Effect of Total Quality Management principles on Internal Service Quality in selected Public Universities in Kenya

Abstract

In Kenya’s public universities, efforts have been made to utilize the criteria and standard of the ISO 9001:2008 as a means to achieve total quality in managing academic activities, however not much has been researched on internal service quality. The objective of this study was to dertermine the effect to which Total Quality Management Principles (TQM) on internal service quality in selected public universities in Kenya. In this study a descriptive survey design was used and the data was analysed quantitatively using descriptive and inferential statistics by use of SPSS and EVIEWS Statistical softwares. The data was gathered from Moi University (MU) and University of Eldoret (UoE) main campuses. From the target population of 199 members of Universities’ Management Board, senior administrative and academic staff, there were 190 respondents, which represented 95.4% percent of the target population. Data was collected by administration of five Likert scale questionnaire. The questionnaires were analyzed in order to establish the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable. The data is presented by use of descriptive data analysis tools which include tables for descriptive statistics and percentages. From the analysis majority of the respondents indicated that the three TQM principles of Leadership Styles, Organizational Culture and Quality Workmanship have influenced internal service quality in selected public universities to a very great extent. The regression model also revealed a positive and significant relationship between internal service quality and TQM principles of Leadership styles (p – value 0.000 < 0.05), organizational culture (p – 0.0044 < 0.05) and quality workmanship (p – 0.0017 < 0.05). The major recommendation from this research is that, public universities and other institutions of higher learning should be more critical in monitoring information relating to internal service quality as to whether they fulfil customer requirements while they implement quality management policies and meet the international standards.