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A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators ii Preface The author declares that the text and work presented in this Master thesis is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating the Master thesis. The copyright of the Master thesis rests with the author. The author is responsible for its contents. RSM Erasmus University is only responsible for the educational coaching and beyond that cannot be held responsible for the content. Ferdinand F. Kieboom Department of Marketing Management RSM Erasmus University Rotterdam November, 2007

A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators iii Foreword “The metropolis setting makes it possible and necessary for an individual to preserve his autonomy and individuality in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life” Simmel 1922 By the end of 2006, the RSM Erasmus University and Microsoft Netherlands started the research project “The New World of Work”. This research project aimed to provide insights in the changing way of working for the workforce, enabled by information and communication technology (ICT). One of the organizations that joined the research project was Dutch labor union De Unie. Each student, participating in this research investigated a single case study, from which the case study of De Unie served as my Master’s Thesis. At the start of this research project I only knew labor unions from strikes presented in the newspapers and on television, and I was wondering why a Dutch labor union would like to participate in our research project. To my opinion, labor unions were a little old-fashioned and conservative. I already knew that representative organizations were facing a decline in memberships for the past years. By the time I was wondering the above, I came to the understanding that in fact it was not strange at all for a workforce representative organization such as De Unie to participate in this research project. As labor unions are facing difficulties on the recruitment and retention of members the primary concern for unions will be to identify new concepts that adapt to the needs of the changing workforce and rejuvenate the traditional union. Fortunately, I noticed the management of De Unie to be aware of the urgency for workforce representative organizations to develop new concepts. And as a result, De Unie recently started with the first virtual union in the Netherlands. My opinion about De Unie changed; this might be a progressive organization! Traditionally, labour unions centres on maintaining the elusive balance in the group-individual member relationship. I came to the understanding that one of the forces that is changing the group- individual relationship is the growth of the internet and other ICT tools. The latter increases the speed and availability of information and turn the group-individual relationship on its head, due to the emergence of ICT-enabled individualization. For De Unie, understanding members’ needs for

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