Service Delivery between 2013 and 2021—A Systematic Review

Uchechi Chinazom Ekejiuba, Umar Abbas Ibrahim

Faculty of Management Sciences, Nile University of Nigeria, Abuja, Nigeria.

DOI: 10.4236/jhrss.2024.122015                

Abstract

Service delivery is seen as the act of providing citizens with basic amenities of electricity, water, housing, etc. by the government of any nation. However, this has been viewed to be capital intensive for some developing nations with high population and limited resources despite its necessity for economic growth and development. This article employs the Systematic Quantitative Assessment Technique (SQAT) propounded by Pickering and Byrne in 2014 to systematically review 50 articles published between 2013 and 2021 by 6 reputable data bases across 32 nations and 6 continents. The review itemized the themes adopted by various countries to overcome specific challenges to provide affordable and quality services to its citizens. Majority of the articles were empirical in nature while a few were conceptual. The highest number of published articles was found in Asian, African, and European continents while North America, Australia and South America had the least number of published articles. Survey, secondary data, and interviews were the highest methods of data collection while mixed and household level data were the least. It is advised that future research should be geared towards mixed data collection for effective comparison and validation of existing information (secondary data) that may have been used.

Keywords

Service Delivery, Systematic Quantitative Assessment Technique

1. Introduction

The public sector of any country is the largest provider of service and by extension, the largest employer of labour in the organised formal sector. One of the sector’s main responsibilities is the provision of social and economic infrastructure. While economic infrastructure refers mainly to the provision of potable water, good roads, electricity, air transport, communication networks and sewage, social infrastructure includes affordable schools, hospitals, and housing.

It becomes obvious then, that both are essential aspects of living for any twenty-first century nation. It is expected that the provision of these basic services to citizens is the main responsibility of the government of any nation as it is believed the citizens pay taxes. However, this is not the case in many developing and some developed countries especially for specific services as various interventions had come up to assist the Central government of such nations in their inadequacies.

Existing research reveals that there has been growing public impatience related to the provision of essential service delivery in developing countries such as South Africa and this may have led to their service delivery protests (Masiya et al., 2019) . On the contrary, some countries who experienced warfare like Afghanistan had ensured that basic services were still made available to citizens. The Taliban were forced to become responsible for the wellbeing of local communities as they consolidated their hold over territory (Smith, 2020) .

This study is aimed at conducting a systematic review of articles on service delivery published in different countries between 2013 and 2021 and evaluating how it has evolved within this period. The review will be done in three (3) sections namely: Methodology section which describes the development and analysis of the study, the findings, and discussions section for the review and finally, the conclusion and recommendations of the study.

2. Methodology

This research reviews Service Delivery (SD) articles in the last eight (8) years (2013-2021) using Pickering and Byrne’s 2014 Systematic Quantitative Assessment Technique (SQAT). This technique allows researchers to systematically analyse existing literature on any field and produce a structured quantitative summary of the subject (Pickering & Byrne 2014) . Five steps are recommended in conducting an effective systematic review. The steps and application are shown in Table 1

The researcher studied 50 SD peer reviewed English articles from 6 reputable databases that met selection criteria (Table 2). These are Scopus indexed journals which the academic community respects due to their inclusion in Scopus index. It is also a useful tool for organizations and libraries for evaluating the quality and significance of journals in their holdings.

3. Findings and Discussions

3.1. Time Distribution of Articles on Service Delivery (SD)

The systematic review showed in Figure 1 that 39 out of the 50 articles (78%) were published in the last 5 years of the eight-year period i.e. (2017-2021).

Table 3 shows the distribution of Service Delivery articles across Continents and their respective Authors.

Table 1. Description and application.

Table 2. SD articles reviewed by publishers (2013-2021).

Table 3. Continental distribution of SD articles and their authors.

Figure 1. Time distribution analysis of SD on 50 peer-reviewed articles published btw 2013 and 2021.

3.2. Geographical Distribution of Articles on SD

From the continent perspective, Figure 2 shows that Asia had the highest number of SD articles published within the last eight years representing 40% of the peer reviewed articles, followed by Africa and Europe with 22% respectively. The least published articles are from North America (10%), Australia (4%) and South America (2%). This distribution aligns with the introduction section where it stated that existing research reveals that there is growing impatience in the provision of essential service delivery in developing countries (Masiya et al., 2019) . The review of SD articles within this time frame shows that Asian Continent is leading in the research on service delivery.

Table 4 shows the distribution of the 50 peer reviewed SD articles published across 32 countries.

The top four countries that have the highest number of published SD articles between 2013 and 2021 is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 reveals that the number of articles from Malaysia, United States, India, and Ghana which are just from three continents, account for 16 out of the total of 50 peer reviewed articles representing 32% of the published articles within the last eight years. It is also relevant to note that the articles from Malaysia, India and Ghana focused on reforms for improved service delivery as there is

Figure 2. The geographical distribution of SD articles across continents.

Figure 3. Top four countries with highest number of published SD articles.

Table 4. 32 countries and their respective number of published SD articles.

little or no research on developing countries on the impact of E-governances in curbing corruption (Saxena, 2017) . The articles from the United States on the other hand focused on emerging trends such as advances in health care, child services and excellent customer service.

3.3. Article Type

Out of 50 peer-reviewed articles, 39 of them were empirical research while only 11 were conceptual research representing 78% and 22% respectively. Figure 4 shows the distribution.

The empirical research consisted of primary and secondary data collection employed as quantitative, qualitative, or mixed method for analysis. Whilst empirical articles rely on data collection and conclusions are drawn based on the premises of the findings from data collection; conceptual articles rely on theoretical discussions based on other people’s views and literature. In general, empirical research, if tested and proven can either validate or invalidate existing theories and concepts.

Figure 4. Article type distribution of SD journals.

3.4. SD Data Collection Methods

There were six (6) data collection methods across the 50 articles as shown in Figure 5. These are case study, household level data, interviews, mixed data, survey, and secondary data. Whilst the mixed and secondary data were employed for conceptual articles, the rest of the methods (case study, household level, interviews) were employed strictly for the empirical articles.

For future research, it is advised that mixed methods of data be adopted for effective comparison of existing information with evidence from experiments to validate the existing information.

3.5. SD Research Themes

Nine themes were employed to analyze the 50 SD articles used for the systematic review. This is shown in Figure 6. Figure 6 reveals that Collaboration and E-Governance themes have the highest number of articles representing 26% and 24% of the total number of researched articles respectively. From the reviews, collaboration was either between government and private agencies, government and its citizens, inter-agencies, intergovernmental relations or among citizens. The introduction of Government transformation programs in Malaysia through fostering inter agency collaboration improved service delivery (Siddiquee, 2019) . The E-service themes were research done mainly in Asian and African countries where technology is still developing. The introduction of Information and Computer Technology (ICT) leads to better service delivery as it increases efficiency, transparency, and accountability (Seepma et al., 2020) . Performance measurement theme assessed service delivery by government and private sector respectively. In Quatar, it was found that there was a higher level of satisfaction in public services compared to independent schools (Abdelkader Benmansour, 2019) . Furthermore, Innovativeness, Good governance, Customer satisfaction and Quality healthcare were themes that if applied, would lead to quality service delivery while Corruption and Bureaucracy negatively affected service delivery.

Figure 5. SD articles data collection methods.

Figure 6. SD articles research themes.

3.6. SD Theories/Models

A total of 27 theories were used for 33 out of the 50 researched articles while no theory was used for the remaining 17 articles. Figure 7 shows a distribution of the articles using theories/models but highlights only the top four. The Institutional theory and Partial least square model which ranked highest were used for 3 articles each representing 6% of the total reviewed articles while the hypothetical and strategic models which followed closely were used for 2 articles each representing 4% of the total reviewed articles. 23 articles representing 46% of the total reviewed articles and stated as “others” in Figure 7, had a different theory/model used for each research while no theory was used for 17 articles representing 34% of the total reviewed articles. Table 5 shows the 23 theories/models used for the remaining 23 reviewed articles not highlighted in Figure 7.

3.7. Summary of Findings of Reviewed 50 SD Articles

Table 6 presents the findings of this systematic review of 50 SD articles published between 2013 and 2021.

Figure 7. SD theories.

Table 5. 23 theories used for the remaining 23 reviewed articles.

Table 6. Summary of findings of 50 SD reviewed articles.

4. Conclusion and Recommendation

The significance of service delivery cannot be overemphasized anywhere in the world. However, from this systematic review, it is obvious that the developing nations have higher numbers of researched articles in service delivery, possibly due to citizens’ inability to access basic public services provided by the government. This would normally be due to paucity of funds and/or limited technology. This systematic review has brought to the fore options and possible solutions responsible agencies or governments experiencing such challenges could adopt to improve service delivery quality and impact their economies positively. Some of which are:

1) Investment in digital infrastructure to automate processes for seamless service delivery.

2) Regular monitoring and evaluation of service providers to identify bottlenecks and areas of improvement.

3) Customer engagement and feedback through surveys and public consultations to understand their preferences.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

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