Leadership with Standardized Practise in TVET Institutions: A Quality System Improvement ()
1. Introduction
Quality management systems strategic decisions help organizations to improve their overall performance and provide a strong as for sustainable development initiatives. Consistent products and services that meet the customer need as well as applicable statutory and regulatory requirements; states risk and opportunities with context and goals and the ability to demonstrate conformity to established quality management systems are sustained from the fundamental standardization practices ( Bugdol & Jedynak, 2022 ).
The International Standards ISO9000 quality management principles are based on customer focus, leadership, people engagement (employee), process approach, improvement, evidence-based decision-making, and relationship management ( Jabatan Standard Malaysia, 2017 ). There are several organizations are involved in producing standardization consultations in Malaysia. Institute Aminuddin Baki (Abbreviated IAB) is an educational management institute and Institute. Tadbiran Awam Negara (INTAN) in Malaysia enhances training toward ISO9001:2015. The second institution is the SIRIM QAS INTERNATIONAL SDN. BHD recognizes the higher education organization regardless to the 8-Clause and 10-Clause requirements.
The national education system’s aspiration is to have world-class educational features which higher education needs to develop quality citizens and highly skilled workers with new knowledge guided by National Education Philosophy and the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015-2025 (Higher Education) translates the vision into action and establishes a framework. Therefore, the implementation of the needs analysis has provided quality, relevant, and receptive Polytechnic and Community College education that accomplishes the trials of globalization, as well as fulfills the nation’s requirement for a higher-income economy.
Upon carrying out their roles, Polytechnics and Community College have established a scheme that incorporates premeditated supervision and expansion of their programs, institutions, research, training, program evaluation, and grant, student development, and ongoing staff development in line with the industry’s requisite by adhering to the Malaysia Polytechnic Standards, a documented guideline within the Ministry of Higher Education’s scope ( Department of Polytechnic Education, 2015 ) and Community College ( Blueprint, 2015 ). Following the aspiration is aligning with 17 UNESCO’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG4) aspiring, ensure an inclusive and equitable higher-quality education system ( UN, 2015 ).
In line with the quality philosophy, government agencies are advised to issue high-quality products and services that meet the quality standards in line with the corresponding quality standards with the will and expectations of customers. Thus, in 1996 the Progress Circular Public Administration No.2/1996: Guidelines for Implementing MS ISO 9000 In Public Service, in turn, published. ISO 9000 is one of the inside tools for quality management ( Pekeliling Kemajuan Pentadbiran Awam, n.d. ).
There is little evidence on the combination of study related to leadership role with such standard ISO or other related standards of the use of such standards in the education sector. The current research is conducted in finding the gap on the implementation of standardization in higher education with the involvement of leadership role. Accompanying the expansion in higher education has been the imposition of external quality assurance in order to scrutinise the organisation standard.
The paper presents how Polytechnic and Community Colleges sustains its ISO 9001 quality management system (QMS) and discusses the leadership role in the institution has addressed these issues in its quality journey. This paper empirically explores the importance of leadership role in standardization to enhance a systematic quality system.
We addressed the research question of whether
1) Do leadership play an important role to enhance standardization in the organization?
2) Is there any relationship between leadership and standardization in the quality management system?
3) Is there is a difference in managing quality systems between all three age groups among standard managing officers an One-Way Anova test?
2. Literature Review
ISO quality management system with set of standards framework benefited control and monitoring activities as effective management improvement within institutions ( Anh, Linh, Nguyen, & Duan, 2021 ).
The development and introduction of ISO standards in education with various aspects have been studied by a number of researchers, in particular: the methodology study focusing in case study strategy ( Ab Wahid, 2019 ; Ismyrlis, 2017 ; Österman & Fundin, 2014 ), action research ( Kregel, 2019 ), focus group design (FGD) limited to 15 participants ( Al-Amri, Mathew, Zubairi, & Jani, 2020 ) triangulation approaches ( Bugdol & Jedynak, 2022 ), comparative studies between ISO 9001:2015 and ISO21001 ( Timsina, 2022 ; Vorobyova et al., 2022 ) and enhances limited single department or institution. Survey research has been conducted in vocational school, primary and secondary school in identifying the relationship of ISO 9001 eight clauses accommodated with a priority degree on each 5-S principle and shown significant results with a positive relationship of ISO QMS models ( Arribas Díaz & Martínez-Mediano, 2018 ). It requires a strong commitment and effective collaboration from all levels of management in college.
Furthermore, a study on the level of awareness, effectiveness, and future use of standardised Work tools shows a mean finding (3.64) second higher rank which covers 85% in implementation in 102 industries using SPSS software may be supportive to the current research to further the finding in the education sector ( Yahya, Mohammad, Omar, Ramly, & Atan, 2019 ) with the combination of SPSS software for descriptive analysis and PLS-SEM in relationship finding.
2.1. Leadership
Top management leadership as a key driver and highlighted to trigger the success fullness of a quality initiative support implementation ( Ab Wahid, 2019 ). Leadership plays the major responsibility and illustrated in the ISO clause in establishing the quality policy, plan major activities and define goals for keeping and improving all aspects of QMS in the organization ( Arribas Díaz & Martínez-Mediano, 2018 ; Yu, To, & Lee, 2012 ). The focus groups pointed out that the standard has positive impacts on the leadership ( Gamboa & Melão, 2012 ). Leadership style adopted influence the processes of planning and control, determines the content and relations between roles, the operative procedure and the system of communication and expressed as the ability to inspire feelings of community and cooperation ( Oricchio, Zanda, Gregori, & Marinelli, 2020 ). Leaders give direction, thereby creating conditions in which workers are engaged at all levels establish the unity of purpose in achieving the organization’s quality objectives.
Various methodology for leadership commitment ( Soundararajan, Srivastava, & Chinnasamy, 2018 ) a descriptive study, systematic literature review studies ( Bouranta, Psomas, & Antony, 2020 ) and case study ( Ab Wahid, 2019 ; Anh et al., 2021 ; Gamboa & Melão, 2012 ) had been conducted. A leadership research positively associated with 1) process approach and 2) factual approach to decision making and positively associated with involvement of people in quality management ( Yu et al., 2012 ; Vorobyova et al., 2022 ). A mix method quantitative and qualitative research on leadership style toward sustaining t ( Ab Wahid, 2019 ) he quality system ISO9001:2015 shows a reliable quality system certification requires an adequate assessment of the quality of the top management of the organization ( Oricchio et al., 2020 ).
2.2. Standardization
Standardization of standard work defines as systematic process improvement or namely a single standard ( Chistnikova, 2019 ), complete consistently, timely and repeatable (knowledge-generating) ( Solaimani, Veen, Sobek, Gulyaz, & Venugopal, 2019 ), “Neo-Tayloristic Lean Office” a scientific management by Frederick Taylor ( Freitas, Freitas, Gomes de Menezes, & Odorczyk, 2018 ). Standard work may be an effective tool in equipment management system and becoming a basis for increasing performance within the manager and employee to enhance productivity, quality ( Bendermacher, Oude Egbrink, Wolfhagen, & Dolmans, 2017 ) and safety of the organization and contribute to the high level of living in the institution ( Zighan & El-Qasem, 2020 ).
Meanwhile, the first rule is standardization is the processes sequence of the activities, time execution and product specification, which eases to detect problems. The second rule is the specifies the connection and processes execution among people, which must be direct, and systematic employees and delivery to clients involvement ( Toledo, Gonzalez, Lizarelli, & Pelegrino, 2019 ). Standard frequently mention as a context of higher education assessment such as ISO14001, ISO91000, ISO21001 in Malaysia. The standard is use to make work easier, better, faster and cheaper; not to make the workplace unbearable and frustrating. To avoid entropy, stable processes must constantly be improved by staff and customer, encouraged by senior leaders.
Standardization worked with quality improvement where human factor are needed to establish the management system in the organization namely leadership, employee involvement, training and education, customer focus, teamwork, communication, supplier relations, and rewards and recognition ( Habtoor & Habtoor, 2016 ). Standardized are familiar in other industry with equipment handling procedures for high volume production by the employee with the same style of working system and sustain productivity ( Dresch, Veit, Lima, Lacerda, & Collatto, 2019 ) before its begin to introduce in the education sector. Standardized improvement procedure with quality engineering tool and application techniques are arranged in each step of the structured procedure in planning and improving product design and process ( Habidin & Yusof, 2013 ). Standardized in lean warehousing to reduce the level of return, lead time and inventory in distribution company ( Bonilla-Ramirez, Marcos-Palacios, Quiroz-Flores, Ramos-Palomino, & Alvarez-Merino, 2019 ).
Standard work reduces variation of work initial with visual management tool in six sigma and setting up a standard procedure to embark lead time within the organisation ( Antony, Krishan, Cullen, & Kumar, 2012 ). Implementation of Standardized in HEI become important and introduce in standard name such as ISO 14001, the Green Building Initiative or the EMAS Standard in other country ( Roos & Guenther, 2020 ). Standardized also declare as a guidance which establish the whole process improvement for example student project submission in the university, a very important part in declaring and smooth the accreditation process of education program in the institution by the education government body ( Al-Amri et al., 2020 ; Zighan & El-Qasem, 2020 ). Usually, these standards do not take into account the cultural differences or the surrounding social environment because there are differences practises in these standards according to the institution.
The four main categories for quality indicators are set for higher education; administrative, student support, instructional and student performance indicators for certain set standard and indicators in accreditation agency need to be established to improve the provision of higher education. The standards application mostly different from one agency to another in terms of difficulty and the methods used, leading to conflicting opinions ( Al-Amri et al., 2020 ). An audit assessment had been applied to verify the quality standards’ implementation set for the higher education institution operations for the accreditation purposes ( Bejan et al., 2015 ). The audit system develops unities of interests, objectives, and standards for the organisation’s sense of solidarity.
Anyhow, some institution facing problem because of bureaucracy, unstandardized management procedures, curriculum development, student assessment, lead to not relevant information at grass-roots level and effect the organization performance and student accreditation which affect the student future. Therefore, a consistent with the established standards is needed to improves the provision of higher education.
Setting some particular objective in transforming the administrative process ( Solaimani et al., 2019 ), work instruction, student passes rate, teaching training, feedback, each unit performance check and assessment will greatly improve the quality of teaching and learning ( Tılfarlıoğlu & Anwer, 2017 ). Thus the record keeping system and document searching problem will be reducing as well. All this objective can be sustaining with developing a very good organisation team work and fulfil the lean philosophy respect for people (RFP).
Anyhow, standardized may be establish with the combination of kaizen approach, Gemba Walk or see the real work with the employee or Management by Walking Around (MBWA) where the leader plays an important role in supporting the front liner staff ( Toledo et al., 2019 ). The lower a leader is in the organisational chart, the more frequent the coalface interfaces will be. Another tools help in standardization is 5S where the 4S pillar which cover standardized create the visual standards. It is to show the specific area of target condition, engaging the people preferably using the standards to effectively simplify the system ( Wiid, 2019 ).
However, In the session of COVID-19, standardized process still continues in some higher education environment for example engineering field in school in Madrid (Spain) used standardized work documents (labels, register lists, checklists, etc.) to facilitate the registration and subsequent analysis of all the resources involved for decision-making. Therefore, the formalisation of standardization embarks quality management system in expansion of the organisation monitoring and the potential to identify the measure for improvement ( Jiménez, Romero, Fernández, Espinosa, & Domínguez, 2020 ). Standardized procedures integrate and guarantee the safety and hygiene conditions of students, faculty members, and auxiliary service personnel due to the demands caused by the epidemiological situation due to exposure to SARS-CoV-2 in educational centres, require. Four key factors found to affect the application of Standard Work on group level has been elaborate 1. Ownership of the process 2. Leader demand 3. Correct workload 4. Proximity to the results of the process ( Österman & Fundin, 2014 ).
The electronic standardization successful implementation and upgraded with reorganization of the drives and the desktop in six educational projects of the department and categories as lean office. There were 84% a reduction of the files search time, improvements on the development of forms for student registration and projects managing, a 69% time searching reduction for student information or data, a reduction of the input times and information handling in an estimated total of 12 hours/year, identification of KPI and development of a dashboard for visual analysis and monitoring of these ( Magalhães, Alves, Costa, & Rodrigues, 2019 ).
From the literature, the current study extended and replicate the content of the previous studies, combining both latent variable and age group in generalize more finding for the particular’s topic. Figure 1 demonstrates the conceptual framework represents from the literature review.
3. Methodology
3.1. Questionnaire Development
The research design for the studies focusing in descriptive analysis and inferential analysis with correlation and one-way Anova. An online survey had been conducted for the analysis purposes. The 16-item questionnaire was adopted from the current quality enhancement, standardization and leadership literature. A five-point Likert scale incorporated in the questionnaire with the ranged from 1: strongly disagree to 5: strongly agree. Random sampling technique was utilised and the Krejcie and Morgan table was referred to select the number of samples ( Krejcie, 1970 ).
The study context was focused on top management in higher education. Several measurement instruments are adapted from previous studies ( Arribas Díaz & Martínez-Mediano, 2018 ; Habtoor & Habtoor, 2016 ; Yu et al., 2012 ) to help in forming the questionnaire. The survey questionnaire was divided into 2 parts, namely Section A which contained the demographics of the respondents. In Section B, respondents were asked to assess the extent of their agreement for each factor using a five-point Likert scale.
The research framework demonstrated the relationship between supporting the human factor contribution with leadership and standardization to establish quality management system in education institution to form the conceptual framework of this study. Respondents were asked to evaluate the questions using a five-point Likert in a google form survey.
3.2. Analysis Methods
The data were analyzed with Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS 23.0). Descriptive and inferential analysis was conducted to determine the standard deviation, mean of each item, and relationship in the variable ( Griffith, 2010 ).
4. Analysis and Discussion
4.1. Reliability Test
The research instrument reliability test with the Cronbach Alpha. The result shows that all the variable meets the threshold 0.7. The Cronbach Alpha obtain
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Figure 1. Conceptual framework leadership and standardization.
for the item measuring refer in Table 1 as below.
According to the table, the Cronbach alpha for the variable leadership is between 0.794 to 0.829, standardized between 0.673 to 0.898 and quality system between 0.754 to 0.828. Nunnally (1978) allowed a slightly lower minimum limit 0.6. since the alpha Cronbach obtain between 0.6 to 0.8 for each item and above 0.7, all the factor is accepted and being reliable for the research.
4.2. Frequency Distribution
Descriptive Analysis
Figure 2 and Figure 3 describe the background respondent for the study, total 98 from 104 Technical and Vocational Higher Education Institution have feedbacked the survey. There a two type of officer are handling in sustaining standardization in the institution that are 60% deputy manager and 20% ISO officer (depend to the institution organization chart) who respond the survey and most
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Table 1. Cronbach alpha reliability test.
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Figure 2. Institution information chart.
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Figure 3. Respondent demography information.
are female then male officer between age 34 - 44 years.
The application of the MS ISO9001:2015 are the higher standard applied in Polytechnic and Community College followed by APACC and EOMS 21001:2018 following by the rest of standard shown in Figure 4.
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Figure 4. The progress in standardization adaptation in higher education.
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Table 2. Factor contribution on standardization.
A five-point Likert scale used with the ranged from 1: strongly disagree to 5: strongly agree. Likert scale reveal positive and negative response to a statement. The study identify influential factor are leadership and standardization to enhance quality system in higher education.
Table 2 depicts factor influence practice in standardization in higher education institution. The result shows the highest mean score is leadership follow by standardization 4.15 and quality system 4.12. Each mean is in the range of 4.0 and highest. The score reveal that the factor has satisfactory level in higher education according to Nunnally (1978) .
4.3. Pearson Correlation
Correlation of Items with Number of Scores and Between Items Construct “Leadership, Standardization, and Quality System”
Table 3 shows all item in the construct “Leadership, Standardization and Quality System” has significant positive correlation with the number of constructs’ scores. The highest correlation is quality system (0.661) follow by Standardization and Leadership (0.464). It was also found that the value between items showed positive items, correlated and was significant at level 0.01. The correlation range is between 0.464 - 0.0661 which shows the strong relationship between quality system and standardization and moderate relationship between leadership to quality system according to Cohen (1988) table.
4.4. One-Way Anova Test for Independent Samples
An Anova test had been conducted in answering research question:
Q3: Is there is a difference in managing quality system between all three age groups among standard managing officers an Anova test?
H0: There is no difference in managing system quality between all three age groups among deputy directors and ISO officers.
H1: There is a difference in managing system quality between all three age groups among deputy directors and ISO officers.
Both Table 4 & Table 5 show descriptive information for study data (n) mean score and standard deviation of variable leaning quality system across all three variable age variables.
The levene tested the hypothesis that the variable. Variance error of the leaning variable for each group in the independent variable was the same. The results
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Table 3. Correlation item value with number of scores and between items construct “Leadership, Standardization and Quality System” and between item.
**Correlation is significant at the 0.02 level (2-tailed).
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Table 4. Descriptive information between-subject factors age group.
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Table 5. Descriptive Statistics_age group.
of levene test F (2, 0.77) = 3, P = 0.059 indicate that it is not significant (p > 0.05). The null hypothesis failed to be rejected. This suggests that the value of variable variance based in each group of study respondents is approximately the same. Study date leans in each group of study respondents available is same and the study data complied with requirement of One Way-Anova test (Table 6).
The One-way Anova tested showed that overall the difference of running the quality system between the three age groups was not significant F (2, 0.77) = 2.67, P > 0.05 (Table 7 & Table 8).
Pairwise Comparisons results by controlling for type I error using the Bonferroni Method showed that the mean value of the quality system for age pairs (mean difference = 0.447 = P < 0.05 was not significantly (Table 9).
Tests the null hypothesis that the error variance of the dependent variable is equal across groups. aDesign: Intercept + Age.
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Table 7. Test between-subjects effects.
aR Squared = 0.065 (Adjusted R Squared = 0.041)
Based on estimated marginal means. aAdjustment for multiple comparisons: Bonferroni.
The F tests the effect of age. This test is based on the linearly independent pairwise comparisons among the estimated marginal means.
The Univariate Test table confirms the results in the Pairwise Comparisons table predicted there are comparison pairs that obtained insignificant results (Table 10).
The form of the graph showing the mean value is insignificant for the selected age group in applying the quality system (Figure 5).
5. Conclusion
The paper presents the contribution of the research based on the statistical analysis carried out in the descriptive analysis, reliability test, Pearson’s correlation analysis and One-Way Anova test. The descriptive analysis result show the highest mean score is leadership follow by standardization 4.15 and quality system 4.12. Each mean is in the range of 4.0 and highest. The result show leadership has the higher mean. The correlation value between items showed all items were positively correlated and was significant at level 0.01. The correlation range is between 0.464 - 0.0661 consume the strong relationship between quality system and standardization and moderate relationship between leadership to quality system. The age group Anova test predict no different and not significant result
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Figure 5. Estimated marginal means of quality system.
with the subject effect and levene test F (2, 0.77) = 3, P = 0.059 indicate that it is not significant (p > 0.05).
Anyhow, the study aims is to determine leadership role in standardization to enhance quality system is sustain. The top management agrees that standardization improve management system toward quality achievement. The finding of standardized indicates very good response in leadership role and standardized factor to sustain institution management system. The leadership role plays a significant role in planning, structuring and deciding standard in the institution and show moderate relationship with the standardization. Therefore, the organization will be more efficient in people management. As with other empirical studies, there are some drawbacks to the current analysis that suggest recommendations for further research. While this study has effectively explained the key factors influencing the standardization usefulness for higher education institutions, there are some factors that limit this research and should be considered in future studies. The studies conducted online to the top management in higher education and need to be expanded. Other factor needs to be adapted in sustaining a very good quality system such as employee commitment, training and team work in expanding the conceptual framework and relationship in research. As for future research, the researcher would welcome opportunities to extend and contrast these results with other higher education institution towards standardization in the institution to enhance quality management system.