here - ERIM - Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam

A validation Study of House of Quality key performance indicators
Chapter 5 - Conclusions, Implications and Recommendations
5.1 Synopsis
Under influence of ICT the design of work is changing from centralized to a decentralized form. This
development impacts the function and role of representative organizations such as De Unie, which
witnessed a membership decline over the past ten years. In response, De Unie has been searching
for, and experimenting with new service concepts including the online union. The online union is
seen as an appropriate tool to recruit new members and operate as a means to interact with her
members, and deliver new services that will increase the position of the organization as well as the
organization’s cash flow.
To improve the decision makers’ understanding of the demands of the members and design an
online union that adapts to the demands of the changing workforce, two approaches were applied in
this research study. First, statistical analysis aimed at determining the needs of the members and
secondly the use of the quality function deployment by integrating the needs of the members into
the House of Quality.
5.2 Central Conclusion
A validation study, i.e., an analysis of a statistically reliable sample of respondents is applied in the
present case to identify the key indicators that impact the performance of the online union.
Interpretation of the empirical results cause us to conclude that the area of “tangibles” appears to
have the most significant effects on the ongoing process of improving the online union, and
therefore, deserves the undivided attention and allocation of resources from De Unie’s management.
Our central conclusion is derived from the statistical analysis conceived by the test conducted to (1)
determine the structure of the explored attributes and 2) obtain empirical evidence of the unique
influence of each attribute on the overall performance of the online union. By exploratory research
in phase I we identified five dimension that were considered to determine the overall performance
namely; interaction, solidarity, safety, tangibles and information. Factor analysis merged the
dimensions interaction and solidarity into one dimension. Both dimensions consist of items that are
associated to each other. Therefore, and as a result of the high factor loadings and improved
reliability scores, we adopted the new structure of four dimensions. Statistical analysis provided
significant evidence for Proposition 5; tangibles will positively influence the overall performance of
the online union. Although the other dimensions all positively influence the overall performance,
multiple regression analysis did not show significant relationships. The four dimensions; tangibles,
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