong (1997). They made a distinction of communities based on the purpose for<br />
which they are organized: communities of relationships, communities of interest, communities of<br />
fantasy and communities of transaction:<br />
Communities of relationships; within this type of communities members have something in<br />
common or are in the same situation. For example a common illness, being single or having<br />
the same job.<br />
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Communities of interest; members of this type of communities are willing to share<br />
knowledge and experiences. For example recommendation sites like Kieskeurig.nl, w<strong>here</strong><br />
people share their experiences about different product.<br />
Communities of fantasy; within communities of fantasy members interact with each other by<br />
playing virtual games with each other. Within this fantasy world members can play with<br />
fictive persons in different fictive environments.<br />
Communities of transaction; within this communities members exchange goods, services etc.<br />
on a demand and supply manner.<br />
Although this classification by Hagel and Armstrong (1997) is still used, nowadays many other types<br />
of virtual communities can be distinguished. Some examples are; brand communities (Muniz &<br />
O’Guinn, 2001), communities of ethnicity (Mitra, 1999), communities of consumption (Kozinets,<br />
1999) and e-learning communities (Hardaker and Smith, 2002). Although these types of virtual<br />
communities are useful to detail and will limit the focus for research, according to De Valck (2005)<br />
they do not add new categories to the classification of Hagel and Armstrong (1997).<br />
De Valck (2005) stated that in fact most virtual communities are a combination of a community of<br />
relationships and a community of interest which combines social interaction with information<br />
exchange based on for example a similar demographic background, specific brand, consumption<br />
related activity, certain travel destination or a medical problem.<br />
To cover the main purpose served by virtual communities, De Valck (2005) adds another type to the<br />
four types distinguished by Hagel and Armstrong (1997); the community of practice. A community of<br />
practise consists of a group of people who are informally bound (within or between organizations)<br />
and share their knowledge and information to learn from each other regarding shared (work) related<br />
practices.<br />
Segmentation by computer mediated context<br />
Virtual communities are supported by different functional software systems, like for example; email<br />
lists, chat rooms, electronic bulletin boards or online buying functionalities. Different types of virtual<br />
communities will arise due to different characteristics of the software (De Valck, 2005). Kozinets<br />
(1999) classified virtual communities, based on the computer mediated context of the community.<br />
This classification is based on two dimensions; group focus (information exchange vs. social<br />
interaction) and social structure (loose vs. tight).<br />
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Segmentation by organizational structure<br />
According to De Valck (2005), the way a virtual community is organized not only influences the way<br />
individual members participate but has also influence on how they make consumer decisions.<br />
T<strong>here</strong>fore the third segmentation aspect distinguished by De Valck (2005) is based on the<br />
organizational structure of the virtual community. For segmentation on the organizational structure<br />
De Valck distinguished several dimensions. The most appropriate one for De Unie will be the issue<br />
whether and to what extent the individual members are likely to endorse the virtual community on a<br />
voluntary basis.<br />
2.3.3 Function of Virtual Communities in Marketing<br />
As mentioned before, the internet can be very valuable to its users. The internet is able to connect<br />
across diverse and dispersed locations. By doing so, the internet creates new social constructs like<br />
communities of users (Jones 1999). T<strong>here</strong>fore the interest of marketers in learning about, organizing<br />
and managing virtual communities on the internet is increasing (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2002).<br />
Hagel and Armstrong (1997) announce that companies which are able to invest in new possibilities<br />
created by the internet will gain positive advantages by the creation of virtual communities, leading<br />
to market knowledge and information. Nowadays marketers start finding ways that can strengthen<br />
and support their brand image and overall corporate identity by the creation of strong virtual<br />
communities (Hildebrand, 1998).<br />
Kozinets (1999) mentioned that marketers should be aware that within the virtual environment,<br />
consumers are considered to be; 1) more active and discerning; 2) less accessible to one-on-one<br />
processes and 3) provide a large amount of valuable and cultural information. Taking this into<br />
account, Rowley (2004) contributes that within the virtual environment marketing communications<br />
t<strong>here</strong>fore are concerned with the following factors; creating presence, creating relationships and<br />
creating mutual benefits.<br />
De Valck (2005) summarized the benefits for consumers as well as for producers in the overview<br />
presented in Table 1.<br />
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Table 1 - Virtual Community benefits for consumers and producers (De Valck, 2005)<br />
The main benefit for consumers will be the extent of information that can be found by interacting in<br />
virtual communities. Knowledge and experiences related to products, services, brands, producers<br />
and retailers are shared between community members. The information gat<strong>here</strong>d within the<br />
community can result in improved consumers decision-making and product usage.<br />
Besides gathering knowledge and experiences of other users, virtual communities can be used for<br />
interaction between consumers and producers. Interaction with consumers will provide companies<br />
more information about consumer needs, attitudes, behaviour and norms and values (De Valck,<br />
2005). Interactions with companies offer consumers the opportunity to give their opinions about<br />
existing products and services. Companies can anticipate on this feedback and use it in further<br />
development processes. By interaction between companies and customers a relationship can be<br />
established which can result in loyalty and mutual understanding.<br />
When communities are integrated into the development process of new products, this is called<br />
collaborative product development (Go, 2007) or community based innovation (Fuller, 2004). Due to<br />
their high product interests and knowledge, members of communities of consumption can be a<br />
suitable source for virtual participation in new product development processes (Kozinets, 1999).<br />
Members of virtual communities can act as co-creators, testers and buyers by their contribution in<br />
the development process (Fuller, 2004) and t<strong>here</strong>fore co-create value in a dynamic way (Prahalad<br />
and Ramaswamy, 2004).<br />
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2.4 SERVQUAL<br />
The SERVQUAL model developed by Parasuraman et al (1985) provides organizations a technology<br />
for measuring and managing service quality (Buttle, 1996). Unlike the quality of goods, the quality of<br />
services cannot be measured objectively by for example the number of defects. Parasuraman et al<br />
(1985) stated that the quality of services is an abstract and elusive construct because of the following<br />
three unique features of services; intangibility, heterogeneity and inseparability of production and<br />
consumption. As objective measures for services are difficult, an appropriate approach for measuring<br />
the quality of the firm is to assess customer’s perceptions about the service. The multi-item scale<br />
SERVQUAL model measures customers perceptions on a quantitative way and can be uses as<br />
diagnostic application to indicate service quality and strengths. The SERVQUAL model defines service<br />
quality as the difference, the gap, between customer’s perceptions of the service and the<br />
expectations of the service. Since its foundation in 1985, extensive research has resulted in a refined<br />
model that consists of 22 items distributed into five dimensions. The 22 items describe aspects of the<br />
following five dimensions of service quality:<br />
Tangibles: physical facilities, equipment, and the appearance of personnel.<br />
Reliability: ability to perform the promised service accurately and dependably.<br />
Responsiveness: willingness to help customers and to provide prompt services<br />
Assurance: knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and<br />
confidence.<br />
Empathy: caring and individualized attention to customers<br />
To measure the five dimensions of service quality, the SERVQUAL survey consists two sets of 22<br />
statements. The first set measures customer’s expectations for a class of services (e.g. hotels)<br />
w<strong>here</strong>as the second set measures the perceived performance of a particular service provider (e.g.<br />
Hilton Hotel). A score for the quality of service is assessed by subtracting the perceptions score (P) of<br />
the expectations score (E). Positives scores mean that the perceived performance exceeds<br />
customer’s expectations. Negative scores submit to an underperformance in relation to customers<br />
expectations. A score of zero means that t<strong>here</strong> is satisfactory quality.<br />
Parasuraman et al (1988) tested the SERVQUAL model in different service categories (appliance<br />
repair and maintenance, retail banking, long-distance telephone, securities brokerage and credit<br />
cards) and claim that the model consists of generic dimensions and t<strong>here</strong>fore is applicable for use in<br />
a variety of service encounters. Other research studies challenge the dimensionality of the<br />
SERVQUAL model. Buttle (1996) stated that the SERVQUAL dimensions are not universal but the<br />
number and content of the dimensions depend on the context. Within some contexts the domain of<br />
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service quality may be complex w<strong>here</strong>as it can be simple and unidimensional in others (Babakus and<br />
Boller 1992).<br />
Tan and Pawitra (2001) discus two other areas of improvement. The SERVQUAL model assumes a<br />
linear relationship between customer satisfaction and service performance attributes. Low customer<br />
satisfaction t<strong>here</strong>fore would be a result of low attribute performance. This is not necessarily true; in<br />
case of satiation or when the attribute is taken for granted, paying more attention to a specific<br />
attribute will not always result in higher customer satisfaction. On the other hand, unexpected or<br />
delightful attributes can have a great impact on customer’s satisfaction.<br />
The third limitation according to Tan and Pawitra (2001) is that although the SERVQUAL model is a<br />
good method to identify service gaps, it is not able to indicate how the gaps can be closed or how to<br />
translate the gaps into innovation. Tan and Pawitra (2001) t<strong>here</strong>fore integrated the SERVQUAL model<br />
(Parasuraman et al 1988) and the Kano model (Kano et al, 1984) into Quality function Deployment<br />
(Akao 1990) in order to further service excellence. The customer satisfaction evaluations of different<br />
service attributes are used as input for improvement and innovation. The Kano model will be<br />
discussed in section 2.5.2. The concept of Quality Function Deployment will be presented in section<br />
2.5.<br />
The above described approach by Tan and Pawitra (2001) will be used as a foundation for this<br />
research. Member satisfaction of different online union related attributes will be measured and<br />
integrated into the House of Quality to guide improvement and innovation of the online union.<br />
2.5 Quality Function Deployment<br />
The original term Quality Function Deployment is derived from six Chinese characters: “hin shitsu ki<br />
no ten kai”, this can be translated into “quality (hin shitsu) function (kino) deployment (ten kai)’.<br />
Together the Japanese characters mean “how do we understand the quality that our customers<br />
expect and make it happen in a dynamic way” (Cohen, 1995).<br />
The concept of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) was originated in the early 1970’s as a means to<br />
motivate engineers to consider quality early in the design process. Akao (1990) described the method<br />
of QFD as “a method for developing a design quality aimed at satisfying the customer and then<br />
translating the customer’s demand into design targets and major quality assurance points to be used<br />
throughout the production phase”. In line with Akao’s definition, the definition of Hauser and<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Clausing (1988) is more concerned with teamwork and communications; “quality function<br />
deployment focuses and coordinates skills within an organization, first to design, then to<br />
manufacture and market goods that customers want to purchase and will continue to purchase”.<br />
Although QFD is originally developed for productdevelopment, it has been used in the service<br />
industry for quite a while. QFD is a good way to get a clear identification of the detailed steps which<br />
are necessary to perform a service. In case of the online labour union we can identify the members<br />
as keystone customers. They have most influence in determining the succes or failure of this new<br />
concept. Other groups in this case are the Unie itself and third parties like employer organisations<br />
and the government.<br />
2.5.1 The Four-Phase Model<br />
Within the theory of QFD t<strong>here</strong> are two dominant models. The first model is the Four-Phase model<br />
which is also known as the Clausing model or the American Supplier Institute (ASI) model. Second<br />
model is Akao’s Matrix of Matrices Model. While the Four-Phase model provides a blueprint for<br />
product/ service development and t<strong>here</strong>fore covers basic product/ service development steps, the<br />
Matrix of Matrices model is also designed for Total Quality Management (TQM). The Four-Phase<br />
model is easier in style and t<strong>here</strong>fore more widely used, although in the content the two models<br />
don’t differ that much. For this research we will focus on the Four-Phase model.<br />
The Four-Phase model divides a product or service development process into four phases. For each<br />
phase a matrix in style of a house is used (Figure - 4).<br />
Figure - 4 The Four-Phase model of QFD (Cohen 1995)<br />
The first phase of the model is used to collect the customer requirements and attributes for a<br />
product or service; the needs of the customers. These needs are called WHAT’S.<br />
In this phase of the model the WHAT’S need to be transformed into technical requirements called<br />
the HOW’S. The second phase will have to transform the technical requirements from the first phase<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
into part characteristics, which is called parts deployment. Within the third phase the key part<br />
characteristics are transformed into process parameters or/ of operations, this is called process<br />
planning. In the fourth phase these process parameters or/ of operations are transformed into<br />
production parameters of/ of operations and is called production planning.<br />
The product and service planning in the first phase is the most fundamental part of the Four-Phase<br />
model and t<strong>here</strong>fore is given a special name; House of Quality (HOQ). As mentioned in section 2.5.1,<br />
this research focusses on the four phase model and especially on the first phase; House of Quality.<br />
2.5.2 House of Quality<br />
The foundation of the House of Quality (HOQ) is the belief that products should be designed to<br />
reflect customers’ desires and “tastes”. Hauser and Clausing (1988) described the HOQ as a sort of<br />
conceptual map that provides the means for interfunctional planning and communications. Clausing<br />
and Plugh (1991) give a more specific definition as the HOQ is a multifunctional tool that can be used<br />
throughout the whole organization. For engineers, it is a way to summarise basic data for the<br />
product of service development process in a usable form. For marketing, it represents the customer’s<br />
voice and general managers can use it to discover new opputunities. A typical House of Quality will<br />
be presented as a house-shaped matrix (Figure - 5). The horizontal part of the matrix contrains<br />
qualitative and quantitative information relative to the customer (WHAT’S). The vertical portion of<br />
the matrix contrains technical information that responds to the customers inputs (HOW’S). The<br />
following elements form the House of Quality and will be discussed below; 1. Customer needs (left),<br />
2. The planning matrix (right), 3. Technical requirements or HOW’S (upper), 4. Relation matrix<br />
(centre) 5. The roof and 6. Technical matrix (bottom).<br />
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Figure - 5 House of Quality
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Customer Needs (WHAT’S)<br />
As mentioned before, QFD starts with the customer. The first step in creating a House of Quality is to<br />
identity the needs of the customers for the product or service, collect and when necessary organize<br />
these needs, and reveal the relative importance perceived by the customers. Usually when an<br />
organization is using the HOQ, the focus is on the ultimate customers. Also in this research for the<br />
Unie, the focus will be on the ultimate customers who are in this case the members of the online<br />
labour union.<br />
After identifying the target group of customers, the needs of the customers for the product or service<br />
have to be determined. A customer need is a description, in the customer’s own words, of the benfits<br />
that have to be fullfilled by the product or service (Griffin and Hauser 1993).<br />
Kano et al. (1984) developed a model which defines three types of customer needs (Figure - 6). In<br />
this model attributes of a product or service are categorized on how well they are able to satisfy the<br />
needs of the customers. The following categories of customer needs are defined:<br />
- Basic needs, also known as must-be needs; customers become dissatisfied when performance of the<br />
product attribute is low and satisfaction will not rise above neutral even with a high performance of<br />
product or service attribute. These needs reflect to features wich must exist before a potential<br />
customer will consider a product or service. The performance or one-dimensional needs allow a<br />
direct comparisson between competing products and are t<strong>here</strong>fore more quantifiable. Customer<br />
satisfaction is a linear function of the performance of the product attribute; higher attibute<br />
performance will lead to higher customer satisfaction. The third category are the exitement or<br />
attractive needs also called delighters. Inclusion of these features delight the customer, even if they<br />
did not ask for such features. T<strong>here</strong>fore customer satisfaction increases super-linearly when<br />
increasing the product of service attribute performance. Important to notice is that t<strong>here</strong> will be no<br />
decrease in customer satisfaction when t<strong>here</strong> is a decrease in attribute performance. These are the<br />
features that give a feeling of “wow” to the customers and t<strong>here</strong>fore we can conclude that these<br />
features are most suitable for differentiation.<br />
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Figure - 6 Kano’s model (ReVelle et al, 1998)<br />
The Kano model suggests that only satisfying the basic and performance needs of the customer may<br />
not be enough. In highly competitive markets it can be important for organizations to create product<br />
or service attributes targeted at exciting and over-satisfying them (Tan et al 2001). Shen et al. (2000)<br />
discussed that the Kano model shows that attributes which had once been attractive, become one-<br />
dimensional over time because people get used to their availability. Over time these attributes<br />
become taken for granted and will fall into the category of basic needs of the customer. T<strong>here</strong>fore<br />
timely development and introduction of products or services with innovative and novel attributes<br />
will be important in a highly competitive market.<br />
T<strong>here</strong> are many different methods available for gathering the qualitative data about the customer<br />
needs; reactive and proactive methods and different types of interviews. One-on-one intervieuws<br />
and focus groups are proved to be effective methods (Griffin and Hauser, 1993). After analyzing the<br />
qualitative data, for example by using an affinity diagram, the data is ready for quantification. A<br />
reliable method for quantifying is a well-designed survey (Cohen 1995 p294). When constructing a<br />
survey it is important to pay attention to the selection of an approriate sample size, to ensure an<br />
adequate respons and clear readability of the survey to avoid amiquity bias. Griffin and Hauser<br />
(1993) stated that a self-selection bias might be present in standerd customer satisfaction data<br />
collected by the organization itself.<br />
Not all needs have the same priority to the customers. Some customer needs have higher priorities<br />
than other needs. The organization will use these priorities to make decisions which balance the cost<br />
of fulfilling these needs with the desirability (to the customers) of fulfilling that needs (Griffin and<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Hauser 1993). In literature the importance of the WHAT’S are mostly positioned at the the right side<br />
of the House of Quality. Recent studies discussed the House of Quality with the importancies of the<br />
WHAT’S positioned at the left, next to the WHAT’s. To our opinion this is the right position because<br />
the importancies are strongly related to the WHAT’S and provide a better and more clear<br />
understanding of the House of Quality when positioned right next to the needs to which they belong.<br />
Through a validation study, or an analysis of a statistically reliable sample of respondents a test is<br />
performed to distinguish between the abolute important and less significant needs. This test used a<br />
five point Likertscale to measure an importance ranking; w<strong>here</strong> number five represents the most<br />
important and number 1 the least important.<br />
Planning matrix (WHY’S)<br />
W<strong>here</strong>as the left side of the HOQ, the WHAT’S, consists qualitative data about the customer needs,<br />
the right side consists of quantitative data about the customer needs. This part of the House of<br />
Quality is also called the Planning Matrix. The planning matrix contains a series of collums that<br />
represent key strategic product or service planning information. The data placed in this matrix allows<br />
the organization to make stategic decisions about the products of services they are planning. Some<br />
examples are; competitive satisfaction performance, sales points, goals and in some cases an overall<br />
weighting of the total collums of the planning matrix.<br />
Technical Response (HOW’S)<br />
As discussed, the first two parts of the House of Quality collect and analize information about the<br />
customer needs (WHAT’s). The next section of the House of Quality, the Technical Response, will<br />
transform these needs in technical measures; also called the HOW’S. This is the orange part in the<br />
middle of Figure - 5. According to Chan et al (2002) HOW’s are methods, company measures, design<br />
requirements, substitute quality characteristics, and engineering characteristics, which can be<br />
related to and measure the customer needs (WHAT’S). The American Supplier institute (1994) stated<br />
that good HOW’s must be measurable, global and proactive.<br />
Relationship matrix<br />
The relationship matrix is the center of the House of Quality. The relationship matrix identifies the<br />
strengths of the relationships between the customer needs (WHAT’S) and the technical requirements<br />
(HOW’S) and t<strong>here</strong>fore is a vital part and the heart of the House of Quality. The strenght of the<br />
relationship is also called the impact of each HOW on a specific WHAT. Usually the following four<br />
relationship levels can be distinquished: no relationship, weak/possible relationship,<br />
medium/moderate relationship, and strong relationship. A symbol representing these ratings will be<br />
entered into the two-dimensional matrix.<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Technical Correlation Matrix<br />
The roof of the House of Quality, shows which HOW’S are interrelated and how strong these<br />
relationships are. The technical correlation matrix shows for which areas close communication and<br />
collaboration is important and for which areas it is less or not important and between which<br />
attributes design bottlenecks may occur (Cohen 1995). Like for the relationship matrix, also for the<br />
correlation matrix symbols are used to indicate mutual improvement (+) or trade off (-) relationships<br />
between the HOW’S.<br />
Technical Matrix<br />
The last part of the House of Quality is the Technical Matrix. This part provides a lot of technical<br />
information that is linked to both customer needs and parts characteristics in the second phase of<br />
QFD (Chan, 2002). First the relative importance ratings of each HOW to all the WHAT’S needs to be<br />
determined by multiplying the final importance ratings and the weightings from the plannin matrix.<br />
Next step is to set the targets for the HOW’S, also called the HOW MUCH’es (American Supplier<br />
Institute 1994). These targets represents levels of performance for the HOW’S in a way that the<br />
organization believes that is required in oder to be competitive in comparison to competitive<br />
products or services. In order to be specific and measurable each target should be quantified. It is<br />
also important that the targets that are set, are reachable according to the technical sources of the<br />
The HOW’S with the highest final rates are moved to Phase II of Quality Function Deployment, the<br />
parts deployment.<br />
2.6 Conceptual model<br />
Previous sections discussed the literature relevant for the present research study. Based on the<br />
literature findings we developed the conceptual model as depicted in Figure - 7. As discussed in the<br />
literature review, new types of interaction are becoming more significant. For the present research<br />
we focus on virtual communities, which nowadays form the basis of the internet. More specifically,<br />
the concept of the online union can be classified as an online community. The present research seeks<br />
to provide new insights on how to create value by matching the needs of the members of the online<br />
union on the demand side and the design of the online union on the supply side. T<strong>here</strong>fore,<br />
exploratory research followed by a validation study, through a statistically reliable sample of<br />
members of the online union, is applied to identify key performance drivers of the online union.<br />
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Figure - 7 Conceptual Model (Based on Go, 2005)<br />
The conceptual model is based on the matchmaker model of demand, mediation and supply and<br />
draws on to the idea of Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004). As described in section 2.2, Prahalad and<br />
Ramaswamy (2004, p.5) claim that: “The processes of value creation are shifting from a product view<br />
to personalized experiences.” As the value creation is shifting, the market is becoming a forum for<br />
interactions between consumers, communities and organizations. Specifically, interactive media is<br />
able to strengthen these relationships between consumers and organizations, but is can also<br />
strengthen the relationship between consumers (Lievrouw & Livingstone 2006). These relationships<br />
can be defined as pseudo relationships (Gutek, 1996).<br />
Thus the interaction will result in changing relationships and influences between the different<br />
participants. First, the interactivity aspect of the online community makes it possible to share<br />
experiences and information and t<strong>here</strong>fore can be a source of knowledge between members. In<br />
general within online communities different members can be identified. These different identities<br />
have their own specific knowledge, needs, and expectations. As a result, interactivity can create<br />
value in a way of mutual benefits.<br />
Second, interaction strengthens the relation between the organization and the third parties involved.<br />
The identity of the organization fits with the identity of the members of the online community. In<br />
other words the organization needs to examine its stakeholders and the expectations of their<br />
stakeholders (i.e. members and third parties) to create a matching organizational identity. To sum<br />
up, due to interactivity the components linked to internal and external information will provide<br />
members of the online union information and knowledge; internal direct from all sorts of members<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
of the online union and the union itself, and external in a way that information can be gat<strong>here</strong>d<br />
indirect by third parties.<br />
In this way the conceptual model is consistent with the interaction approach as stated by the<br />
Industrial Marketing and Purchase Group; value is co-created through interaction between<br />
stakeholders including customers, corporations and communities (Ford et al 2003).<br />
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Chapter 3 – Methodology<br />
Chapter two discussed the theoretical framework of this research study, followed by the explanation<br />
of the conceptual model. This chapter will discuss the methodology used for the present research.<br />
First, section 3.1 presents the research design followed by a brief discussion of the chosen research<br />
approach and a description of the different data sources in section 3.2. To conclude this chapter,<br />
section 3.3 discusses the development and quality of the survey instrument.<br />
3.1 Research Design<br />
The present research study is conducted at the Dutch labor union De Unie, and specifically focuses<br />
on a new union concept; the online union. In order to test the conceptual model and indentify key<br />
performance drivers of the online union, a single case study or survey instrument is not enough to<br />
validate the model and find appropriate empirical evidence. T<strong>here</strong>fore different data sources and<br />
approaches will have to be integrated in order to collect appropriate information. As a result, this<br />
research will provide De Unie a deeper understanding about the needs of the members of the online<br />
union and will offer objective knowledge about the key performance drivers. Hence, it will give<br />
direction to the ongoing process of improvement for the online union.<br />
As mentioned in previous chapters, the main purpose of this research is to identify expectations and<br />
perceptions of the members of the online union about its performance and from this point attend to<br />
the process of improvement of the online union. This means that this research study is not limited<br />
merely to the identification and proposition of service performance driver enhancements for the<br />
online union. It has to be noticed that in this case improvements ideally are part of the ongoing<br />
process (‘s Gravendijk, 2007). In order to find empirical evidence for the process of improvement of<br />
the online union, we will follow the three steps of measurement and analysis of Quality Function<br />
Deployment defined by Griffin and Hauser (1993). The first step is to identify the needs of the<br />
members by means of exploratory research. After this the needs of the members will have to be<br />
structured in order to set priorities for these needs in the third step. The three different phases will<br />
be briefly discussed in section 3.2.<br />
3.2 Data description<br />
This section discusses the chosen research approach of the current study. It also presents an<br />
explanation of the different data collection techniques and the way they are preformed. The<br />
research structure can be divided into three separate phases;<br />
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Phase I: Exploratory research; defining member’s needs<br />
Several sources will be used in order to indentify the specific needs of the members that can be<br />
considered as key performance drivers for the online union. One source is the literature research<br />
discussed in chapter two. Exploratory research to define the needs will be done by two types of<br />
planned in-depth interviews.<br />
Interviews with Union experts: The knowledge embedded by experts can be valuable for the<br />
classification of the service aspects desired by the members. Union experts in this case are<br />
employees of De Unie that are in a professional way related to the online union. The knowledge of<br />
experts about the firm and the industry can help in diagnosing the nature of the research problem<br />
(Malhotra and Birks 2003). Three structured interviews will be conducted with members of the<br />
management team of the online union. The results of the interviews are used as input for the in-<br />
depth interviews with members of the online union.<br />
Interviews with members: Based on the results of the in-depth interviews with union experts, semi-<br />
structured in-depth interviews will be held with individual members of the online union. Purpose of<br />
the interviews is to get a deeper understanding of factors that determine member’s perception of<br />
the online union. Important to notice in this case is that all interviewed members are also employee<br />
of De Unie. From this perspective they have a certain double role. While the online union is an<br />
organization that operates on the internet, its members are geographically dispersed over the<br />
Netherlands. For practical reasons I decided to interview employees who are also members of the<br />
online union and t<strong>here</strong>fore located on one of the offices of De Unie. The interviewed members are<br />
selected from different departments in order to get a deeper understanding of the needs from<br />
different perspectives.<br />
The interviews with the union experts and the members of the online union will result in a list of<br />
items that are assumed to be related to the overall performance of the online union. Propositions<br />
will be formulated to test the assumed relationships. The explored items will be validated by<br />
surveying a statistically reliable sample of members of the online union. Results of the exploratory<br />
research are present in chapter 4.<br />
Phase II Quantitative research; online survey<br />
After exploratory research conducted in phase I, an online survey will be used to quantify the<br />
explored items and to test the formulated propositions by advanced statistical techniques. Based on<br />
the SERVQUAL concept, the online survey will collect data of member’s perceptions and expectations<br />
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of the explored items in phase I. Besides perceptions and expectations, the survey will measure the<br />
priorities of the explored items based on the Kano model. Data gat<strong>here</strong>d by the SERVQUAL model<br />
and Kano model will be processed into the House of Quality.<br />
The content and methodology of the online survey will be discussed in section 3.3. The statistical<br />
analysis of the data gat<strong>here</strong>d with the online survey will be presented in chapter 5.<br />
Phase III Establishing the House of Quality<br />
The data collected from the survey of phase II will be processed into the House of Quality. As<br />
mentioned in section 2.5 this technique is used to translate the needs of the members of the online<br />
union into appropriate technical requirements. The House of Quality will provide information for De<br />
Unie about performance drivers of the online union that are expected and desired by its members.<br />
T<strong>here</strong>fore the results in terms of requirements and prioritized expectations can be used as input for<br />
improvement, innovation and strategic direction (Gonzales 2006) of the online union. On the other<br />
hand, the House of Quality will be used to provide answers for the research questions and to validate<br />
the conceptual model. The construction and analysis of the House of Quality will be presented in<br />
chapter 5.<br />
3.3 Instrument development and quality<br />
A survey can be defined as a “pre-formulated set of questions to which respondents record their<br />
answers, usually within rather closely defined alternatives” (Sekaran 2003, p.236). An online survey<br />
will be conducted to quantify the items investigated by exploratory research. Hence, it will provide<br />
data for statistical analysis and integration into the House of Quality.<br />
Construction of the survey instrument is based on the SERVQUAL model by Parasuraman et al (1988),<br />
that measures the service quality. Its original service dimensions determined by Parasuraman et al<br />
(1985) have a universal nature and are in a certain way applicable for many service organizations to<br />
measure the gap between the delivered quality of services and the expected quality of services. By<br />
exploratory research we will look if the SERVQUAL attributes are appropriate for this specific<br />
research. Moreover we are interested to look for new items in relation to the service quality of the<br />
online union. After exploratory research, the investigated items will be grouped into dimensions.<br />
Each dimension consists of several items. Items will be measured on a five-point Likert scale from<br />
strongly disagree to strongly agree. Each item is measured by two questions. The first question<br />
measures the overall expectation, w<strong>here</strong>as the second questions measures the respondent’s<br />
perception about the item in relation to the online union.<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
The perceived importance of the items is measured by the KANO model in part II and III of the<br />
survey. In part II respondents are asked how they feel when a certain performance characteristic is<br />
available at the online union w<strong>here</strong>as in part III respondents are asked how they feel when a certain<br />
performance characteristic is missing. Importance’s of each characteristic is measured on a five-point<br />
scale with the following answer options; I enjoy it that way – I expect it that way – I am neutral – I<br />
dislike it, but can live with it – I dislike and do not accept it.<br />
Evans and Mathur (2005) discusses the advantages and weaknesses of an online survey. The main<br />
advantages of an online survey for the current research study will be discussed below, followed by<br />
the most important weaknesses:<br />
- Flexibility: One of the main advantages is that an online survey is flexible in a way that it can be<br />
conducted in different formats. For example; an e-mail with an invitation and link to the survey, a<br />
pop-up when a person is visiting a website. For this research the survey was implemented in an<br />
online survey tool (Global Park). An e-mail invitation with a link was send to all members of the<br />
online union.<br />
- Speed and Timeliness: Members of the online union are geographically dispersed over the<br />
Netherlands. Due to the speed and global reach of the internet an online survey makes is possible to<br />
interact with geographically dispersed respondents.<br />
- Convenience: The third important advantage of an online survey will be the fact that respondents<br />
can fill in the survey on a convenient time and take as much time for answering the questions as they<br />
need.<br />
- Ease of data entry and analysis: For respondents an online survey is a relative simple way to fill in a<br />
questionnaire. The answers of the survey will be automatically transferred into data that can be used<br />
for statistical analysis. T<strong>here</strong>fore time needed for inputting and processing data will reduce<br />
significantly.<br />
- Controlled Sampling: Online surveys offer different formats to generate samples. For this research<br />
the database of members of the online union was used to compose the research sample. An email<br />
that invited members to participate was send to all approximately 1000 registered members.<br />
Advantage for De Unie is that by inviting the members, the organization shows to be interested in<br />
member’s opinions and t<strong>here</strong>fore enhances its relationship with her members.<br />
The most important weaknesses of an online survey relevant for this research:<br />
46
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
- Unclear answering instructions: Online surveys are self-administered and t<strong>here</strong>fore the answering<br />
instructions have to be very clear. As a result of unclear answering instructions respondents might<br />
stop filling in the questionnaire without finishing it. The questionnaire for the online union consist<br />
clear answering instructions before each new part of the survey. Instructions are carefully tested in<br />
the pre-test phase of the survey.<br />
- Impersonal: Online surveys are characterized by the absent of human contact w<strong>here</strong>as personal<br />
interviews offer the possibility to in-depth questions. T<strong>here</strong>fore the questions must we well<br />
formulated and clear in order to get valuable and usable information.<br />
- Privacy and security issues: Respondents might hesitate to fill in an online survey when it’s unclear<br />
if their answers will be treated confidentially and whether their information will be sold to other<br />
companies. The introduction of the questionnaire for the online union explains the purpose for this<br />
research and the way information will be treated. An email address will be asked to ensure the<br />
uniqueness of the answers. The email address will not be used for other purposes.<br />
Sekeran (2003) stated that when designing a questionnaire one should focus on three areas of design<br />
principles:<br />
Principles of wording: The principles of wording refer to different aspects as; the appropriateness of<br />
the questions, how questions are worded and the level of sophistication of the language used, the<br />
type and form of questions asked and the personal data sought from the respondents.<br />
Principles of measurement: The use of suitable scales and scaling techniques will have to lead to two<br />
methodological conditions that are required for a good research; validity and reliability. Validity<br />
determines how well a technique, instrument or process is measuring a specific concept. Reliability<br />
will indicate how stable and consistently the instrument measures the variable.<br />
Overall appearance of the questionnaire: In order to get a valuable response not only the first<br />
principles are important, the overall appearance of the survey is important too. T<strong>here</strong>fore a good<br />
introduction, organized questions, clear answer instructions and a conclusion are aspects that will<br />
stimulate respondents to participate and will increase the value of a survey.<br />
A pre-test was carried out to ensure the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. For the pre-test<br />
of the survey a selection of 15 professionals of De Unie, graduate students, practitioners were asked<br />
to fill in the questionnaire and give their opinion about the content and the way questions were<br />
formulated. Furthermore experts in the field of marketing management and technology and<br />
innovation management were involved in the developing process of the questionnaire-items.<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
During the pre-test, grammatical inaccuracies were rectified and when needed the items were<br />
further clarified. The pre-test was equipped with comment boxes that gave respondents the<br />
opportunity to comment on its wording, instructions and length. The time needed to complete the<br />
questionnaire was considered to be +/- 10 minutes. Pre-test showed out that the time ranged from 8<br />
till 13 minutes which was in line with the expectations and adequate for the respondents. The length<br />
of the questionnaire was appropriate and in cooperation with De Unie we decided to add one more<br />
item to the dimension tangibles in order to gather more information about member’s preferences<br />
for custom made service aspects. After the pre-test the questionnaire was administered to 1000<br />
registered members of the online union, resulting in 120 respondents in three weeks (calendar week<br />
42, 43 and 44) who completed the questionnaire. In the current research a “complete” questionnaire<br />
means that t<strong>here</strong> are no missing values in the data set which means all questions were answered.<br />
The developed questionnaire consists of the following features:<br />
PART I<br />
PART II<br />
PART III<br />
PART IV<br />
- Based on the SERVQUAL method, twenty-two items measured by two<br />
questions to determine gaps between the perceived and expected<br />
services of the online union.<br />
- Based on the Kano method, twenty-two questions to measure perceived<br />
importance when characteristics are available (functional).<br />
- Based on the Kano method, twenty-two questions to measure perceived<br />
importance when characteristics are not available (dysfunctional).<br />
- Thirteen demographic questions (respondent’s age, gender, education,<br />
name of the company, work sector of company, job function, work<br />
experience, years of work in recent firm, years of work in recent position,<br />
household situation, region of living, frequency visits online union,<br />
reason for visiting online union).<br />
The final questionnaire, as distributed to the members, can be found in Appendix V.<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Chapter 4 - Results Empirical Study<br />
The research methodology for this research study has been discussed in chapter 3. This chapter<br />
presents the results of the empirical study. Section 4.1 discusses the results of the exploratory<br />
research. It presents the identified member’s needs, indicated as performance drivers, and the<br />
assumed relationships to the overall performance of the online union. Based on the explored items,<br />
propositions are formulated and tested by an online survey. Section 4.2 presents the statistical<br />
analysis of the survey and will validate the needs of the members. Data gat<strong>here</strong>d by the online<br />
survey will be processed into the House of Quality. The composition and analysis of the House of<br />
Quality is described in section 4.3.<br />
4.1 Phase I: Results exploratory research<br />
This section discusses the exploratory research to the needs of the members. The needs can be<br />
indicated as the performance drivers of the online union. The performance drivers are considered to<br />
affect the overall performance of the online union. The literature research as described in chapter 2<br />
functions as the first part of the exploratory research. Based on the literature review, a conceptual<br />
model was established. The most important element in the exploratory phase are the interviews with<br />
employees and the members of the online union, in order to investigate the needs, and t<strong>here</strong>fore the<br />
performance drivers of the online union.<br />
As discussed in previous chapters, the SERVQUAL model will be used to measure the quality of<br />
services offered by the online union. The SERVQUAL model is described to be applicable to a wide<br />
variety of service organizations and offers options to reword some of the items in order to create a<br />
fit with a specific context (Parasuraman et al, 1988). This particular research study for the online<br />
union is highly specialized. We expect that one or more attributes of the current SERVQUAL model<br />
will fit not with the context of the present research study. By qualitative research we expect to<br />
identify several new attributes which are highly related to online services. This leads us to the<br />
following proposition:<br />
Proposition 1: By qualitative research we expect to explore new SERVQUAL attributes that<br />
are specifically related to online services, not present in the current set of attributes of the<br />
SERVQUAL model, and that influence the overall performance of the online union.<br />
Besides interviews with union experts and members of the online union, value information for this<br />
particular research can be gat<strong>here</strong>d by an exploratory benchmark study. A benchmark study<br />
compares the activities and/ or performance of competing companies or companies in different<br />
49
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
areas. For this research study we planned to perform a benchmark study to compare the activities<br />
and performance of the online union with direct competitors and other e-services in different areas.<br />
Potter (1994) mentioned that the starting point for benchmarking will be that the organization must<br />
change and will have to change radically. As noticed in the previous sections, the online union is the<br />
first online labour representative organization in Holland. Other union organizations in Holland are<br />
(yet) not working with this online concept. Although in this case, it has to be mentioned that<br />
competitors FNV and CNV are developing new campaigns which make use of new media types like<br />
the internet. However, they do not offer online services in a separate entity. At the moment De Unie<br />
has planned to start a benchmark study based on the concept of the balanced score card in January<br />
2008. Due time constraints and the practical start of a benchmark by De Unie within two months we<br />
were not able to conduct a suitable benchmark study and t<strong>here</strong>fore results of a competitive<br />
assessment are not included in the current research study.<br />
4.1.1 Interviews with employees of the online union<br />
In order to gain information from an organizational perspective, three interviews with union experts<br />
were conducted. As mentioned in section 4.3.1, knowledge of the interviewed experts will be used<br />
for the classification of service aspects for the online union. T<strong>here</strong>fore the most relevant people to<br />
interview are union experts whose function is nearly related to the online union. To assess a<br />
complete overview of information, experts in different hierarchical positions and with different<br />
functions were interviewed. A complete list of interviewed experts as well as an extensive summary<br />
of the interview results can be found in appendix 5. This section will discuss the explored service<br />
characteristics which will be used as input for the planned interviews with members of the online<br />
union as well as for the final questionnaire in phase II.<br />
As mentioned before; due a decline in the number of members, unions are searching for new<br />
concepts that focus on a younger population of members like for example young professionals. De<br />
Unie also focuses on the “new type of worker” and t<strong>here</strong>fore differentiates from other union<br />
organizations in Holland. These new type of workers are defined to have a high affinity with digital<br />
environments like the internet and will use IT as an enabler of work. They are also individualistic in<br />
terms of searching and gathering for information and knowledge. According to the interviewed<br />
experts, by the use of the internet an online union is able to function as a valuable “partner” for the<br />
new type of workers. Valuable in way that it is able to integrate different parties into the network of<br />
De Unie in order to facilitate an environment that provides knowledge and information that is in<br />
shape with the needs of the members.<br />
50
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
By the absence of a formulated strategy and communication plan it is difficult for the online union to<br />
recruit and retain new members. For De Unie it is also unclear which sectors of work are represented<br />
in the online union. The degree of participation of the members is perceived to be very small. A few<br />
interaction components are available but nearly used (for instance; Hyves communicator). In order to<br />
create a network of relationships De Unie planned to integrate interaction tools like a forum and<br />
different platforms that creates opportunities to connect members. Also the involvement of third<br />
parties like for example Stageplaza 1 are aspects planned for the near future.<br />
Union experts mentioned the custom-made character of the online union to be a critical advantage<br />
over the traditional unions. Different from the traditional union, a relative small membership<br />
contribution has to be paid on a yearly basis instead of a monthly contribution fee. This contribution<br />
allows members to pose one query for advice. After this they will have to pay for each query<br />
separately. Experts also noticed the lack of current information offered on the website of the online<br />
union.<br />
4.1.2 Interviews with the members of the online union<br />
The results of the interviews with union experts were used as input for the interviews with the<br />
members of the online union. Interviews with members were conducted in order to classify their<br />
needs and to identify the performance drivers of the online union. A list of interviewed members and<br />
an extensive summary of the results are available in appendix 6. The results of the interviews in<br />
combination with the results of the interviews with the union experts are used to compose the<br />
online survey.<br />
The exploratory interviews with the members identified several performance aspects of an online<br />
union that can be divided into five different categories that, according to the members, determine<br />
the overall performance. The categories (dimensions) will be discussed below. For each dimension a<br />
proposition was formulated to test its influence on the overall performance of the online union.<br />
Information: interviewed members mentioned the importance of information provided by the online<br />
union. Interviews showed out that information is the main criteria to visit or contact the online<br />
union. T<strong>here</strong>fore, members expect the online union to provide up to date information, information<br />
that is trustworthy but also information that is relevant and useful for them. Besides this the<br />
information must be easy accessible.<br />
Proposition 2: Information will positively influence the overall performance of the online<br />
union.<br />
1 Stageplaza; mediating organization for student internships.<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Interaction: interviews revealed that members expect certain ways of interaction between the union<br />
and its members. At the moment the online union for example interacts with her members by<br />
providing online newsletters. But members also expect to get involved in the development process of<br />
the online union to shape the online union to their preferences. Members also perceived a lack of<br />
personal attention. Possibilities of interaction between members was mentioned to be preferred but<br />
are not experienced in the current situation.<br />
Proposition 3: Interaction positively influences the overall performance of the online union.<br />
Safety: the category safety mainly reflects to the needs of members for a good representation of<br />
their shared interest by the online union. Related to a good representation is the influence of the<br />
online union on for example collective bargaining. Interviewed members expect the online union to<br />
have a suitable influence to secure a good representation of their interests. Another “safety” related<br />
aspect is the expectation of affective and adequate support to work related issues but also for<br />
personal related aspects like for example assurances.<br />
Proposition 4: The overall performance of the online union will be positively affected by<br />
safety.<br />
Solidarity: one of the reasons for people to join a union is the feeling of solidarity provided by a<br />
representative organization. This feeling of solidarity originates from the fact that members join a<br />
union for more or less the same reasons and t<strong>here</strong>fore expect to meet members in equal positions.<br />
Although in the current situation not available in a suitable way; members expect the online union to<br />
offer new opportunities to interact with people in the same position and share knowledge and<br />
experiences.<br />
Proposition 5: Solidarity will positively affect the overall performance of the online union.<br />
Tangibles: the most important reason for the interviewed members to join the online union is the<br />
custom-made approach in combination with the relative low contribution price as presented in<br />
section 4.1.1. This approach offers members the possibility to be represented for their shared<br />
interest and to profit from customized services for a relative low price. From this we can conclude<br />
that a good representation of their shared interests and customized services are important service<br />
characteristics of an online union. Also a first-class presentation of the online union and appropriate<br />
online facilities (e.g. speed and content of the website) are identified to be important performance<br />
aspects.<br />
52
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Proposition 6: Appropriate perceived tangibles will have a positive effect on the overall<br />
performance of the online union.<br />
The explored dimension can be visualized into a research model as depicted in Figure - 8. The model<br />
represents the assumed influence of the dimensions on the overall performance. By analysis of the<br />
survey results in section 4.2 we will test the formulated propositions.<br />
Information<br />
Interaction<br />
Solidarity<br />
Safety<br />
Tangibles<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
Figure - 8 Empirical research design after phase I.<br />
The explored items are embodied in a model and clustered into five different dimensions (Table 2)<br />
Table 2 Service dimensions Online union<br />
53<br />
+<br />
Overall<br />
Performance
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
4.2 Results Quantitative research<br />
This section presents the results of the quantitative research study. Several attributes investigated in<br />
the first phase are integrated into the survey model. Based on the SERVQUAL model, an online<br />
questionnaire was designed to measure gaps between the actual performance and the member’s<br />
expectations of the online union. By integrating the Kano model we are able to categorize the<br />
attributes according to the influence of each of the attributes on member’s satisfaction. The<br />
collected data will be used to test the propositions formulated in section 4.1.2. Hence, data collected<br />
by the online survey will function as input for the construction of the House of Quality (Tan and<br />
Pawitra, 2001).<br />
Section 4.2.1 presents the demographics of the research population w<strong>here</strong>as section 4.2.2 presents<br />
the statistical analysis of the survey data. Based on qualitative research to the needs of the members<br />
we conducted five dimensions (Table 2).A factor analysis will be performed to test the structure of<br />
the composed dimensions. After the factor analysis, we will execute a multiple regression analysis to<br />
test for the influence of each of the dimensions on the overall performance of the online union in<br />
section 4.2.3<br />
4.2.1 Sample description<br />
Within three weeks 120 respondents have finished the questionnaire. From a total sample of 1000<br />
registered members this results in a response rate of 12%. Except from the question “What is the<br />
name of your company”, all questions were mandatory which resulted in a dataset without missing<br />
values. Before starting the analysis we filtered the data on respondents duration time to complete<br />
the questionnaire. Respondents whose duration time was shorter than seven minutes were filtered<br />
out. Based on the average time of 12,5 minutes, a duration time less than seven minutes assumes<br />
that they have not filled in the questionnaire seriously enough. After expectation of the dataset, four<br />
respondents were filtered out resulting in a final dataset of 116 respondents.<br />
Based on the demographic questions we shaped a general descriptive profile of the member<br />
population of the online union (Table 3). Specific work and union related characteristics will be<br />
discussed later in this section. From the general characteristics as presented in Table 1, we can<br />
conclude that the majority of the sample is male, merely of the age of 50 or higher, educated with a<br />
MBO or HBO (Bachelors) degree, full-time employed, living together with an employed partner and<br />
merely settled in the region Noord-Brabant. As mentioned before, the main target group of the<br />
online union are young professionals. T<strong>here</strong>fore it is surprising to see that most of the respondents<br />
are of the age of 50 or higher. One explanation might be that at the start of the online union a<br />
54
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
respective group of members of the traditional union became a member of the online union as they<br />
feel highly associated to the organization De Unie.<br />
Variable Composition Frequency Percentage<br />
Gender Male 97 83,6<br />
Female 19 16,4<br />
Age 54 31 26,7<br />
Educational Level Professional Degree 15 12,9<br />
PHD 1 0,9<br />
Masters Degree 16 13,8<br />
Bachelor Degree 38 32,8<br />
Associate Degree 1 0,9<br />
University, no Degree 5 4,3<br />
MBO 39 32.6<br />
High School 1 0,9<br />
Household Situation Single 29 25,0<br />
Couple, partner non-employed 20 17,2<br />
Couple, partner employed 69 59,5<br />
Work situation Full time employed 90 77.5<br />
Parttime employed 16 13,8<br />
Non-employed 10 8,6<br />
Region Zuid - Holland 19 16,4<br />
Noord - Holland 12 10,3<br />
Utrecht 10 8,6<br />
Zeeland 3 2,6<br />
Noord- Brabant 36 31,0<br />
Limburg 7 6,0<br />
Gelderland 12 10,3<br />
Overijssel 4 3,4<br />
Flevoland 4 3,4<br />
Friesland 2 1,7<br />
Groningen 2 1,7<br />
Drenthe 5 4,3<br />
Table 3 - Demographic Characteristics<br />
Table 4 shows the different sectors w<strong>here</strong> employees of the online union work, w<strong>here</strong>as Table 5<br />
presents the functions employed by the members.<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Services<br />
ICT<br />
Insurance<br />
Transportation<br />
Construction<br />
Healthcare<br />
Retail<br />
Wholesale<br />
Finance<br />
Government<br />
Education<br />
Manufacturing<br />
Other<br />
0 10 20 30 40<br />
Table 4 – Sector of the organization Table 5 – Function of members<br />
As represented in Table 4 most respondents are employed in the financial sector and the services<br />
sector. The number of respondents working in these sectors can be explained by the fact that in the<br />
first year of the online union employees of two financial organizations w<strong>here</strong> faced with<br />
reorganizations and mergers. T<strong>here</strong> was no collective bargaining agreement for their specific sector.<br />
To represent the interests of these employees, De Unie started a campaign and became the<br />
employee’s representative organization. This also explains the results of Table 5 from which we can<br />
conclude that most members have a financial related or management function.<br />
Daily 0.9%<br />
A few times a week<br />
2,6%<br />
Once a week 4,3%<br />
A few times a month<br />
12,1%<br />
Once a month<br />
24,1%<br />
Less than once a<br />
month 56,0%<br />
Figure - 9 Frequency site visits Figure - 10 Reason to visit website<br />
The frequency of visits to the website of the online union is presented in Figure 9. Overall we can<br />
conclude that members do not visit the site of the online union very often. The majority of the<br />
56<br />
Sales<br />
ICT<br />
Human resources<br />
Government<br />
Research and Development<br />
Marketing-PR-Advertising<br />
Legal<br />
Procurement and Logistics<br />
Healthcare<br />
Finance - Administration<br />
General management<br />
Consultancy<br />
Other<br />
0 10 20 30<br />
Information<br />
87,1%<br />
Recreation<br />
10,3%<br />
Interaction<br />
2,6%
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
sample visits the site less than once a month (56%) or once a month (24.1%). As showed in Figure 10,<br />
the main reason for members to visit the site is to gather information (87.1%).<br />
4.2.2 Factor analyse<br />
In our model quality (Q) measured by one item is the sum of an expectation rating (E) extracted from<br />
the corresponding perception rating (P). A gap-score is defined as Q = P – E. The computed gap-<br />
variables are used for further scale analysis. Further analysis of the gap scores will be discussed in<br />
section 4.3.<br />
After qualitative research in phase one, the explored items were structured into five dimensions<br />
(Table 2). To test the structure of the modified dimensions factor analysis was conducted. Factor<br />
analysis is a multivariate statistical technique which aim is to reduce a large number of variables to a<br />
smaller number of underlying dimensions, known as factors. T<strong>here</strong>fore factor analysis will try to<br />
explain a maximum amount of variance in our data by means of a small number of factors.<br />
Before conducting factor analysis, we should test if factor analysis is an appropriate method for<br />
detecting structures in our data. T<strong>here</strong>fore we will first inspect the correlation matrix, the Bartlett’s<br />
test of sphericity, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) and the measure of sampling adequacy (MSA).<br />
When the results of the tests conclude that factor analysis is allowed, the items will be structured<br />
into factors.<br />
The Bartlett’s test of sphericity will test the inequality between the correlation matrix and the<br />
identity matrix. The test values detected a significant result (Chi 1164.774; p:0.00) from which we can<br />
conclude that t<strong>here</strong> are differences between the correlation matrix and the identity matrix. The<br />
second test, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test, measures the sampling adequacy. A high value indicates<br />
sufficient intercorrelations between the variables which mean that the correlations between pairs of<br />
variables can be explained by other variables.. The test value in our analysis is 0.875. A value of >0.8<br />
is meritorious. The last test for sufficient intercorrelations is the Measure of Sampling Adequacy<br />
(MSA). Looking at the anti-image matrix in SPSS, low MSA values of
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
The scree plot and eigenvalues provided by SPSS, indicate a composition of four factors. After<br />
deciding the number of factors, the communality values were inspected. A communality (hi2) = % of<br />
variance in xi explained by the factor model. When a communality value of a variable is relative low<br />
(.414.<br />
The Varimax rotation procedure was used to select variables into factors. The varimax rotation<br />
procedure is an orthogonal method of rotation (axes are maintained at right angles) that minimizes<br />
the number of variables with high loading factors on a factor t<strong>here</strong>by enhancing the interpretability<br />
of the factor (Malhotra & Birks, 2004).<br />
Component<br />
1 2 3 4<br />
Up-to-date information ,807<br />
Reliability of information ,796<br />
Offering relevant information ,728<br />
Member involvement on development ,481<br />
Interaction between Union and members ,425 ,500<br />
Interaction between members ,674<br />
Involvement third parties ,604<br />
Recognizing needs of the members ,461<br />
Perception of solidarity ,499<br />
Opportunity of physical meetings ,721<br />
Opportunity of virtual meetings ,779<br />
Members in the same position ,639<br />
Good representation of interests ,641<br />
Perception of safety and protection ,509 ,656<br />
Influence of online union ,756<br />
Intelligibility objectives and services ,507<br />
Offering effective support ,646<br />
Reliability and quality of services ,556<br />
Professional presentation ,511 ,632<br />
Good online facilities ,777<br />
Accessibility of information ,608<br />
Custom-made services ,658<br />
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.<br />
Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.<br />
a Rotation converged in 6 iterations.<br />
Table 6 - Rotated component matrix<br />
Factor analysis, as presented in Table 6 indicates four factors which collectively explained 58,7% of<br />
the variance in all items. Based on the exploratory investigations of phase I, the original model (<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Table 2) consisted five dimensions (factors). The explored dimension “Solidarity” was not recognized<br />
as a single dimension. Factor analysis merged the dimensions “Interaction” and “Solidarity” and<br />
indicated it as one dimension, that we (still) name “Interaction”. Furthermore the item “recognizing<br />
the needs of the members” switched from the dimension “Interaction” to “Information”, w<strong>here</strong>as<br />
the item “reliability and quality of services” was replaced from the dimension “Tangibles” to “Safety”.<br />
Due to the high factor loadings and plausible interpretations, we decided to adopt the new structure.<br />
The new dimensional structure is presented in Table 7.<br />
Scale Reliablity<br />
Table 7 - Dimensional structure after Factor Analysis<br />
After the factor analysis, item analysis was conducted to test if the dimensions composed by the<br />
factor analysis are reliable. Cronbach’s alphas were employed to test the reliability of the<br />
dimensions. Item anlysis is conducted after the factor anlysis because Cronbach’s alphas measures<br />
how well a set of items measures a unidimensial construct; the scale has no underlying factors.<br />
Cronbach’s alphas value varies betwen 0 and 1, w<strong>here</strong> values 0.7 are acceptable. As presented in Table 8, for all dimensions<br />
Cronbach’s alphas are >0.7 which implicates that the scales are reliable.<br />
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Correlations<br />
Dimension Number of Cronbach’s Mean Std Deviation<br />
items Alphas<br />
Interaction 8 0.843 -0.629 0.700<br />
Safety 6 0.817 -0.963 0.737<br />
Tangibles 4 0.758 -0.573 0.760<br />
Information 4 0.762 -0.830 0.801<br />
60<br />
Table 8 - Internal Reliability<br />
Correlations were calculated to look for association between the variables. Pearson’s product<br />
moment correlation (r) was used to express the strength and direction of co<strong>here</strong>nce between the<br />
independent variables and between the dimensions composed by factor analysis. The higher the<br />
correlation value the stronger the co<strong>here</strong>nce between the variables.<br />
Table 9 - Correlation matrix<br />
All four dimension positively correlate to each other on a significance level of P
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
explored dimensions on the overall performance of the online union. In order to test the unique<br />
effects of each dimension (Interaction, Safety, Tangibles and Information) we will conduct a multiple<br />
regression analysis in which the overall performance will be the dependent variable.<br />
Table 10 - Regression Coefficients<br />
The results of the multiple regression analysis are presented in Table 10. The analysis indicates the<br />
dimension Tangibles to have an independent significant influence on the overall performance<br />
(t=2,248, p
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
for members to understand the possibilities and what can be expected. From this perspective an<br />
adjusted R2 of 24,3% in this case is acceptable.<br />
4.3 Establishing the House of Quality; translating “What” into “How”<br />
In section 4.2 the dataset of items established from the perception and expectation ratings was<br />
statistically tested. Factor analysis examined the structure of the dimensions w<strong>here</strong>as a regression<br />
analysis was conducted to test the unique effects of the established dimensions on member’s overall<br />
rating of the online union. In this section we will integrate the data gat<strong>here</strong>d by substracting the<br />
expectations from the perceptions plus the data from the Kano related part of the survey into the<br />
first matrix of Quality Function Deployment; the House of Quality.<br />
Section 4.3.1 discusses the gap analysis between the expectations and perceptions. Section 4.3.2 will<br />
present the Kano analysis. Involvement of the management team as experts in the data collection for<br />
the QFD process is described in section 4.3.3. The compositition of the House of Quality will be<br />
presented in section 4.3.4.<br />
4.3.1 Gap analysis<br />
Based on the SERVQUAL method, the first part of the survey measured the quality of the services<br />
provided by the online union. As discussed in section 2.4 gaps occur when t<strong>here</strong> are differences<br />
between customer’s expectation and the actual perception of the service provided; the wider the<br />
gap, the larger the difference. Positive scores means that the perceptions of a service exceeds the<br />
expactations w<strong>here</strong>as a score of zero indicates satisfactory quality. Negative scores on the other<br />
hand submit to an underperformance in relation to the customer’s expactations.<br />
Each item is measured by two questions. In our survey the first question measures the expectations<br />
of a member by asking to indicate on a five-point Likert scale how a specific situation in general<br />
should be. The second question measures the same situation but than specifically in the case of the<br />
online union. For example; the first announcement will be “A trade union organization should have<br />
good online facilities”, followed by “The online union has good online facilities”.<br />
All items in the survey measured negative gaps. An overview of the gap scores is presented in Figure -<br />
11. A possible explanation for the negative gaps might be the fact that people have the intention to<br />
respond more extremly when they are asked to indicate an ideal situation. T<strong>here</strong>fore the focus<br />
should be on the variation of the gaps instead of the negative values (Teas, 1993b). The measured<br />
gaps can be very valuable to the organization as it clearly indicates on which service aspects the<br />
organization is underperforming. This study focusses on the process of improvement, t<strong>here</strong>fore the<br />
gaps are valuable as input for the House of Quality but not as single indicators.<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
The highest negative gapscore can be seen for the attribute “influence of the online union”. This<br />
score indicates that members expect a union to have sufficient influence on for example collective<br />
bargainings, w<strong>here</strong>as they perceive the online union to have less influence. The member population<br />
of the online union is relative small compared to other unions. As presented in Table 6 the<br />
memberpopulation is also divided over many different worksectors. The representation in number of<br />
members in a specifc sector is t<strong>here</strong>fore low which persuades the influence of the online union.<br />
The second highest negative gap is found on the attribute “offering effective support”. This attribute<br />
indicates that members expect a union to provide effective support when needed, which can be<br />
stated to be an important aspect of an online union. The smallest negative gap is represented by the<br />
attribute “custommade services”. Further analysis of the gaps will be done after a combined<br />
integration with the Kano scores into the House of Quality.<br />
-1,60 -1,40 -1,20 -1,00 -0,80 -0,60 -0,40 -0,20 0,00<br />
-1,43<br />
-1,07<br />
-1,04<br />
-1,01<br />
-0,95<br />
-0,91<br />
-0,90<br />
-0,84<br />
-0,77<br />
-0,75<br />
-0,72<br />
-0,72<br />
-0,72<br />
-0,66<br />
-0,63<br />
-0,62<br />
-0,60<br />
-0,55<br />
-0,52<br />
-0,49<br />
-0,32<br />
-0,22<br />
Figure - 11 Overview gap scores<br />
63<br />
Influence of online union<br />
Offering effective support<br />
Good representation of interests<br />
Intelligibility objectives and services<br />
Offering relevant information<br />
Up-to-date information<br />
Perception of solidarity<br />
Opportunity of physical meetings<br />
Member involvement on development<br />
Reliability of information<br />
Accessibility of information<br />
Recognizing the needs of members<br />
Professional presentation<br />
Interaction between union and members<br />
Good online facilities<br />
Reliability and quality of services<br />
Perception of safety and protection<br />
Interaction between members<br />
Opportunity of virtual meetings<br />
Involvement third parties<br />
Members in the same position<br />
Custom-made services
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
4.3.2 Kano Analysis<br />
The second part of the questionnaire (Appendix 7) consists of questions based on the Kano model.<br />
The Kano model (Kano, 1984) was developed to classify product or service attributes on how well<br />
they are able to satisfy the needs of the customer. Parallel to the items measured in the first part of<br />
the survey (SERVQUAL), the Kano model measures both the functional and dysfunctional forms of<br />
the attributes. In example, a functional form to measure will be “How do you feel when the online<br />
union offers you up to date information?”, w<strong>here</strong>as the dysfunctional form will be “How do you feel<br />
when the online union does not offer you up to date information?” For both questions the<br />
respondents were asked to answer one of the following 5 options “I enjoy it that way”, “I like it that<br />
way”, “I am neutral”, “I dislike it but can live with it that way”, “I dislike it and don’t accept it that<br />
way”. While our survey was conducted in Dutch the answer options were translated into respectively<br />
“Dat stel ik op prijs”, “Ik verwacht niet anders”, “Neutraal”, “Vervelend, maar kan ermee leven” and<br />
“Vervelend en onacceptabel”.<br />
The collected data from the functional and dysfunctional questions makes it possible to classify the<br />
attributes into one of the following Kano categories: attractive, one dimensional, must be,<br />
indifferent, questionable and reverse. In order to integrate the Kano categories into the House of<br />
Quality, the categories will have to be quantified. T<strong>here</strong>fore Tan and Pawitra (2001) developed an<br />
arithmetic method. For each functional and dysfunctional question the answers of the all<br />
respondents to each of the answer options were summed. The answer option with the highest sum<br />
results in the arithmetic and t<strong>here</strong>fore determines the Kano category of a specific attribute. After<br />
this, all attributes can be presented into the matrix depicted in Appendix 3. As a result the<br />
classification of the attributes into Kano categories is presented in Figure - 12.<br />
From the classification presented in Figure - 12 we can conclude that the attributes “Third party<br />
involvement”, “Good online facilities” and “Custom made services” are classified in the category<br />
attractive. This indicates that these three attributes surprise and attract the customer when<br />
available. Implications of the Kano categories were discussed in section 2.5.2. In order to integrate<br />
the Kano classification of the attributes into the House of Quality, Tan and Pawitra (2001) add<br />
weightings to the different categories. The category ‘attractive’ will be multiplied by factor ‘4’, ‘one<br />
dimensional’ by factor ‘2’, ‘must-be’ by factor ‘1’ and ‘indifferent’ by factor ‘0.5’.<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
4.3.3 Data Collection House of Quality<br />
Figure - 12 Kano Categorization<br />
The SERVQUAL gaps of section 7.1 identified the differences between member’s expectations and<br />
current perceptions of the online union. With addition of the Kano model we were able to determine<br />
for which attributes improvements will be most critical. A limitation of the SERVQUAL model is that it<br />
only identifies gaps without addressing on how to close the identified gaps. By integrating both<br />
models into the House of Quality offers the opportunity to recommend on how to improve and<br />
innovate the services of the online union.<br />
As stated by Hauser and Clausing (1988) the method of quality function deployment focuses and<br />
coordinates different skills within the organization. First to design, secondly to manufacture and<br />
market the product or service. T<strong>here</strong>fore to optimize the results of QFD a cross functional team<br />
including members with different backgrounds and expertise is required (Griffin and Hauser, 1993).<br />
Data for the House of Quality was provided by the management team of the online union, consisting<br />
of three people. In this case all members have good knowledge of the current situation of the online<br />
union and the technical and financial options of the organization. In order to make sure the matrix of<br />
the House of Quality was well interpreted, a meeting was hold to explain the method. After this first<br />
session almost all required data was collected. A two-hour telephone meeting with the project<br />
manager completed the data collection for the House of Quality<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
4.3.4 The House of Quality<br />
The different parts of the House of quality are discussed in section 2.5. To recap; the construction of<br />
the House of Quality consists of 1) the customer needs (left), 2) the planning matrix , 3) technical<br />
requirements or HOW’S, 4) relation matrix (centre) 5) technical correlation matrix (the roof) and 6)<br />
technical matrix.<br />
The House of Quality as constructed for the online union is presented below (Figure - 13). Although<br />
processed in the completion of House of Quality as depicted below, the technical correlation matrix<br />
is not displayed in Figure - 13 but will be presented separately. The different elements of the House<br />
of Quality will be discussed underneath.<br />
Figure - 13 The House of Quality for the online union<br />
Customer Requirements<br />
The customer requirements or “Whats” are qualified by the interviews with employees of the online<br />
union and members of the online union in phase I of this research study. After this the needs were<br />
defined into five dimensions and quantified by the online survey of phase II. Factor analysis in phase<br />
III classified the needs into four dimensions; interaction, safety, tangibles and information.<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Technical Requirements<br />
The technical requirements or “Hows” are established from investigations of the service process of<br />
the online union during the past half year of this research study. Furthermore requirements were<br />
performed in strong collaboration with the management team of the online union. A clarification of<br />
the technical requirements will be discussed below.<br />
1- Contact availability; available options for members to get in contact with online union.<br />
2- Employee availability; number of union experts available for direct services.<br />
3- Knowledge; knowledge available in the organization of the online union (experts, databases,<br />
third parties)<br />
4- Frequency of contact; interaction moments with members (newsletter, requests, site visits,<br />
etc).<br />
5- Speed of services; process time of the services.<br />
6- Frequency of information updates; number of information updates on website, newsletters.<br />
7- Member feedback processing; how feedback is effectively processed through the<br />
organization.<br />
8- Database options; database options with all relevant information of the members.<br />
9- Personalization of services; extent of personalized services for a specific member.<br />
10- Automatization; extent to which service processes are automated.<br />
11- Digitalization; extent to which services and facilities are digitalized.<br />
12- Networking availability; extent of options to create networks between members, the online<br />
union and third parties.<br />
Planning matrix/ Competitive assessment<br />
The results of the benchmark study in chapter 5 were not sufficient enough to be processed into the<br />
House of Quality (Figure - 13). This insufficiency of the information can be explained by two factors.<br />
First of all, the online union of De Unie is the only virtual union in Holland w<strong>here</strong>as competitors in<br />
this case are the traditional unions. T<strong>here</strong>fore to compare the activities of the online union we<br />
studied other e-services in chapter five. Secondly, as mentioned in the introduction and in section 2.2<br />
the decline in the member population creates a climate w<strong>here</strong> every competitor is searching for new<br />
ways to recruit members. The management team of the online union does not have enough<br />
knowledge of the competitive projects related to the online union to process into the House of<br />
Quality. De Unie has planned to start with a competitive benchmark in the first months of 2008.<br />
67
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Technical Correlation Matrix<br />
Traditionally the technical correlation matrix is shaped as the roof of a house (Figure - 13 The House<br />
of Quality for the online union). In order to increase the readability of this part of the HOQ, we<br />
decided to collapse the roof into the matrix presented in Table 11. The technical correlation matrix<br />
will map the correlation between the established technical requirements (How’s). Trade–offs will<br />
have to be made when negative correlations appear. In our model only two negative correlations can<br />
be identified; first a negative correlation occurs between the speed of the services and<br />
personalization of services and secondly between speed of services and feedback processing.<br />
Table 11 - Technical Correlation Matrix<br />
Technical Matrix<br />
The technical matrix will display the importance rankings of the technical requirements and guides<br />
the organization in making decisions within the (re)design process. T<strong>here</strong>fore this part is the most<br />
important element of the House of Quality (Figure - 13). To calculate the importance of each<br />
technical requirement, the interrelations weightings will be multiplied with the adjusted importance<br />
score for each customer requirement. After this, the scores for each “What” will be summed up. The<br />
relative importance of the technical requirement is than calculated as a percentage of the total score<br />
of the “How’s”. Priorities and relative importance scores of each “How” are presented in Table 12.<br />
Digitalization of the services received the highest score, closely followed by the frequency of<br />
contacts. Other important “How’s” are the networking facilities, contact availability and knowledge<br />
transfer between members and De Unie and membership.<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Table 12 - Importance rankings How's<br />
4.4 Summary empirical results<br />
4.4.1 Exploratory research<br />
In the first phase of the current research, extensive qualitative research was performed to ensure the<br />
most important characteristics of an online union, according to the members as well as the<br />
employees. Based on the idea of the SERVQUAL model by Parasuraman et al (1988), the explored<br />
items are embodied in a model and clustered into five different dimensions (Table 2). Exploratory<br />
research provides evidence for proposition one; from the original SERVQUAL model only the<br />
dimension “tangibles” was maintained and four new context specific dimensions were established.<br />
The new dimensions are Interaction, Information, Solidarity and Safety. Based on the explored items<br />
a survey was composed to validate the explored performance drivers through a statistically reliable<br />
sample of members of the online union.<br />
4.4.2 Conclusions Quantitative results<br />
The factor analysis tested the structure of the five dimensions established after exploratory research<br />
in phase I. Factor analysis indicated four dimensions instead of five dimensions. The dimensions<br />
interaction and solidarity were fused into one single dimension. The four dimensions showed out to<br />
be reliable by high Cronbach’s alpha’s (>0.7) and strongly correlate to each other. T<strong>here</strong>fore we<br />
decided to adopt the dimensions constructed by Factor analysis as presented in Table 7.<br />
Regression analysis indicated a significant causal relationship between the independent variable<br />
tangibles and the dependent variable overall performance. Although the other independent variables<br />
showed out to influence the overall performance positively, these relationships are not significant.<br />
From this, the regression analysis provides significant evidence for proposition 6. Based on the<br />
adjusted R2, our model explains 24,3% of the variation of the overall performance of the online union<br />
which is in this case acceptable.<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
From the statistical analysis of the survey data we can conclude that the overall performance of the<br />
online union is most influenced by the dimension tangibles. Items within this dimension are the<br />
online facilities, custom made services, good presentation and the availability and accessibility of<br />
information.<br />
4.4.3 Conclusions House of Quality<br />
The House of Quality was established to provide De Unie direction to the improvement of the online<br />
union. From the presented HOQ in Figure - 13 we can conclude that the technical requirement<br />
“Digitalization” will be the most important in the ongoing process of improvement and enables the<br />
online union to meet the widest collection of member’s needs. Although the online union already is<br />
an organization that functions in a digital way, digitalization will certainly help to improve services<br />
and offers important opportunities to adapt to the needs of the members. For example; digitalization<br />
makes it possible to increase the involvement of members by providing new methods of interaction<br />
like forums, personalized mails, and polls. Digitalization enables De Unie to offer relevant information<br />
in a digital way which increases the speed to offer up to date information. According to Figure - 13,<br />
involvement of third parties is of high importance to the members. Digitalization is able to integrate<br />
and connect different parties in the network of the online union in a fast and relative uncomplicated<br />
way.<br />
The House of Quality directly links the technical requirements to the needs of the members and<br />
t<strong>here</strong>fore can be considered to be one of the most untainted instruments for improvement (Akao,<br />
1990). For this research study, considerations and correlations addressed to the HOQ are made by<br />
the management team of the online union and the writer of this study. It has to be mentioned that<br />
the value of the HOQ depends on the expertise of the design team. In this case team members had<br />
different expertise’s which made it possible to interpret the HOQ from different perspectives.<br />
The next step in this ongoing process of improvement of the online union, will be the establishment<br />
of the second matrix of the concept of QFD; parts deployment. Due time and organizational<br />
constraints it was not possible to start with the construction of this matrix. T<strong>here</strong>fore the House of<br />
Quality as constructed in this research will function as a guide to give direction to De Unie for the<br />
improvement of the online union. By the time (January 2008) De Unie will start with the next step<br />
and will continue with the QFD approach. By construction of the second House, De Unie will<br />
transform the “How’s” of Figure - 13 into part characteristics.<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Chapter 5 - Conclusions, Implications and Recommendations<br />
5.1 Synopsis<br />
Under influence of ICT the design of work is changing from centralized to a decentralized form. This<br />
development impacts the function and role of representative organizations such as De Unie, which<br />
witnessed a membership decline over the past ten years. In response, De Unie has been searching<br />
for, and experimenting with new service concepts including the online union. The online union is<br />
seen as an appropriate tool to recruit new members and operate as a means to interact with her<br />
members, and deliver new services that will increase the position of the organization as well as the<br />
organization’s cash flow.<br />
To improve the decision makers’ understanding of the demands of the members and design an<br />
online union that adapts to the demands of the changing workforce, two approaches were applied in<br />
this research study. First, statistical analysis aimed at determining the needs of the members and<br />
secondly the use of the quality function deployment by integrating the needs of the members into<br />
the House of Quality.<br />
5.2 Central Conclusion<br />
A validation study, i.e., an analysis of a statistically reliable sample of respondents is applied in the<br />
present case to identify the key indicators that impact the performance of the online union.<br />
Interpretation of the empirical results cause us to conclude that the area of “tangibles” appears to<br />
have the most significant effects on the ongoing process of improving the online union, and<br />
t<strong>here</strong>fore, deserves the undivided attention and allocation of resources from De Unie’s management.<br />
Our central conclusion is derived from the statistical analysis conceived by the test conducted to (1)<br />
determine the structure of the explored attributes and 2) obtain empirical evidence of the unique<br />
influence of each attribute on the overall performance of the online union. By exploratory research<br />
in phase I we identified five dimension that were considered to determine the overall performance<br />
namely; interaction, solidarity, safety, tangibles and information. Factor analysis merged the<br />
dimensions interaction and solidarity into one dimension. Both dimensions consist of items that are<br />
associated to each other. T<strong>here</strong>fore, and as a result of the high factor loadings and improved<br />
reliability scores, we adopted the new structure of four dimensions. Statistical analysis provided<br />
significant evidence for Proposition 5; tangibles will positively influence the overall performance of<br />
the online union. Although the other dimensions all positively influence the overall performance,<br />
multiple regression analysis did not show significant relationships. The four dimensions; tangibles,<br />
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interaction/solidarity, safety and information merely explain 24, 3% of the variation in the overall<br />
performance of the online union.<br />
5.3 Implications<br />
The House of Quality directly links the technical requirements to the needs of the members and<br />
t<strong>here</strong>fore can be considered to be one of the most untainted instruments for improvement (Akao,<br />
1990). Two types of data were integrated in the House of Quality. First of all the gaps between the<br />
expectations and perceptions of the online union measured by the method of the SERVQUAL model<br />
and secondly the Kano category to indicate the influence of each item on member’s satisfaction.<br />
The method of quality function deployment is used to provide De Unie direction for informed<br />
decision making. First, by questioning the members’ needs; and, second by tailoring the design of the<br />
online union. Continuously, to match the demands of the members as closely as possible in a<br />
responsive manner.<br />
What are the main implications of the House of Quality results?<br />
For one, “Digitalization” is observed as the most important in the ongoing process of improvement<br />
and enables the online union to meet the widest collection of member’s needs. Subsequently,<br />
translate such needs into desirable and valuable services to generate and maintain a cash flow on<br />
which De Unie depends for its growth and survival. Although the online union already is an<br />
organization that functions online, the concept of digitalization should be understood as a<br />
continuous process of versioning information. Shapiro and Varian (1999) refer to ‘versioning’ as a<br />
technique to lever ‘value-based pricing, i.e., to sell the online union’s services to different members<br />
at different prices will certainly help to improve services of and offers opportunities to meet the<br />
most important member requirements. Value-based pricing of services affords the development and<br />
exploitation of two-way communication with members and stakeholders. Such online approach<br />
affords De Unie the opportunity to obtain valuable market data without expensive and time-<br />
consuming marketing studies. Simply, by offering members and third parties a menu of services and<br />
monitor which one they choose. For instance, De Unie can offer a product line with one product<br />
offered at members and another one at ‘outsiders’ and observe sales figures to observe purchase<br />
patterns in both markets evolving. Shapiro and Varian (1999:54) refer to this technique as<br />
‘versioning’. Digitalization in this case enforces the opportunity to connect different parties in the<br />
network of the online union. T<strong>here</strong>fore it enables interaction between De Unie and her members,<br />
mutual between members but it can also enforce the integration of third parties. From this<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
perspective it increases the value of the online union, not only for her members but as well as for the<br />
organization De Unie.<br />
5.4 Methodological value<br />
Based on the SERVQUAL model (Parasuraman et al, 1985) we explored four new attributes by<br />
exploratory research that fit with the context of the online union. Factor analysis reduced the<br />
number of attributes to three new explored attributes applicable to online services. From the original<br />
model merely the attribute tangibles was maintained although the items were modified into topic<br />
related items. The SERVQUAL model assumes the attributes to have a linear function. By integration<br />
of the Kano model we were able to get information of the non-linear power of each performance<br />
driver on the overall performance of the online union which complements the SERVQUAL gaps and<br />
gives strong support for decision making in case of trade-offs.<br />
By integrating the SERVQUAL model and the Kano model into the House of Quality, a strong<br />
instrument was developed to measure the performance of the online union and to provide direction<br />
for improvement sequentially to create a design that adapts to the needs of the members. Quality<br />
function deployment originally was developed for product design but nowadays becomes also<br />
important for the design process of services. By integration of the SERVQUAL and Kano model we<br />
complemented the method of quality function deployment especially for the design of online<br />
services.<br />
5.5 Recommendations for future research<br />
De Unie is planning to start a benchmark study within the first months of 2008. Due time<br />
constraints and for the already planned benchmark study of the De Unie we were not able to<br />
integrate suitable information of competitors and e-services in other areas, into our research<br />
study. As a result we could not establish the planning matrix/ competitive assessment of the<br />
House of Quality. To complement the results of the House of Quality, De Unie should<br />
incorporate the competitive assessment into the model when establishing the second house.<br />
The House of Quality is established to prove direction to De Unie for the ongoing process of<br />
improving the online union. As discussed in section 2.4 the second House will transform the<br />
technical requirements from the first House into part characteristics. By the House of Quality<br />
we identified different needs and validate a general direction of improvement. To serve the<br />
different groups available in the community of the online union it is necessary to get a<br />
deeper understanding of their specific needs and expectations. A proved method to obtain a<br />
deeper insight, and to gain knowledge about motives and values of different groups will be<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
the creation of personas. Cooper (1999) described a persona as ”a user archetype you can<br />
use to help guide decisions about product features, navigation, interactions, and even visual<br />
design. By designing for the archetype - whose goals, attitudes, and behaviour patterns are<br />
well understood - you can satisfy the broader group of people represented by that<br />
archetype”.<br />
An extensive part of the inputs for the House of Quality is provided by the management team<br />
of the online union. The input provided correlates with the subjectivity, knowledge and<br />
experience of the team members. T<strong>here</strong>fore to optimize the results for the House of Quality<br />
a cross functional team including members with different backgrounds and expertise is<br />
required (Griffin and Hauser, 1993). As the online union merely started as an experiment of<br />
De Unie, nowadays the management team of the online union consists of three people.<br />
Incorporating more team members would increase the subjectivity, knowledge, experience<br />
and understanding of the management team. Hence, it will improve the validity of the<br />
outcomes for the House of Quality.<br />
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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
75<br />
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Web sites visited:<br />
www.internetvakbond.nl<br />
The official website of De Unie’s online union and subject of this research study.<br />
www.unie.nl<br />
The official website of labor union De Unie.<br />
www.geocities.com/unionsonline<br />
The most known website for information about online unionism.<br />
www.geocities.com/e_collectivism/<br />
Website offers space for discussion and debate about collective activism, organizing and<br />
action through electronic means<br />
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Appendix 1: Survey Data<br />
1.1 Expectation vs. Perceptions<br />
Custom-made services<br />
Members in the same position<br />
Involvement third parties<br />
Opportunity of virtual meetings<br />
Interaction between members<br />
Perception of safety and protection<br />
Reliability and quality of services<br />
Good online facilities<br />
Interaction between union and …<br />
Professional presentation<br />
Recognizing the needs of members<br />
Accessibility of information<br />
Reliability of information<br />
Member involvement on development<br />
Opportunity of physical meetings<br />
Perception of solidarity<br />
Up-to-date information<br />
Offering relevant information<br />
Intelligibility objectives and services<br />
Good representation of interests<br />
Offering effective support<br />
Influence of online union<br />
0,00 1,00 2,00 3,00 4,00 5,00<br />
81<br />
Average Expectation<br />
Average Perception
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Appendix 2: Independent correlations<br />
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Appendix 3<br />
3.1 Kano matrix<br />
Functional<br />
Dat stel ik<br />
op prijs<br />
Ik verwacht<br />
niet anders<br />
Neutraal<br />
Vervelend, maar<br />
ik kan er mee<br />
leven<br />
Vervelend en<br />
onacceptabel<br />
Questionanble Attractive Attractive Attractive<br />
84<br />
One<br />
Dimensional<br />
Reverse Indifferent Indifferent Indifferent Must be<br />
Reverse Indifferent Indifferent Indifferent Must be<br />
Reverse Indifferent Indifferent Indifferent Must be<br />
Reverse Reverse Reverse Reverse Questionable<br />
Dat stel ik<br />
op prijs<br />
Ik verwacht<br />
niet anders<br />
Neutraal Vervelend, maar<br />
ik kan ermee<br />
leven<br />
Dysfunctional<br />
Vervelend en<br />
onacceptabel
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Appendix 4: Case description De Unie<br />
Summary Case Description De Unie<br />
History<br />
The First labor unions in the Netherlands were raised between 1860 and 1870. The growth of the<br />
industrialization had significant impact on society. The working conditions were bad, child<br />
employment was a normal fact, workdays were very long and the position of employees was very<br />
weak. De Unie is established from several mergers between different independent unions of<br />
different sizes. De Unie BLHP was founded in 1972 and in 1995 the name of the organization was<br />
changed in the current name; De Unie.<br />
Mission and strategy<br />
De Unie has set herself the following target: in a world of life and work w<strong>here</strong> everyone is constantly<br />
faced with fresh choices, to set out together and to find realistic solutions to individual needs and<br />
matters relating to work, income and personal development. De Unie attaches great importance to<br />
carefully handle the interests of society and those of members, staff and stakeholders, in line with<br />
her focus on socially responsible entrepreneurship.<br />
Profile<br />
With members employed in the industrial, service and health care sectors, De Unie is a modern,<br />
independent trade union that goes for custom-made solutions. De Unie is a typical network<br />
organization and contributed to over 300 collective agreements and represents the shared interests<br />
of employees in mergers and reorganizations but also member’s individual interests in the areas of<br />
work, income and personal development. De Unie mainly targets on professionals and are well<br />
represented among middle and senior management. The total number of members nowadays is over<br />
97.000.<br />
According to other labor unions, De Unie distinguishes itself by providing personal support based on<br />
in-depth understanding of businesses and collective agreements. In the area of income, De Unie<br />
provides individual members with advice in particular on taxation, pensions and social security, but<br />
she also handles queries about other matters relating to income.<br />
In addition to the basic products and services of a labor union, De Unie offers her members other<br />
products and services under labels such as UnieReizen (travel) and Member Benefits (financial<br />
advice, insurance and mortgages). In order to create a network of partnerships De Unie works<br />
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together with partners who share the philosophy of socially responsible entrepreneurship.<br />
From the above described profile we can conclude that De Unie aims to be a trade union that helps<br />
its members to develop their personal strengths.<br />
Environment<br />
The Netherlands has got three trade union confederations: the FNV (Federation of Dutch Trade<br />
Unions), the CNV (National Federation of Christian Trade Unions) and the MHP (Trade Union<br />
Confederation for Middle and Senior Management). De Unie is, via the union of independent trade<br />
organizations, a member of the MHP. De Unie is aware of the fact that we live in a global society.<br />
Unions should meet the challenges this brings along. T<strong>here</strong>fore De Unie is affiliated to Union<br />
Network International [UNI], the European Metalworkers Federation [EMF], the International<br />
Metalworkers Federation [IMF] and the International Travel workers Federation [ITF].<br />
Organizational structure<br />
From eight regional offices throughout the Netherlands, union officials, lawyers and secretaries keep<br />
in direct contact with the members of De Unie. The management and service departments are<br />
located at the head office “Unieplaza” in Culemborg. At this moment 220 employees work for De<br />
Unie. The head office, Unieplaza, has opened her doors in 2003 and has got a deeper function<br />
instead of just a building. This Unieplaza acts as a metaphor for De Unie as it stands for transparency<br />
and transformation and t<strong>here</strong>fore represents the character and culture of the organization.<br />
Culture<br />
The culture of De Unie can be best described as an open culture with a high level of collegiality and<br />
an open way of communication. The relationship between the employees and the management team<br />
is not that open as it is between the employees. T<strong>here</strong> is a high level of top-down decisions that<br />
result in some resistance and “fear” from the employees to the management team. Another<br />
important issue might be that the chosen policy and direction of the management team is not clear<br />
and policies are not always good understood by everyone. The communication between employees<br />
and the management team can be described as more formal. The management team is settled in the<br />
head office of De Unie in Culemborg and from this fact regional offices have a certain resistance to<br />
the “head office” as to their opinion this represents the management.<br />
Internal and external trigger<br />
An internal trigger for De Unie is that the current organizational structure is used for about twenty<br />
five years now. The organizational structure is region bounded (eight region offices and one head<br />
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office) which does not fit with the current situation in our society. The structure will have to be<br />
changed into a project or sector-based structure in order to go deeper into the core businesses.<br />
De Unie is aware of the change in society and in the way work is going to change in the future. One of<br />
the issues mentioned by all interviewed employees is the change from “industrial employment” to<br />
“knowledge employment”. Although management of De Unie is aware of this change, they realize<br />
that the organization in general still acts as a traditional labor union. Another very important external<br />
trigger is the fact that the traditional market of De Unie is shrinking. The number of members is not<br />
growing anymore; in fact it is going down for about ten years now.<br />
Process<br />
The head office Unieplaza is facilitated with flexible workplaces at all departments. People can<br />
choose to work in cocoons for effective meetings, concentration rooms and flexible workplaces<br />
between colleagues. Secondly working at home is already a common fact at De Unie. A lot of<br />
employees, when possible in their function, work one day a week at home. Employees are satisfied<br />
about the offered hard- and software which makes remote-working possible.<br />
Although t<strong>here</strong> might be some resistance to decisions made by the management, the adoption level<br />
of new technologies is perceived to be high.<br />
New concepts<br />
De Unie is the first labor union in the Netherlands that started with a labor union on the internet; the<br />
online union (www.internetvakbond.nl). One of the differences with a labor union in the traditional<br />
environment concerns the price of a membership. For the traditional labor union a standard price is<br />
set, w<strong>here</strong>as for the online union members pay a small standard price for which they can get help for<br />
one question. After this, members will have to pay for each request separately.<br />
In line with the concept of the online union is the concept of www.ruziemetdebaas.nl. This site acts<br />
as a sort of platform to discuss (starting) conflicts with the boss. The site is free to access for<br />
everyone. Main goal is to give people a deeper understanding about the conflict itself, their position<br />
in this conflict, and off course possible solutions. Another new and unique concept, applicable on the<br />
site of the online union, is the Medstick. The Medstick is a completely electronic mobile medical<br />
database (USB stick) with the same size as a normal credit card. The Medstick consists all the medical<br />
information of the owner of the stick. This concept is perfectly in line with the mission of De Unie to<br />
find realistic solutions to individual needs and matters relating to work, income and personal<br />
development.<br />
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Appendix 5: Interviews employees’ online labor union.<br />
5.1 List of interviewed employees<br />
Date / Time<br />
21-09-2007<br />
13.00 – 14.00<br />
20-09-2007<br />
14.00 – 15.00<br />
20-09-2007<br />
15.15-17.15<br />
5.2 Questions<br />
Introductie<br />
Departement<br />
Policies and<br />
expertise<br />
Online labour<br />
union<br />
General<br />
Management<br />
Location<br />
Unieplaza,<br />
Culemborg<br />
Unieplaza,<br />
Culemborg<br />
Unieplaza,<br />
Culemborg<br />
88<br />
Name<br />
Function<br />
Licisca Kruse Policy manager<br />
Online union<br />
Bart Willems Project manager<br />
Online union<br />
Jacques Teuwen Chairman De Unie<br />
- Mijzelf introduceren, doel interview aangeven (Onderzoek naar de behoeften van de leden<br />
door middel van QFD, dit interview is bedoeld om verwachtingen binnen de Unie te<br />
kwalificeren, in het bijzonder met betrekking tot het huidige beleid, kennis overdracht en<br />
mogelijkheden binnen De Unie te kwalificeren)<br />
- Wie is de geïnterviewde (functie,kennis internetvakbond, opleiding en ervaring)<br />
Algemeen<br />
- Wat is de achtergrond van de internetvakbond, wat zijn de beweegredenen geweest om<br />
hiermee te starten en wat denk je dat het doel is?<br />
- Waar bestaat het huidige aanbod van de internetvakbond uit?<br />
- Wat is de huidige status van de internetvakbond, in termen van acceptatie?<br />
Inrichting internetvakbond<br />
- Wordt de internetvakbond centraal of decentraal (vanuit regio’s) aangestuurd in termen van<br />
IT en vakbondmedewerkers?<br />
- Zijn er behalve de leden en De Unie nog andere partijen die participeren binnen de<br />
internetvakbond en hoe worden deze partijen bij de ontwikkeling van de internetvakbond<br />
betrokken?
A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators<br />
Ledenbestand<br />
- Wie is/zijn op dit moment de doelgroep(en) qua leden en is hier een verschuiving te<br />
verwachten?<br />
- Zijn er voor de bestaande traditionele leden van vakbond De Unie ook voordelen aan de<br />
internetvakbond?<br />
- Wat is een kritiek voordeel voor potentiële leden om voor de internetvakbond te kiezen ipv<br />
de traditionele vakbond?<br />
- Hoe worden de huidige leden van de internetvakbond betrokken bij de ontwikkeling van de<br />
internetvakbond?<br />
- Hoe denk je dat het gevoel van verbondenheid is bij de leden van de internetvakbond?<br />
Behoeften leden<br />
- Wat is volgens jullie de Top 5 van verwachtingen van leden van de internetvakbond?<br />
- In hoeverre voldoet de internetvakbond aan deze behoeften verwachtingen?<br />
- Hoe zou deze top 5 er volgens jullie in de nabije toekomst uit zien, zou deze gelijk blijven?<br />
Welke verschuivingen zou je verwachten?<br />
Verschillen t.o.v. traditionele vakbond<br />
- Wat zijn de belangrijkste verschillen met de traditionele vakbond?<br />
- Hoe worden deze verschillen naar de buitenwereld gecommuniceerd?<br />
- Wat is de invloed van de internetvakbond op de relatie met leden en hoe verschilt deze met<br />
Toekomst<br />
Overig<br />
relaties met leden in de traditionele omgeving?<br />
- Er zijn duidelijke verschuivingen zichtbaar op het gebied van werk, zie ons onderzoek, wat<br />
zou in jou ogen de mogelijke impact hiervan kunnen zijn voor de internetvakbond in termen<br />
van vraag en aanbod?<br />
- Wat zijn in jou/jullie ogen (mogelijke) verbeterpunten van de internetvakbond en wat<br />
zouden deze verbeteringen op kunnen gaan leveren?<br />
- Welke meerwaarde heeft de internetvakbond in jou ogen?<br />
- Einde van het interview, zijn er nog zaken met betrekking tot de internetvakbond die niet<br />
behandeld zijn in dit interview en volgens jou toch van belang zijn?<br />
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5.3 Conclusions interviews with employees<br />
General<br />
In the year 2006 De Unie started the first online union in the Netherlands. The foundation of the<br />
online union is based on the actuality of a decreasing number of “traditional” members of De Unie. In<br />
fact the size of the member population is decreasing for almost ten years. It must be stated that De<br />
Unie is not the only labor union with a decreasing number of members; all labor unions in the<br />
Netherlands, and even abroad, are facing this tendency.<br />
The different labor unions in the Netherlands are developing new concepts in order to reach a<br />
younger population of members like students or starters. De Unie differentiates from this by not only<br />
focusing on young members but also on the “New type of worker”. These new type of workers have<br />
got a high affinity with digital environments and use IT as an enabler of work and are more<br />
individualistic in terms of searching and gathering information and knowledge. De Unie is aware of<br />
the fact that we live in a global society and that t<strong>here</strong> is a change in the field of work and in the use<br />
and usefulness of new media types. From this perspective the online labor union is used as a kind of<br />
experience to determine how De Unie can become a useful “partner” for these new type of workers.<br />
The objective for the online union is not only to stop the decrease of members but moreover to<br />
create, as a labor union, added value for this new generation of workers. An important aspect for<br />
achieving this goal is to get a well understanding on how to manage relationships within this virtual<br />
environment. At this moment De Unie is trying to discover how they can combine different parties of<br />
their network in order to facilitate an environment that provides knowledge and information which<br />
fits with the needs of this new type of workers and t<strong>here</strong>fore will become a valuable source.<br />
At this moment the online labor union offers mainly three types of services:<br />
- Shared promotion of members interests<br />
- First line support to employer related subjects by union experts<br />
- Different platforms like “conflicts with your employer”, “My core competences” and an<br />
online internship database.<br />
The online union is organized around a fully centralized structure. The IT-applications and the<br />
management team are located in Unieplaza, Culemborg. Of course, the union experts who attend to<br />
the questions of the members are also located in some of the eight region offices. Because questions<br />
are answered by the same employees for the traditional union as for the online union, the quality of<br />
the services provided by the online union is stated to be the same as for the traditional union.<br />
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Communication about the online union to the outside is based on free publicity through<br />
communication channels of De Unie itself like the internet site of the “traditional” Unie, newsletters,<br />
magazines etc. In the near future De Unie will focus on communication options on the internet, for<br />
example search engines or cooperation with other communities.<br />
As mentioned above, the online union started in 2006. The spin off resulted in almost 2500<br />
members. Due to the absence of a formulated strategy and communication plan it is difficult to<br />
retain these members. As a result the number of members of the online union is already decreased<br />
to +/- 2000. In terms of acceptation, all interviewed persons agreed that t<strong>here</strong> is an already a certain<br />
level of acceptation of the online labor union. This acceptation is still insufficient due to the fact that<br />
the online labor union is still not completely developed and is still unknown for most people. At the<br />
moment it is unclear which sectors are most present in the member population; different sectors are<br />
represented.<br />
Critical advantage of the online union above the traditional union is the customized identity of the<br />
online union. The contribution price for the online union is stated at 10 euro for a one year<br />
membership including one possibility to ask information of a union expert. After this, members will<br />
have to pay for each question separately. For the traditional union the contribution price is stated at<br />
15 euro a month without knowing which services you will use. A member of the online union pays for<br />
what he needs.<br />
The participation of the recent members is sufficient. For example members have the possibility to<br />
actively participate in the decision process for their shared promotion of interests. This works out to<br />
be a prosperous element of the online union. The participation of members on the development of<br />
the online labor union is very small. At the start of the online union members had the possibility to<br />
participate as an ambassador to assist in the development process. Unfortunately De Unie never<br />
looked at these advices and decided to stop with this ambassador function.<br />
Interviewed employees perceive the members feeling of solidarity to De Unie as low. This is mainly<br />
due to the absence of “follow up actions”. At this moment t<strong>here</strong> is only a monthly newsletter. In the<br />
future this feeling of solidarity will have to grow as a result of more involvement of the members in<br />
the development of the online union. One possibility to achieve this is to set up different forums in a<br />
way like the Hyves network works.<br />
At this moment t<strong>here</strong> are not many other organizations participating in the online union. One<br />
organization that participates is Stageplaza. The current platform for internships is facilitated in<br />
cooperation with Stageplaza. In the future other organizations that will link their network to the<br />
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network of De Unie are expected to join the online labor union. The plan is to set up different forums<br />
w<strong>here</strong> people can get in contact with each other. From this the aspect of relationship management<br />
shows up again.<br />
Interviewed employees were asked of what they think are the most important needs of the<br />
members. The answered needs are mentioned below:<br />
- The need of appropriate information; w<strong>here</strong> and how easily can I find the information I need.<br />
- Networks; which party be important for me and for which issue can I use this person.<br />
- First line assistance to employer related issues.<br />
- Interaction with other members who are in the same sector/position<br />
- Feeling of solidarity<br />
When looking on the needs mentioned above, the interviewed employees conclude that the first line<br />
assistance to employer related issues works well. But the online union is not developed enough to<br />
fulfill the other needs. For example the interaction aspect on the site is very small, only the Hyves<br />
site of the labor union offers members the possibility to interact with each other although the use of<br />
this possibility is minimal. Another example related to the network-need is the start of the internship<br />
database. Overall we can conclude that for this moment, the online union works presents itself as<br />
the traditional union in a new appearance. For the near future, a shift in the needs is not expected<br />
but they will definitely become stronger.<br />
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Appendix 6: Interviews with members online labor union.<br />
6.1 List of interviewed members<br />
Date / Time<br />
24-09-2007<br />
9.00-9.45<br />
24-09-2007<br />
10.00-10.45<br />
24-09-2007<br />
11.00-11.45<br />
24-09-2007<br />
13.00-14.45<br />
24-09-2007<br />
Department<br />
Policies and<br />
Expertise<br />
Policies and<br />
Expertise<br />
Policies and<br />
Expertise<br />
Location<br />
Unieplaza,<br />
Culemborg<br />
Unieplaza,<br />
Culemborg<br />
Unieplaza,<br />
Culemborg<br />
Region Office Mid Unieplaza,<br />
Culemborg<br />
Section Chairmen Unieplaza,<br />
Culemborg<br />
93<br />
Name<br />
Function<br />
Ewald van de Sark Labour counsellor<br />
Sjerp Holterman Head department<br />
policies and<br />
expertise<br />
Peter Kersten Staff member<br />
Reward systems<br />
Jos Drogen Statesman<br />
Wim Brouwer Operating group<br />
chairman<br />
15.00-15.45<br />
25-09-2007 Section Chairmen Telephone Gerwin van de Lei Operating group<br />
13.00-14.00<br />
meeting<br />
chairman<br />
Reserve Reserve Reserve Susan Mogony Reserve<br />
6.2 Questions<br />
Introductie<br />
- Mijzelf introduceren (onderzoek naar de behoeften van leden van de internetvakbond door<br />
middel van QFD; dit interview is bedoeld om verwachtingen en huidig beeld van leden t.a.v.<br />
de internetvakbond te kwalificeren.<br />
- Wie zit er voor mij (functie; sinds wanneer lid, kennis internetvakbond)<br />
Algemeen<br />
- Hoe werd je geattendeerd op het bestaan van de internetvakbond (bijv. via bestaande<br />
communicatie kanalen van De Unie, op internet gevonden, via vrienden etc.)<br />
- Heb jij zelf mensen geattendeerd op het bestaan van de internetvakbond en de<br />
mogelijkheden die deze dienst aanbied?
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- Kun je specifiek aangeven waarom jij gekozen hebt om lid te worden?<br />
- Wie zijn in jou ogen de doelgroep(en) van de internetvakbond?<br />
Verschillen internetvakbond vs. traditionele vakbond<br />
- Kun je aangeven wat in jou ogen het verschil is tussen de internetvakbond en de traditionele<br />
vakbond?<br />
- Wat is voor jou een kritiek voordeel van de internetvakbond ten opzichte van de traditionele<br />
vakbond?<br />
- Is er voor jou ook een belangrijk nadeel van de internetvakbond en de traditionele vakbond?<br />
Verwachtingen leden<br />
- Wat waren je verwachtingen van de internetvakbond ten aanzien van de diensten/ services<br />
die zij aanbieden?<br />
- In hoeverre voldoet de internetvakbond aan deze verwachtingen?<br />
- Welke meerwaarde heeft de internetvakbond voor jou?<br />
- Wat zijn in jou ogen (mogelijke) verbeterpunten van de internetvakbond?<br />
Betrokkenheid<br />
- Een vakbond, en zeker De Unie, wil leden een gevoel van verbondenheid geven. In hoeverre<br />
is dat gevoel van verbondenheid bij jou als lid van de internetvakbond aanwezig, en kun je<br />
uitleggen waar dat gevoel op gebaseerd is?<br />
- Hoe wordt je als lid betrokken bij de ontwikkeling van de internetvakbond?<br />
- Heb je zelf weleens gebruik gemaakt van een van de diensten van de internetvakbond? Zo ja,<br />
Uitstraling<br />
Overig<br />
beschrijf je ervaringen?<br />
- Heb je het gevoel dat de internetvakbond dezelfde kwaliteit en professionaliteit aanbiedt als<br />
de traditionele vakbond De Unie?<br />
- Als je specifiek kijkt naar de website van de internetvakbond, straalt de internetvakbond dan<br />
dezelfde kwaliteit en professionaliteit uit als de traditionele vakbond De Unie?<br />
- Einde van het interview, zijn er nog zaken met betrekking tot de internetvakbond die niet<br />
behandeld zijn in dit interview en volgens jou toch van belang zijn?<br />
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6.3 Conclusions interviews with members.<br />
Interviewed members were mainly attended to the online union through communication channels of<br />
De Unie. Attention was created on the website of De Unie and by newsletters provided by De Unie.<br />
Two interviewed members mentioned posters and the free publicity in for example papers at the<br />
introduction period of the online union. Nowadays advertisements of the online union are only<br />
noticed on the website of De Unie. Four out of six interviewed members attended relatives on the<br />
online labor union which resulted in a couple of new memberships. The other two interviewed<br />
members also attended other people, but from a professional perspective as they are employees of<br />
De Unie.<br />
People were asked to mention a specific reason why they chose to join the online union. The most<br />
frequently answered reason was the price members have to pay for a membership of the online<br />
labor union in contrast with the price of a traditional membership. This price offers members the<br />
possibility to be represented for their shared interests and to profit from customized services for a<br />
relative small price.<br />
According to the interviewed members, the target group of the online union are younger people who<br />
are at the starting point of their career (young professionals) or at the end of their professional or<br />
academic study. Two interviewed members noticed that the online union is not only focusing on<br />
young employees or students. They mentioned that the concept of the online union, to their opinion,<br />
is suitable for people who crave for the safety of shared promotions of interest and on the other<br />
hand are looking for the comfort of custom made services.<br />
In line with the answers of the interviewed employees in Appendix 5.3, the interviewed members<br />
defined the same differences between the online union and the traditional union. From a consumer<br />
perspective, first of all the price of a membership indicates a significant difference. Secondly, all<br />
interviewed members mentioned the difference in concept; the traditional union works from a<br />
supply perspective (standard package of services) as the online union works from a demand<br />
perspective (custom made services). From these answers we might conclude that the concept of the<br />
online labor union is clear to the members, but it is important to mention that these answers might<br />
be biased by the fact that all interviewed members are employees of De Unie.<br />
Member’s opinions about the presentation of the site of the online union are divided. Half of the<br />
interviewed members perceive the site to have a professional performance, the other members<br />
think that the site does not look professional and looks a little out dated. Although t<strong>here</strong> are<br />
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different opinions about the professional looks of the site, all members perceive the quality of the<br />
online union is equal to the traditional union and according to them the site looks trustworthy.<br />
An important aspect of the interviews with members of the online union was to identify member’s<br />
expectations and to what extent these expectations are fulfilled by the current online union. Each<br />
aspect mentioned will be discussed below:<br />
Easy accessible Information:<br />
Members of the online union expect to find useful information in an easy and quick way. The online<br />
union should provide a sort of “database” with relevant information divided in for example sector<br />
categories. Members perceive the amount of information which is relevant and useful for them as<br />
low. The online union consist no judicial work-related information in an easy accessible context.<br />
Up to date information:<br />
It is important for members that the information that is offered by the online union is highly up to<br />
date. People expect <strong>here</strong> to find the most recent information about relevant work related issues. At<br />
this moment members perceive the online union not as a medium that can provide them the latest<br />
relevant information. The site is not updated very often and consists no or very few recent facts.<br />
Interaction:<br />
The aspect of interaction can be divided into two categories; first of all t<strong>here</strong> can be interaction<br />
between the online union and its members. Members expect for example to be informed by<br />
(personalized) newsletters, interaction about the development of the online union and some of the<br />
interviewed members favor more personal contact when they have made a request. At this moment<br />
newsletters are not personalized and appear on a monthly base. Members of the online union are<br />
not involved in the development process, although at the start a platform of ambassadors was<br />
founded. Unfortunately the online union never used this possibility.<br />
Secondly, members expect that t<strong>here</strong> are possibilities to interact with people who are in equal<br />
situations or who can be useful for them in a particular way. This type of interaction is not available<br />
on the online union. In a certain way it is possible to interact with people in the same situation on the<br />
online platform www.ruziemetdebaas.nl, but this platform only contains information about conflicts<br />
between employer and employee. Not only interaction with people is preferred, also with third party<br />
organizations which can be valuable for the members. For example insurance companies, retirement<br />
fund organizations or the upcoming internship database which is launched in cooperation of<br />
Stageplaza.<br />
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The above described aspects of interaction with other members focuses only on virtual aspects. Two<br />
interviewed members noticed the absence of physical meetings. “When organizing an event to bring<br />
people together who for example work in the same sector, will probably increase the feeling to<br />
belong to a certain group”.<br />
Solidarity<br />
In line with the quote above; one of the reasons for people to join a union is the feeling of solidarity<br />
provided by a union. This feeling of solidarity originates from the fact that members join a union for<br />
more or less the same reasons. The feeling of solidarity with the online union can be classified as<br />
small. This is mainly caused by the absence of face-to-face contact between the online union and her<br />
members but is also affected by the nonexistence of virtual and physical interaction possibilities<br />
between members.<br />
Safety<br />
People join the online union to have the certainty that their common interests are represented and<br />
promoted in an effective way. Interviewed members mentioned that due to the broad variety of<br />
subjects handled by the online union t<strong>here</strong> is an increase in uncertainty about a well representation<br />
of their common interests. Some members consider the influence of the online union to be relative<br />
small in comparison to the traditional union.<br />
First-line support<br />
Affective and adequate support to work related issues is expected by members of the online union.<br />
Members expect quick response on questions. It was mentioned that for some questions a database<br />
on the site would be enough. People can find the answer/ solution by themselves without the need<br />
of support by an expert.<br />
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Appendix 7: Survey Internetvakbond De Unie<br />
Introductie<br />
Welkom!<br />
De wereld van werk is aan het veranderen en hierdoor ook de behoeften van de werknemers. Om<br />
haar leden goed van dienst te kunnen zijn dient een vakbond in te spelen op deze veranderingen.<br />
Daarom heeft vakbond De Unie ruim een jaar geleden een nieuwe service opgericht; de<br />
Internetvakbond.<br />
Deze vragenlijst is opgesteld om te onderzoeken welke verwachtingen er onder leden heersen ten<br />
opzichte van de internetvakbond en hoe de internetvakbond op deze behoeften kan inspelen.<br />
Het invullen van deze vragenlijst is van groot belang; de internetvakbond kan hierdoor beter<br />
ingericht worden naar de behoeften van haar leden en kan jou hierdoor beter van dienst zijn.<br />
Dit onderzoek maakt deel uit van een onderzoek dat is opgezet door Microsoft Nederland in<br />
samenwerking met de RSM <strong>Erasmus</strong> <strong>Universiteit</strong> <strong>Rotterdam</strong>. Vakbond De Unie participeert ook<br />
binnen dit onderzoek naar de invloed van informatie technologieën op de manier hoe wij ons werk<br />
inrichten.<br />
Begin bij het invullen van deze vragenlijst met het opgeven van je e-mailadres, dit om te waarborgen<br />
dat jou antwoorden uniek zijn. Je e-mailadres zal niet voor andere doeleinden gebruikt worden en zal<br />
niet aan derden verstrekt worden.<br />
Het invullen van deze vragenlijst neemt ongeveer 10 minuten tijd in beslag.<br />
Deze vragenlijst bestaat uit vier verschillende delen. In elk deel worden verschillende aspecten<br />
gemeten.<br />
Deel I: Percepties van karakteristieken van een vakbond<br />
Deel II: Gevoelens bij aanwezigheid van verschillende karakteristieken<br />
Deel III: Gevoelens bij het ontbreken van verschillende karakteristieken<br />
Deel IV: Algemene en demografische gegevens<br />
Bedankt voor je deelname!<br />
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DEEL I<br />
Dit eerste deel van de survey gaat over verschillende karakteristieken van een vakbond. We willen je<br />
vragen om telkens aan te geven:<br />
- In hoeverre jij vindt dat een vakbond over een bepaalde karakteristiek moet beschikken.<br />
- In hoeverre de internet vakbond aan deze karakteristiek voldoet.<br />
De verschillende karakteristieken zijn geclusterd in de volgende groepen: informatie, interactie,<br />
verbondenheid, veiligheid en gebruik.<br />
Information (Volledig mee oneens – Volledig mee eens)<br />
1.1 – De informatie die een vakbond aanbiedt dient actueel te zijn.<br />
1.2 – De internetvakbond biedt actuele informatie aan.<br />
1.3 – Van een vakbond mag verwacht worden dat de informatie die zij aanbiedt betrouwbaar is.<br />
1.4 – De internetvakbond biedt betrouwbare informatie aan.<br />
1.5 – Een vakbond dient haar leden te informeren wanneer zij specifieke beroepsgerelateerde<br />
informatie voor hen heeft.<br />
1.6 – De internetvakbond informeert haar leden wanneer zij specifieke beroepsgerelateerde<br />
informatie voor hen heeft.<br />
Interaction (Volledig mee oneens – Volledig mee eens)<br />
2.1 – Van een vakbond mag verwacht worden dat zij haar leden actief betrekt bij de ontwikkeling van<br />
de vakbond.<br />
2.2 – De internetvakbond betrekt haar leden actief bij het ontwikkelen van de internetvakbond.<br />
2.3 – Een vakbond dient te voorzien in interactie tussen de vakbond en haar leden.<br />
2.4 – De internetvakbond voorziet in interactie tussen de vakbond en haar leden.<br />
2.5 – Een vakbond dient interactie mogelijk te maken tussen leden onderling.<br />
2.6 – De internetvakbond maakt interactie mogelijk tussen haar leden.<br />
2.7 – Om een zo volledig mogelijk pakket aan diensten te bieden dient een vakbond derde partijen<br />
zoals bijvoorbeeld pensioenfondsen, verzekeringen of stagebanken bij de vakbond te betrekken.<br />
2.8 – De internetvakbond betrekt derde partijen zoals bijvoorbeeld pensioenfondsen, verzekeringen<br />
of stagebanken in haar aanbod.<br />
2.9 – Het is realistisch om te stellen dat een vakbond begrijpt wat de behoeften van haar leden zijn.<br />
2.10 – De internetvakbond begrijpt wat de behoeften van haar leden zijn.<br />
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Solidarity (Volledig mee oneens – Volledig mee eens)<br />
3.1 – Een vakbond moet een gevoel van verbondenheid naar haar leden uitstralen.<br />
3.2 – De internetvakbond straalt een gevoel van verbondenheid uit naar haar leden.<br />
3.3 – Fysieke ontmoetingen met andere leden dragen bij aan een gevoel van verbondenheid.<br />
3.4 – De internetvakbond maakt fysieke ontmoetingen met andere leden mogelijk<br />
3.5 – Virtuele ontmoetingen met andere leden dragen bij aan een gevoel van verbondenheid.<br />
3.6 – De internetvakbond maakt virtuele ontmoetingen met andere leden mogelijk.<br />
3.7 – Binnen een vakbond vindt men leden die in dezelfde positie verkeren (gelijkgestemden).<br />
3.8 – Binnen de internetvakbond vind men leden die in dezelfde positie verkeren (gelijkgestemden).<br />
Safety (Volledig mee oneens – Volledig mee eens)<br />
4.1 – Een vakbond zorgt voor een goede belangenbehartiging van haar leden.<br />
4.2 – De internetvakbond zorgt voor een goede belangenbehartiging van haar leden.<br />
4.3 – Een vakbond geeft haar leden een gevoel van zekerheid en geborgenheid.<br />
4.4 – De internetvakbond geeft een gevoel van zekerheid en geborgenheid.<br />
4.5 – Een vakbond kan in voldoende mate invloed uitoefenen bij bijvoorbeeld Cao-onderhandelingen<br />
4.6 – De internetvakbond kan in voldoende mate invloed uitoefenen bij bijvoorbeeld Caoonderhandelingen.<br />
4.7 – Een vakbond geeft duidelijk aan wat haar doel is en wat voor diensten zij aanbiedt.<br />
4.8 – De internetvakbond geeft duidelijk aan wat haar doel is en wat voor diensten zij aanbiedt.<br />
4.9 – Van een vakbond mag verwacht worden dat zij adequaat hulp te biedt wanneer dat nodig is.<br />
4.10 – De internetvakbond biedt adequate hulp wanneer dat nodig is.<br />
Tangibles (Volledig mee oneens – Volledig mee eens)<br />
5.1 – Een vakbond is betrouwbaar en levert en diensten van goede kwaliteit aanbiedt .<br />
5.2 – De internetvakbond is betrouwbaar en levert en diensten van goede kwaliteit aanbiedt.<br />
5.3 – Een vakbond dient zich op een professionele manier te presenteren.<br />
5.4 – De internetvakbond presenteert zichzelf op een professionele manier.<br />
5.5 – Een vakbond dient goede online faciliteiten te hebben (denk hierbij aan de het aanbod op de<br />
site).<br />
5.6 – De internetvakbond heeft goede online faciliteiten (denk hierbij aan de het aanbod op de site).<br />
5.7 – Een vakbond dient ervoor te zorgen dat informatie snel en makkelijk toegankelijk is.<br />
5.8 – De internetvakbond biedt informatie op een snelle en makkelijk toegankelijke manier aan.<br />
5.9 - Een vakbond dient een vraaggericht aanbod aan services te bieden (betalen naar gebruik i.p.v.<br />
algemeen lidmaatschapstarief).<br />
5.10 - De internetvakbond biedt een vraaggericht aanbod aan services aan.<br />
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DEEL II<br />
In dit tweede deel van de survey vragen we je een aantal stellingen te beantwoorden. Elke stelling<br />
beschrijft een bepaalde situatie met betrekking tot een vakbond. Stel je de verschillende situaties<br />
goed voor en geef aan welke antwoordoptie het meest je gevoel bij deze situatie beschrijft.<br />
Antwoordopties:<br />
I enjoy it that way Dat stel ik op prijs.<br />
I expect it that way Ik verwacht niet anders<br />
I am neutral Neutraal<br />
I dislike it but can live with it Vervelend, maar kan er mee leven<br />
I dislike and do not accept Vervelend en onacceptabel<br />
1 – Hoe zou je het vinden wanneer jouw vakbond altijd de meest actuele informatie aanbiedt?<br />
2 – Wat vind je ervan als de informatie die jou vakbond aanbiedt betrouwbaar is?<br />
3 – Hoe zou je het vinden wanneer jouw vakbond je informeert wanneer zij specifieke<br />
beroepsgerelateerde informatie voor je heeft?<br />
4 – Wat vind je ervan waneer jouw vakbond jou betrekt bij de ontwikkeling van de vakbond?<br />
5 – Hoe zou je het vinden als er mogelijkheden tot interactie zijn tussen de vakbond en haar leden?<br />
6 – Hoe zou je het vinden als er mogelijkheden tot interactie zijn tussen de leden van jou vakbond<br />
onderling?<br />
7 – Wat vind je ervan als jouw vakbond derde partijen zoals bijvoorbeeld pensioenfondsen,<br />
verzekeringsmaatschappijen en stagebanken?<br />
8 – Hoe zou je het vinden wanneer jouw vakbond goede kennis heeft van de behoeften van haar<br />
leden?<br />
9 – Hoe zou je het vinden als jouw vakbond een gevoel van verbondenheid uitstraalt?<br />
10 – Hoe zou je het vinden als jou vakbond fysieke ontmoetingen met andere leden mogelijk maakt<br />
(bijv. d.m.v. een evenement) om het gevoel van verbondenheid/ saamhorigheid te stimuleren.<br />
11 – Hoe zou je het vinden als jou vakbond virtuele ontmoetingen met andere leden mogelijk maakt<br />
(bijv. d.m.v. forums) om het gevoel van verbondenheid/ saamhorigheid te stimuleren<br />
12 – Hoe zou je het vinden als je binnen jou vakbond leden tegenkomt die in dezelfde positie als jou<br />
zitten (gelijkgestemden)?<br />
13 – Wat vind je ervan als jouw vakbond zorg draagt voor een goede belangenbehartiging?<br />
14 – Wat vind je ervan als jouw vakbond zorgt voor een gevoel van zekerheid en geborgenheid?<br />
15 – Wat vind je ervan als jouw vakbond in voldoende mate invloed kan uitoefenen op bijvoorbeeld<br />
Cao-onderhandelingen?<br />
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16 – Hoe zou je het vinden als jouw vakbond duidelijk aangeeft wat haar doel is en welke diensten zij<br />
aanbiedt?<br />
17 – Wat vind je ervan als jouw vakbond adequaat hulp kan bieden aan haar leden wanneer dit nodig<br />
is?<br />
18 – Hoe zou je het vinden wanneer jouw vakbond betrouwbaar is en diensten van goede kwaliteit<br />
aanbiedt?<br />
19 – Hoe zou je het vinden wanneer jouw vakbond zich op een professionele manier presenteert?<br />
20 – Hoe zou je het vinden wanneer jou vakbond over goede online faciliteiten heeft (denk hierbij<br />
bijvoorbeeld aan het aanbod op de site)?<br />
21 – Hoe zou je het vinden wanneer jouw vakbond informatie op een snelle en makkelijk<br />
toegankelijke manier aanbiedt?<br />
22 - Hoe zou je het vinden wanneer jouw vakbond een vraaggericht aanbod aan services aanbiedt?<br />
(Betalen naar gebruik i.p.v. een algemeen lidmaatschapstarief)?<br />
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DEEL III<br />
In dit deel van de survey worden je dezelfde stellingen voorgelegd als in het vorige deel. Bij de<br />
stellingen in dit deel zijn de verschillende karakteristieken echter niet aanwezig. Geef wederom aan<br />
welke antwoordoptie het meest jou gevoel bij de situatie beschrijft.<br />
Antwoordopties:<br />
I enjoy it that way Dat stel ik op prijs.<br />
I expect it that way Ik verwacht niet anders<br />
I am neutral Neutraal<br />
I dislike it but can live with it Vervelend, maar kan er mee leven<br />
I dislike and do not accept Vervelend en onacceptabel<br />
1 – Hoe zou je het vinden wanneer jouw vakbond niet altijd de meest actuele informatie aanbiedt?<br />
2 – Wat vind je ervan als de informatie die jou vakbond aanbiedt niet betrouwbaar is?<br />
3 – Hou zou je het vinden wanneer jouw vakbond jou niet informeert wanneer zij specifieke<br />
beroepsgerelateerde informatie voor je heeft?<br />
4 – Wat vind je ervan waneer jouw vakbond jou betrekt bij de ontwikkeling van de vakbond?<br />
5 – Hoe zou je het vinden als er geen mogelijkheden tot interactie zijn tussen de vakbond en haar<br />
leden?<br />
6 – Hoe zou je het vinden als er geen mogelijkheden tot interactie zijn tussen de leden van jou<br />
vakbond onderling?<br />
7 – Wat vind je ervan als jouw vakbond geen derde partijen zoals bijvoorbeeld pensioenfondsen,<br />
verzekeringsmaatschappijen en stagebanken?<br />
8 – Hoe zou je het vinden wanneer jouw vakbond geen goede kennis heeft van de behoeften van<br />
haar leden?<br />
9 – Hoe zou je het vinden als jouw vakbond niet een gevoel van verbondenheid uitstraalt?<br />
10 – Hoe zou je het vinden als jou vakbond geen fysieke ontmoetingen met andere leden mogelijk<br />
maakt (bijv. d.m.v. een evenement) om het gevoel van verbondenheid/ saamhorigheid te stimuleren.<br />
11 – Hoe zou je het vinden als jou vakbond geen virtuele ontmoetingen met andere leden mogelijk<br />
maakt (bijv. d.m.v. forums) om het gevoel van verbondenheid/ saamhorigheid te stimuleren<br />
12 – Hoe zou je het vinden als je binnen jou vakbond geen leden tegenkomt die in dezelfde positie als<br />
jou zitten (gelijkgestemden)?<br />
13 – Wat vind je ervan als jouw vakbond geen zorg draagt voor een goede belangenbehartiging?<br />
14 – Wat vind je ervan als jouw vakbond niet zorgt voor een gevoel van zekerheid en geborgenheid?<br />
15 – Wat vind je ervan als jouw vakbond in onvoldoende mate invloed kan uitoefenen op<br />
bijvoorbeeld Cao-onderhandelingen?<br />
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16 – Hoe zou je het vinden als jouw vakbond niet duidelijk aangeeft wat haar doel is en welke<br />
diensten zij aanbiedt?<br />
17 – Wat vind je ervan als jouw vakbond geen adequate hulp kan bieden aan haar leden wanneer dit<br />
nodig is?<br />
18 – Hoe zou je het vinden wanneer jouw vakbond niet betrouwbaar is en garant kan staan voor een<br />
goede kwaliteit van haar diensten?<br />
19 – Hoe zou je het vinden wanneer jouw vakbond zich niet op een professionele manier<br />
presenteert?<br />
20 – Hoe zou je het vinden wanneer jou vakbond niet over goede online faciliteiten heeft (denk<br />
hierbij bijvoorbeeld aan het aanbod op de site)?<br />
21 – Hoe zou je het vinden wanneer jouw vakbond informatie niet op een snelle en makkelijk<br />
toegankelijke manier aanbiedt?<br />
22 - Hoe zou je het vinden wanneer jouw vakbond geen vraaggericht aanbod aan services aanbiedt?<br />
(Algemeen lidmaatschapstarief i.p.v. betalen naar gebruik)?<br />
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DEEL IV<br />
Dit is het laatste deel van de survey. In dit laatste deel willen we graag nog enkele algemene vragen<br />
stellen over de internetvakbond en enkele demografische vragen.<br />
Hoe vaak bezoek je de site van de internetvakbond?<br />
Dagelijks<br />
Een aantal keren per week<br />
Een keer per week<br />
Een aantal keren per maand<br />
Eens per maand<br />
Minder vaak<br />
Met welke reden bezoek je de site van de internetvakbond over het algemeen?<br />
Om informatie in te winnen<br />
Voor ontspanning<br />
Voor interactie met de internetvakbond<br />
Voor interactie met leden<br />
Als je een cijfer mag geven aan de internetvakbond, wat voor cijfer zou je op dit moment geven op een<br />
schaal van 1-10 (1=erg slecht - 10=uitmuntend)?...........................................<br />
Voor welke organisatie ben je werkzaam? (open)……………………………………….<br />
Sector waarin uw organisatie actief is<br />
Productie<br />
Onderwijs<br />
Overheid<br />
Financiële sector<br />
Groothandel<br />
Detailhandel<br />
Gezondheidszorg<br />
Bouw<br />
Transport<br />
Verzekeringen<br />
Informatietechnologie<br />
Overige<br />
Functie<br />
Consultancy<br />
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Algemeen management<br />
Financiën, administratie<br />
Gezondheidszorg<br />
Inkoop en logistiek<br />
Juridisch<br />
Marketing, PR, reclame<br />
Onderzoek en ontwikkeling<br />
Overheid<br />
Human resources<br />
ICT<br />
Verkoop<br />
Leeftijd<br />
54<br />
Geslacht<br />
Man/ Vrouw<br />
Opleidingsniveau<br />
Professionele graad<br />
Gepromoveerd<br />
Masters (aan universiteit)<br />
Bachelors (aan HBO of universiteit)<br />
Kandidaats<br />
Universitaire opleiding, geen diploma<br />
MBO<br />
Middelbare school<br />
Overig<br />
Huishouden<br />
Alleenstaand<br />
Met partner (niet-werkend)<br />
Met partner (werkend)<br />
Overig<br />
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In welke regio woon je:<br />
Zuid-Holland, Noord-Holland<br />
Utrecht, Zeeland<br />
Noord-Brabant<br />
Limburg, Gelderland<br />
Overijssel, Flevoland<br />
Friesland, Groningen<br />
Drenthe<br />
Werkervaring<br />
Ik ben momenteel…<br />
Full time werkend<br />
Parttime werkend<br />
Niet werkend<br />
Sinds hoeveel jaar werkt u voor uw huidige werkgever? (selecteer één antwoord)<br />
0 - 0,5 jaar 3 - 5 jaar<br />
0,5 - 1 jaar 5 - 10 jaar<br />
1 - 2 jaar 10 of meer jaar<br />
Sinds hoeveel jaar werkt u in uw huidige functie?<br />
0 - 0,5 jaar<br />
0,5 - 1 jaar<br />
1 - 2 jaar<br />
3 - 5 jaar<br />
5 - 10 jaar<br />
10 of meer jaar<br />
Hoeveel verschillende functies of betrekkingen hebt u binnen uw huidige organisatie gehad?<br />
1 - 3<br />
4 - 6<br />
6 - 9<br />
10 of meer<br />
Opmerkingen<br />
We stellen eventuele opmerkingen zeer op prijs: als je nog opmerkingen hebt of vragen wilt stellen<br />
naar aanleiding van deze vragenlijst, kun je deze hier invoeren.<br />
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Appendix 8: Statistical Analyses<br />
8.1 Factor Analysis<br />
108