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BUACC5931 Adoption of ISO9000 : Chinese Service Industry Assessment 2 Answer

Adoption of ISO9000 and its Relationship with other Factors in China’s Service Industry
a
The ISO 9000 series of quality management systems standard has been widely applied all over the world since its introduction in 1987. By the end of 2013, ISO 9000 had been adopted by over 1,129,000 facilities in 189 countries. Both academics and practitioners are interested in understanding the relationship between adoption of ISO 9000, and other factors (Christmann & Taylor, 2006; Du, Yin, & Zhang, 2016; Fikru, 2014a, 2014b, 2016; Nakamura, Takahashi, & Vertinsky, 2001; Pekovic, 2010; Wu, Chu, & Liu, 2007).
In 2008, the National Bureau of Statistics of China conducted an Economic Census of the service firms. The descriptions of variables, the coding are shown in the table. The data is available in Moodle.
Table: Variables, their descriptions and coding
No | Variable name | Description of the variable | Coding |
1 | Year | Year the company certified | 2004; 2005; 2006; 2007; 2008 |
2 | Certification | Certification dummy | 0= not certified; 1=certified |
3 | Industry2 | Two digit industry code | 58= storage and transportation; 60= telecommunication 61=computer service 62=software 74= business services 75= Research and Development 76= specialized technology services 77= technology exchange and promotion |
5 | Stpyear | Year of the founding of the company | |
6 | I | Employee number | |
7 | I_yjs | Number of employees with master or doctor | |
8 | I_benke | Number of employees with bachelor | |
9 | I_dz | Number of employees with diploma | |
10 | I_gaozhong | Number of employees with high school education | |
11 | I_chuzhong | Number of employees with junior high school or below | |
12 | Revenue | Sales of the company | |
13 | Profit_operation | Profit of the company | |
14 | Ksum | Total asset of the company | |
15 | Equity | Equity of the company | |
16 | Kpaid | Total capital | |
17 | Kstate | Capital from government | |
18 | Koversea | Capital from overseas | |
19 | Kother | Capital from other sources | |
20 | ROS | Return on sales | |
21 | ROA | Return on assets | |
22 | FDIpercent | Percentage of overseas investment in the total investment | |
23 | DFIdummy | Overseas investment dummy | |
24 | agefirm | Age of the company |
Required Task
You are expected to work in groups and write a research report. When you work on your report, you need to use the dataset, and other sources such as journal articles. If you use website material, please pay attention to the quality of the material (e.g. government website or industry website etc.). There is no word limit for the report. For the number of references, there should be at least ten academic sources (journal articles, or books). It is encouraged to use more relevant, high quality, and up to date sources in the report.
Students have a high degree of flexibility in doing the research. The important thing is that the research should be well connected with the literature.
The required structure should be as following.
- Executive Summary: Major findings and major recommendations
- Introduction: Background (of the case); purpose (of this report); two to three research objectives for a study that you would seek to conduct; and format (of this report).
- Write a short literature review of at least ten academic sources relevant to your topic. Any source including books, journal articles are acceptable, as long as they are relevant. You can also use a particular website for some information. If websites are used they will be in addition of the ten academic sources.
- Describe the methodology and justify your choice.
- Analyses and findings: Run some analysis to turn the data into useful information as follows:
- Descriptive statistics: Sample characteristics will be described with descriptive analysis. This will include at least the following analysis: Frequency, percentage; Measures of central tendency; Measures of dispersion (variance, standard deviation)
- Inferential statistics: Inferential statistics will be used to analyse relationship between variables. This will include at least the following analysis (Chi-square, Pearson’s r, t-test, ANOVA test).
- Discussion and managerial advises: link your findings to extant literature. Advise the management about the usefulness of the findings.
- Limitations and directions for future research. Suggestions of how the research can be improved.
- Include a correctly constructed reference list of all sources used in the project, not just those used in the literature review section. Appendices also should be attached which will include all the analysis and graphs etc. that are not included in the body of the report.
Answer
Adoption of ISO9000
Chinese Service Industry
Executive Summary
The ISO 9000 series of quality management systems standard has been widely applied all over the world since its introduction in 1987. By the end of 2013, ISO 9000 had been adopted by over 1,129,000 facilities in 189 countries. Both academics and practitioners are interested in understanding the relationship between adoption of ISO 9000, and other factors (Christmann & Taylor, 2006; Du, Yin, & Zhang, 2016; Fikru, 2014a, 2014b, 2016; Nakamura, Takahashi, & Vertinsky, 2001; Pekovic, 2010; Wu, Chu, & Liu, 2007).
In 2008, the National Bureau of Statistics of China conducted an Economic Census of the service firms. The descriptions of variables, the coding are shown in the table which is available in Appendices section. The data for these variables has been sourced from Moodle.
Some of the data from National Bureau of Statistics of China was analysed through quantitative methods to draw conclusions about the Chinese service industry with respect to adoption of ISO9000. The analysis indicated that ISO certification in fact, makes a difference to a firm particularly its key financial numbers.
However, this analysis is based on a slice of limited informational data that can be further expanded to include more classifications of industries as well as geographies to further validate the results.
Additionally, the statistical assumptions behind a statistical tool also need to be considered. Further, more variety of statistical tools can be added to make it more comprehensive.
Apart from the quantitative methods, qualitative methods will add much more value in terms of opinions of the people in these firms and their views regarding importance of ISO 9000 and its corresponding impact.
Introduction
The ISO 9000 series of quality management systems standard has been widely applied all over the world since its introduction in 1987. By the end of 2013, ISO 9000 had been adopted by over 1,129,000 facilities in 189 countries. Both academics and practitioners are interested in understanding the relationship between adoption of ISO 9000, and other factors (Christmann & Taylor, 2006; Du, Yin, & Zhang, 2016; Fikru, 2014a, 2014b, 2016; Nakamura, Takahashi, & Vertinsky, 2001; Pekovic, 2010; Wu, Chu, & Liu, 2007).
In 2008, the National Bureau of Statistics of China conducted an Economic Census of the service firms. The descriptions of variables, the coding are shown in the table which is available in Appendices section. The data for these variables has been sourced from Moodle.
The above mentioned data will be analysed to draw conclusions about the Chinese service industry with respect to adoption of ISO9000. For this purpose, Microsoft Excel and in-built tools such as correlation, regression and ANOVA testing will be used so as to see statistical viability of the drawn conclusions.
The above analysed data will be then used to draw conclusions about the Chinese service industry along with recommendations and limitations of the research.
Methodology
As mentioned above, the research methodology utilized is quantitative in nature such that the data related to variables as available in Appendices section will be analysed. The data used for the purpose of this research project is secondary data in nature as it is available on websites such as, Moodle.
For the purpose of data analysis, Microsoft Excel and its inbuilt data tools will be used such as, Descriptive Statistics, ANOVA, Regression, Correlation etc. Sample characteristics will be described with descriptive analysis. This will include at least the following analysis: Frequency, percentage; Measures of central tendency; Measures of dispersion (variance, standard deviation). Inferential statistics will be used to analyse relationship between variables. This will include at least the following analysis (Chi-square, Pearson’s r, t-test, ANOVA test).
Effort will also be made to understand the statistical significance of conclusions and analysis drawn basis the mentioned data.
Analysis and Findings
Descriptive Statistics
The Descriptive Statistics data tool in Microsoft Excel was used on all the available variables to generate various sample characteristics, such as, mean, median, mode, frequency, standard deviation, variance, kurtosis, skewness etc. The details are available in Appendices section.
Maximum sample data is from business services as can be seen from Industry mode of 74 which is the classification code for business services. Also, maximum number of companies seems to have been founded in 2006. Average age of the firms is 7.62 years.
Average number of employees is 45 with an average of 1.4 (or 1) employee with master or doctor. It seems maximum employees have a diploma with the mean number being 12.9 (or 13). The next most popular level of education is bachelor (average of 11.9) and high school (average of 12.3).
Average revenue is 11,698.57 with average profit being 2,067.97 and average total assets at 16,473.16. The average equity of the company and average total capital stand at 7,693.77 and 4,765.67, respectively.
Inferential Statistics
Inferential statistics will be used to analyse relationship between variables. This will include at least the following analysis (Chi-square, Pearson’s r, t-test, ANOVA test).
ANOVA
The first technique used is ANOVA test which is part of data tools in Microsoft Excel. The factors assessed include Certification, that is, whether a company is ISO certified or not and Operating Profit of various types of services companies. The output of ANOVA test is available in Appendices section.
Under the assessment whether there is significance variance between groups that are certified (1) and not certified (0), variables analysed include: Operating Profit, Number of Employees, Return on Assets and Age of the Firm.
At an assumed significance level of α = 0.05, it was found that:
- There is significant difference in means of operating profit of groups that are not ISO certified and that are ISO certified. This can be concluded from p-value which is less than significance level of 0.05.
- There is significant difference in means of number of employees of groups that are not ISO certified and that are ISO certified. This can be concluded from p-value which is less than significance level of 0.05.
- There is significant difference in means of RoA of groups that are not ISO certified and that are ISO certified. This can be concluded from p-value which is less than significance level of 0.05.
- There is significant difference in means of age of firms of groups that are not ISO certified and that are ISO certified. This can be concluded from p-value which is less than significance level of 0.05.
Hence, it seems that the ISO certification influences above factors as the groups with certification reported much higher average profits, number of employees, and firm age. However, firms with ISO certification reported lower average RoA.
Another ANOVA test was performed to check variance in means of operating profits of various types of firms categorized through classification codes.
Again, it was found that there is significant difference in means of operating profits between various classifications. However, in order to find which group has significantly different mean, post hoc tests will need to be performed. At a glance, the highest average operating profit was reported for classification code 60 that is for telecommunication industry.
Correlation
The correlation matrix is available in Appendices. The Pearson’s correlation (r ) is measured on a scale of -1 to 1 with -1 indicating strongest inverse relationship and 1 indicating strongest direct relationship between any two selected variables.
Regression
Since the major objective of a firm is to maximize its profits and profit remains centric to all the efforts of a firm, the dependent variable was selected as operating profit. The independent variables included: certification, industry classification, number of employees, number of employees with master or doctor, number of employees with junior high school or below, revenue, Return on Assets, percentage of overseas investment in total investment, overseas investment dummy and age of the firm. The regression output is available in the Appendices section.
We can say that the Operating Profit is regressed on certification, industry classification, number of employees, number of employees with master or doctor, number of employees with junior high school or below, revenue, Return on Assets, percentage of overseas investment in total investment, overseas investment dummy and age of the firm.
From the output, we can interpret the least squares regression equation as follows:
y^ = 136.28 – 929.92 x1 – 17.10 x2 + 9.60 x3 + 7.55 x4 – 11.41 x5 + 0.16 x6 + 4025.05 x7 – 2935.14 x8 + 2343.72 x9 + 17.37 x10
where,
- Dependent variable, Operating Profit is represented as: y^
- Independent variable, Certification is represented as x1
- Independent variable, Industry Classification is represented as x2
- Independent variable, Number of Employees is represented as x3
- Independent variable, Number of Employees with Master/Doctor is represented as x4
- Independent variable, Number of Employees with Junior High School/Below is represented as x5
- Independent variable, Revenue is represented as x6
- Independent variable, Return on Assets is represented as x7
- Independent variable, Percentage of Overseas Investment is represented as x8
- Independent variable, Overseas Investment Dummy is represented as x9
- Independent variable, Age of Firm is represented as x10
The above equation has a constant of 136.28 which is also known as Y-intercept coefficient. It is the minimum value for y even when all x values are zero. It is the point where regression line crosses the vertical axis and is also known as ‘β0’ or ‘constant’.
x3, x4, x6, x7, x9 ,and x10 are greater than zero indicating that the relationship is positive such that x and y increase or decrease together. The remaining independent variables are lesser than zero indicating that the relationship is negative such that as x increases, y decreases and vice versa.
The output above provides coefficients as well some other statistically significant information, such as p-values for each of the coefficients. These values help in determining whether the variable has statistically significant relationship with the dependent variable or not.
Each of the p-value entails a null hypothesis that the variable has no correlation with the dependent variable. The alternative hypothesis is that the variable has correlation with the dependent variable. This null hypothesis can be rejected if the p-value for a coefficient is less than the significance level in consideration. Hence, in such a case, we can conclude that the particular variable has a correlation with the dependent variable. The assumed significance level is 0.05 for this research study. The p-values for various coefficients are:
- x1 : 0.000, which is less than 0.05 Hence, the variable is statistically significant.
- x2 : 0.076, which is greater than 0.05. Hence, the variable is not statistically significant.
- x3 : 0.000, which is less than 0.05 Hence, the variable is statistically significant.
- x4 : 0.531, which is greater than 0.05. Hence, the variable is not statistically significant.
- x5 : 0.000, which is less than 0.05 Hence, the variable is statistically significant.
- x6 : 0.000, which is less than 0.05 Hence, the variable is statistically significant.
- x7 : 0.000, which is less than 0.05 Hence, the variable is statistically significant.
- x8 : 0.009, which is less than 0.05. Hence, the variable is statistically significant.
- x9 : 0.017, which is less than 0.05 Hence, the variable is statistically significant.
- x10 : 0.047, which is less than 0.05. Hence, the variable is statistically significant.
The values of R and R2 help in determining the degree of relationship between independent and dependent variables. These are also called as Coefficients of Determination.
In the given case, R value is 0.78 which indicates that there is high degree of correlation between the variables in consideration. R2 is at 0.60 with adjusted R2 being 0.60. The value of R2 is nothing but the proportion of change in dependent variable that can be explained through the independent variables. As can be seen, at 60.0%, a high proportion of change in value of ‘Operating Profit’ can be attributed to change in independent variables, namely, certification, industry classification, number of employees, number of employees with master or doctor, number of employees with junior high school or below, revenue, Return on Assets, percentage of overseas investment in total investment, overseas investment dummy and age of the firm.
Limitations and Directions for Future Research
The above analysis indicates that ISO certification in fact, makes a difference to a firm particularly its key financial numbers. However, this analysis is based on a slice of limited informational data as extracted from Moodle. It can be further expanded to include more classifications of industries as well as geographies to further validate the results. Additionally, the statisticall assumptions behind a statistical tool also need to be considered. If an assumption is breached, the results of the test may not be sensible or useful even when it is statistically significant. Hence, research can be expanded to test the assumptions. Further, more variety of statistical tools can be added to make it more comprehensive. Apart from the quantitative methods, qualitative methods will add much more value in terms of opinions of the people in these firms and their views regarding importance of ISO 9000 and its corresponding impact.
Appendices
Table: Variables, their descriptions and coding
No | Variable name | Description of the variable | Coding |
1 | Year | Year the company certified | 2004; 2005; 2006; 2007; 2008 |
2 | Certification | Certification dummy | 0= not certified; 1=certified |
3 | Industry2 | Two digit industry code | 58= storage and transportation; 60= telecommunication 61=computer service 62=software 74= business services 75= Research and Development 76= specialized technology services 77= technology exchange and promotion |
5 | Stpyear | Year of the founding of the company | |
6 | I | Employee number | |
7 | I_yjs | Number of employees with master or doctor | |
8 | I_benke | Number of employees with bachelor | |
9 | I_dz | Number of employees with diploma | |
10 | I_gaozhong | Number of employees with high school education | |
11 | I_chuzhong | Number of employees with junior high school or below | |
12 | Revenue | Sales of the company | |
13 | Profit_operation | Profit of the company | |
14 | Ksum | Total asset of the company | |
15 | Equity | Equity of the company | |
16 | Kpaid | Total capital | |
17 | Kstate | Capital from government | |
18 | Koversea | Capital from overseas | |
19 | Kother | Capital from other sources | |
20 | ROS | Return on sales | |
21 | ROA | Return on assets | |
22 | FDIpercent | Percentage of overseas investment in the total investment | |
23 | DFIdummy | Overseas investment dummy | |
24 | agefirm | Age of the company |
Descriptive Analysis
ANOVA
Regression
Correlation
