Author(s): Ram Komal Prasad, Rajendra K. Tiwari and Mahesh K. Jha
Purpose - The service delivery to the needy citizens in time bound manner and the recipients’ satisfaction, and officers’ affectivity in service delivery have been a domain of study in good governance and public management in the Indian socio-economic and administrative environment. The satisfaction of citizens and the effectiveness of service delivery from the government machinery have not created any service continuum that is the need of the time. Thus, the purpose of the current study is to develop a multidimensional scale to measure the effective service delivery in civil administration and the satisfaction of service recipients in the Indian context. Design/methodology/approach - The study is pragmatic and investigative in nature, and has been conducted on officers who are engaged in service delivery and the common citizen who look for and received services from the government in the state of Uttar Pradesh, a most populated state in India. Two questionnaires were developed separately for the officers and the citizen just to gauge the service delivery effectiveness and the overall service satisfaction on various dimensions as investigated from the literature and searched out from the discussions of the stakeholders Construct validation using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) approved the structure of scale with eight dimensions. Findings - It was observed that service quality in higher education setting comprises seven dimensions viz., Clarity of Organizational Structure, Service Specialization, Management by Objectives, Service Reliability, Authority and Responsibility, Service Empathy and Communication, Organizational Strategy, Service Responsiveness, Strategy and Performance as (predictor) independent variables and Effective Service Delivery as (criterion) dependent variable from the officers’. In the same context the Decentralization of Services (DS), Public Service Delivery (PSD), Service Delivery Action (SDA), Allocate Efficiency of Services (AES), Service Accountability (SA) as predictor variables and Overall Public Satisfaction (OPS) as criterion variable from the service recipients view. Research limitations/implications - The study holds implications for most of the departments of government that deliver services to citizens including Land and Revenue, Medical services, Public distribution & civil supply, Transport services etc. The scale developed can be used by practitioners as a diagnostic tool for identifying poor and/or excellent service performance. Originality/value – While studying in service delivery phenomenon and its various dimensions, we have come across different aspects in the governance and broader sphere of service delivery, this study lays emphasis on Effective Service Delivery (ESD) by engaged officers and the Overall Service Satisfaction (OSS) by the citizen. The study is an attempt toward developing and empirically validating a measurement scale for service delivery in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The present research study aims to investigate the process of service delivery by the government officials in the state of Uttar Pradesh one of the largest states in Indian provinces and to develop a unifying scale to measure its effectiveness and satisfaction. Services are intangible and have a high level of variability as well as heterogeneity and their performance depends on the people, process, and the evidence as to how much the service recipients are satisfied. The satisfaction of the service recipients evokes positive features of the service offering department, government officers for their basic rights and the benefits of the government schemes introduced from time to time. The service sector is a wide area of study, particularly the services rendered by the government. This study investigates the various dimensions of the service delivery system and relevant variables. We have come across the two fundamental aspects of service – effective service delivery mechanism and the level of satisfaction of the service receivers (citizens) in the area of a sample of the study. The study is based on primary data collected through questionnaires and schedules from officers of the government engaged in service delivery and from the common citizens who come for availing the services. Public Service Deliveries (PSD) are the responsibility of public authorities in any system. They are provisions on behalf of the governments, but these provisions for the public are not adequately met as per public opinion. Public services are intended, not to meet the objectives or preferences of consumers or producers, but to further objectives that policy-makers consider desirable policy from the government side. We find no comprehensive and established theory on service delivery but during the literature review, we come across an inductive basis of hypothesis generation and certain models of organizational performance. In the research, the meaning and extent of public service management and its delivery suggest leadership style, organization culture, human resource management, strategic process, etc.