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Integration and Auditing of Management Systems and Implementation of Customer Satisfaction Standards in Serbia
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- Author / Creator
- Selakovic,Katarina
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This thesis demonstrates the results of an empirical study done in Serbia on the implementation of management systems and customer satisfaction standards, as well as the integration and auditing of standardized management systems. The study is a follow up of the surveys performed in Spain in 2006 and 2010 (e.g. Karapetrovic & Casadesus, 2009 and Simon et al., 2013) and in Canada in 2012 (e.g. Durdevic et al., 2013). The survey contained nine sections focused on the integration of standardized management systems, auditing and customer satisfaction standards. It was sent to 320 organizations that had been registered to ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. Fifty valid surveys were received during 71 days in 2013, with the response rate of 15.6%. The study found that the standard that was implemented as the first in 70% of the cases was ISO 9001 and that the average lead time for implementation of management system standards was between six months and one year. The Serbian ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 registered organizations presented a high level of integration, with 76% having completely integrated their management systems. The most significant difficulties in the integration process were “lack of human resources” and “lack of employee motivation”. With respect to auditing, the most frequently used guidance for both internal and external audits was ISO 19011. A high level of integration was found for auditing subsystems in both internal and external audits. For example, internal audits showed simultaneous audits in 58% of organizations and the integration of human resources, audit inputs and audit outputs in 46%, 56% and 52%, respectively. Furthermore, a comparison between different sizes of organizations and industry sectors was performed, showing, for example, that a high percentage of large organizations conducted internal audits as an integrated system. The results regarding customer satisfaction standards show less familiarity with augmentative standards (e.g. ISO 10004 at 60%, ISO 10002 at 48% and ISO 10001 at 44%) compared to other augmentative standards (e.g. ISO 19011 at 72% and ISO 14031 at 60%). Fifty percent of the organizations that had implemented customer satisfaction standards implemented them at the “same time as ISO 9001”. Audits against those standards were performed as “a part of the internal audit of the integrated management system” in 36% of the organizations. The major reasons for not implementing customer satisfaction standards were “lack of financial resources” and “lack of human resources”. The main limitation of this study was a small sample size, thereby not giving the possibility for performing advanced statistical testing. Furthermore, the survey was done in only one country. Future research could extend the study in other countries (as was done, for example, in Canada by Durdevic et al., 2013) and then repeat it in Serbia with the same fifty organizations that participated originally. As e.g. Simon et al. (2012a), those results could illustrate the Serbian organizations’ progress in integration, auditing and particularly in the implementation of customer satisfaction standards This thesis illustrates one of the first studies conducted in Serbia related to customer satisfaction standards and the first empirical study related to auditing standards and auditing systems in organizations.
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- Graduation date
- Fall 2016
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Master of Science
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- License
- This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.