ST.

MARY’S UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE

STUDIES INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE IN QUALITY AND
PRODUCTIVITY MANAGEMENT

Course: MQP521-Business Research Methods

Assignment #3: EVALUAITING RESEARCH REPORT

By (Group-3) Id
1) Eyerusalem Birega SGS/0631/2011A
2) Kalekirstos Ayele SGS/0634/2011A
3) Alemayehu Emiru SGS/0627/2011A

Submitted to Dr. Melaku Girma

MAY, 2019
 EVALUAITING RESEARCH REPORT

ASSESSEMENT OF PERCEPTION AND IMPLEMENTATION

OF BALANCED SCORE CARD IN QUALITY MANAGEMENT
FRAME WORK
THE CASE OF BEREHANENA SELAM PRINTING
ENTERPRISE

BY
DAGNACHEW G/WOLD
1. INTRODUCTION
This critical research review was made to effectively evaluate a study on the assessment of
perception and implementation of balanced score card in Quality management framework in
Berehanena Selam Printing Enterprise with objectives of the study to measure the employee’s
understanding levels of BSC and QM, employee’s perception and implementation of BSC,
level of satisfaction and acceptance in the implementation, key performance indicators and
perspectives of balanced scorecard,

The group evaluated the research paper meticulously to the level of our best capacity on basis
of common research evaluation guidelines and as per the four performance metrics of BSC
and its four perspectives.

2. MAIN BODY
2.1 Covering and title page:

The title of the study paper was clear and concise. It indicates what was actually studied and
its outcome of the study in a fair manner.

The general guideline suggests that the title page shall cover the name of the topic, name of
the author, the relationship of the report to a course or degree, institution name, date of
submission, place, etc and apart from this the title should indicate the purpose in concise
manner and specific to the study and shall be typed in capital letters and centered from the
right and left margins. From the above measuring criteria, the researcher has covered all the
requirements appropriately and no gaps to be incited as a weakness

2 Acknowledgment:

The researcher used the acknowledgment page of the report appropriately and specifically;
and no word of flattery and unnecessary emotions were used and to this context, this part was
well addressed.

2.2 Table of contents

This part of the paper actually provided an outline of the contents of the report. The
researcher considered the general report writing principles to this specific case and could be
considered acceptable. Page references for each topic, title for figures and tables was exactly
as they appeared in the text and corresponding numbers were also correct and hence, no any
critic to this specific point.

2.3 Abstract:

As commonly understood, the abstract was the concise summary of the total project, in this
case dissertation, that mirrors the structure of the whole thesis. In other words, together with
the thesis title, it could be used as stand-alone text. The researcher considered major elements
that the abstract at least should encompass statement of the problem, methodology deployed,
results of the study and conclusion and recommendation. From this context, the researcher
gave good coverage to the topics. Regarding total number of words used, in most master
thesis the maximum words used in this topic are about 150 word, at least that were submitted
to Canada’s national Archive. Seeing it from this perspective, the researcher used 320 words.
This is too much.

2.4 List of acronyms:

Acronym is a word or name formed as an abbreviation from the initial components of a

phrase or a word, usually individual letters. The common purpose of this wording was to
make shorter and easier to use in communication after creating understanding in the first
place. To this context, the researcher did not exhaustively listed such acronyms such as:
SPM, BRP, PSCBP, EFQM, whereas used in the literature review randomly. For some
representation of the alphabets was given for some meaning is given in brackets – lack of
consistency and somehow inefficient.

2.5 Chapter-1 Introduction

The word “introduction” was added unnecessarily in chapter line. As a positive complement,
in each of major headlines, the researcher used opening statements and was good to give an
insight to the reader about his/her expectation while going on reading the document. From the
view point of general requirements as to what the introduction section should cover, all the
major elements like background of the study, significance of the problem, specific purpose of
the study limitations and important terms were contained.

In the background of study part of the paper, the definition given for BSC was an old version,
whereas the intent of the research was to give the reader up-to-date info, in this case the
reference material used or the material used for incitation [Kaplan and Norton (1992)] was an
old version. The new thought in the subject reveals it is a management
system/Https:balancedscorecards.com/

Statement of the problem was normally the heart of the research process and was the axis
around which the whole research effort revolved; and in this case it had to be clear and
precise to understand. The research paper under consideration its statement of the problem
was vague and unnecessarily burdened with more explanation and didn’t give a clear incite to
the reader outright.

General objective linked with the statement of the problem and topic of the research but in this case
not linked with word by word.

The researcher put six research questions and four specific objectives it should be related each other
Significance of the study stated very well, it touches all the necessary components answer why the
research was conducted, put the benefit that derived from the research and who would be benefited
from the research.
Limitation factors of the research which likely to hinder from achieving research objectives and the
scope had the boundary on the study by limiting the concept and implementation on BSPE, however
the researcher stated the limitation on the scope like financial, time and data availability. Organization
of the paper stated as usual, the paper organizes on five chapter and including reference and appendix.
2.6Chapter-2 literature review
This section is a critical evaluation of the academic literature relevant to the problem under
investigation. The content is supposed to identify, organize, and/or critique key theories,
concepts, or ideas in the field of study. It should examine both theoretical and empirical
contributions in the field. It should conclude with well-defined concepts to be examined in
the study, or the reasons why no pre-existing concepts can be used.

For the above contexts the researcher well covered all the necessary info and as a result it was
clearly seen and clarified that the research questions were being pursued; and the
hypotheses/temporary answer intended to be tested were derived or in line with the review.
Hence, it was well narrated and followed proper structure. But some points of critique were
during the incitation of reference materials used in the review naming was not following the
dictations in the guideline, for example:

Page 24, Yared Gebremeden(2016) should have been presented as Yared(2016)

Page 25, 26, 27, and 28, referring the material by Jovanovic, Vujoovic and Krivokapic, 2008.
For authors more than two, one can economically use it shortly as Jovanovic and others,
2008. In the mean time, the overall idea of the articles from these authors would have been
rewritten by the researcher and incitation may have been once.

The researcher made the systematic identification, location and analysis of documents
containing information related to the proposed research problem. He used review of empirical
studies, historical records, and government and company reports. He used Text- APA styles
of quotation.

2.7Chapter-3 Research design and methodology

The researcher used a descriptive method of a research and collect data using both
questionnaire and interview. The choice of the descriptive research method was adequately
justified by describing the characteristics of objects, people group, organization or
environments. In other words, descriptive research tries to paint a picture of a given situation
by addressing who, what, when, where and how questions. Descriptive research method
describes ―what exist in a given situation (Cooper and Schindler, 2014).

Questionnaires and structured and unstructured interview sampling techniques were

employed so as to address the BSC implementation in the quality management framework on
organizational performance in Berehanena Selam Printing Enterprise (BSPE).The structured
and unstructured interview was used to gather some information about the views of the top
manager. Both qualitative and quantitative data were used for the study.

The sampling and stratification method used was appropriate to collect data on extent of
implementation and corresponding benefits of BSC, the performance measurement tool, the
perception of employees and their level of commitment, knowledge and attitude on its
implementation were addressed and acceptable. For primary data interview was conducted
with Top manager and questionnaires distributed to sample respondent of 163 to those who
work in Berehanena Selam Printing Enterprise. Out of which 163 questionnaires 149 of them
were returned and response rate was 91.4%.

The total population size was 808 and determined the sample size of the division using
proportional stratification, 17 divisions was made. The researcher took total samples size 163,
the top management process owners and Committee members in the implementation of BSC
and QMS from the total samples size28 of them were selected purposively the rest of 135
representative samples size and determined the sample size of the division using proportional
stratification.

The researcher used both primary and secondary data. The questionnaire and interview were
used to collect the primary data. The questionnaire contained open ended and close ended
questions and likert type questions were used. For the interview the subjective information
were collected using purposive sample, the interview structured and non-structured.
Purposive sampling made possible to intentionally select key informants who had more
exposure and experience.

A triangulation technique was applied for more acceptance and reliability of sampling
methods. The data were collected from different sources using different instruments such as
interview, documentation, and open ended and likert scales questionnaire.

The questionnaire were tested before distributing the final questionnaire, and then it was re-
structured and re-defined getting feedbacks from respondents and some wordings were
corrected in a way to be understood by respondents.

The Cronbach’s alpha, α (or coefficient alpha), developed by Lee Cronbach in 1951,
measures reliability, or internal consistency. “Reliability” is how well a test measures what it
should. Cronbach’s alpha tests to see if multiple-question Likert scale surveys are reliable.
Cronbach’s alpha tells that the method designed is accurately measuring the variable of
interest.

The researcher established the validity and reliability of method using Cronbach‘s alpha to
measure the reliability for a set of two or more constructs where the alpha coefficient
values ranging between 0 and 1 with higher values indicating higher reliability among the
indicators. A measuring instrument is reliable if it provides consistent results, (R. Kothari,
2004). Moreover, a reliable measuring instrument does contribute for validity. Alpha
(Cronbach‘s) reliability scale was used for this research study. According to Babine & Griffin
(2009), when alpha values for pilot data test in a certain questionnaire are >0.70, the
questionnaire is considered to be a reliable and no further action with item deletion was
required.

The reliability of the questionnaire with respect to data about the perception and
implementation of balanced scorecard in quality management framework has been tested
by using Cronbach‘s Alpha. The reliability test was conducted for five degree of likert scale
survey questionnaires using Cranach's alpha in order to determine the internal consistency
of the variables, indicating the coefficient value with 0.830 implying that the scale used was
reliable.

In the explanation of validity page 48 as “qualitative research used detailed description with
a measure and interpretation of the data obtained, I narrated and describe what I
understand” is an unacceptable as it lacks the objectivity and causes bias, it should have
been be replaced “by researcher” instead of pronounce “I”. The “I” and “my” wordings
should be avoided.

There were unnecessary usage of comas, full stops, space and grammatical errors were
observed in this research paper (page 49). The texts look overburdened.

For the data analysis the researcher used SPSS v. 21 and for the descriptive part, mean,
percentage and standard deviation staticstics were applied. The collected data organized,
summarized and presented in tables, pie charts and bar charts and critical interpretation
was made to adequately demonstrate the major findings. Whereas, the data collected
through structured and unstructured interview were also analyzed qualitatively by
descriptive statements.

The data about the employees demographic gender and age categories (table4.2.1),
educational background (4.2.2), experience (4.2.3), understanding on concept and
perception of employees of QM and balanced score card ( table 4.3, 4.4 and 4.7),
implementation of BSC within the QM framework (4.5), job and personal performance
target (4.6), the design of appropriateness of performance evaluation system /KPI/ in BSPE
and level of satisfaction with Balanced Scorecard and Quality Management as performance
evaluation system in BSPE ( Table4.8-4.10) were statistically treated and satisfactorily
interpreted in the analysis part of the research. The tables, pie charts and figures were
appropriately presented. The discussion and interpretation of the summarized data was
clear and concise in textual manner. The logical relationship of the subject matter and the
conclusion drawn was perceptive and the statistical analyses obtained were accurately
interpreted to clearly demonstrate each specific findings of the researcher.

According to balance score card metrics uses the four perspectives to measure the
performance of the company from four strategic perspectives, namely financial
perspectives, customer perspectives, internal business process perspectives and learning
and growth perspectives.

In accordance to BSC metrics, the researcher collected the relevant data depicting
performance Measurement of BSC in QM Framework, Contribution of BSC on Customers
Perspective in Quality Management Framework/ Customers Satisfaction Index/, Financial
Perspective in Quality Management Framework Item/ Revenue Progress Before and After
the Implementation of BSC, Internal Process Perspective in Quality Management
Framework, Learning and Growth Perspective in Quality Management Framework and the
performance of BSPE was measured and the findings were interpreted in clear manner.
3. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Based on the findings of the study, it is fair to conclude that BSC implementation in quality
management framework in Berhane Selam Printing press has brought positive
improvements on its financial, internal business, customer and learning and growth
perspectives of BSC. The knowledge and understanding of BSC by employees was not
sufficient due to inadequacy of the two way communication system in the enterprise.

The performance evaluation system did not fully satisfy, applicable, differentiates effective
performer from non-performer. Key performance indicators were used in BSPE but did not
effectively measure individual as well as the organization and also targets given to
individuals were unachievable. The working environment was not suitable for carrier
development and improvements. Researcher proposes some recommendations BSPE should
give more attention to provide training and workshop regarding BSC and QM to improve the
level of employees understanding the importance of BSC implementation in QM framework
and to create interactive two way communications.
4. REFERENCES
Some of the reference material taken or definition used for main technical issue under study
was old definition. For example, the Balanced Scorecard/BSC/ considered as one
management tool, whereas the contemporary literature and management thoughts consider it
as management system.

The reference material indicated names of books and periodic, but not listed in alphabetic
order and appendix made center, but not capitalized.