Quality Control Of Government Agencies' Public Information Services Under Crises

When the public information is supplied by government agencies,the sources and information quality are easy to be controlled.But with the growing interaction,the public have more and more chances to take part in service designing,information collecting,service delivering and other segments,and the public information becomes more complicated,which leads to a new challenge to quality control Meanwhile,agencies should pay more attention to the quality of service system and service process,with the focus on a wider concept of service quality.The public information services in China are just in the junior phase with a weak awareness.The government agencies have been encountering the difficulties in changing the roles.The general service quality in this area is still very low.The crises like natural disasters great influences on the public,driving the needs and expectations of agencies' public information services to keep changing,and the time pressure also helps to make this kind of service different from ones under the usual circumstances.To improve the quality of public information service and deal with the special requirements under crises,the agencies should take systematical measures for quality control.This dissertation first introduces the research background,and discusses the significance,and then the research questions,research scheme,methods.Brief contents and road map of the study are stated after the research objective,relevant concepts and a literature review.The second chapter firstly introduces three basic theories that are applicable in our study,including the the theory of public goods,TQM(Total Quality Management),and Service Quality Model.The core standpoints and applications of these theories in our research area are then briefly discussed.The main quality elements,the factors that impressing public perceived quality are analyzed,and the methods for common quality control are also discussed at the end of this chapter.In the third chapter,the current service types,modes and channels of government public information services are concluded.By using government websites investigation,the current situation of this kind of services is then analyzed,and the main existing quality problems are pointed out,including information content quality,service process quality and the quality management.Based on the Service Quality Model,the forth chapter amends and replenishs the five quality dimensions of SERVQUAL scale,puts forward a PISQual scale to measure the public information service.This scale is then corrected and verified through a EFA(Exploratory factor analysis)and CFA(Confirmatory factor analysis)analysis using the data collected from a survey of 570 cases.The final scale comprises seven quality dimensions and 23 items.And the dimensions include information content quality,system reliability,service design quality,responsiveness,completion,compensatory and rights assurance.The PISQual scale is then used to analyze the public's total perceived quality,desired quality,and minimum acceptable quality of current public information services.A tolerant area analysis is then conducted to assess the performance on seven dimensions to support the following service design and total process control research.In the fifth chapter,a KANO analysis is conducted to distinguish the different needs of the public on information services under crisis circumstances.To design the KANO questionnaire,we use content analysis on the public information service experiences during several crisis events,such as East Japan Earthquake,to extract the most important needs of the public on this kind of service when they were facing the crisis.And then 17 specific needs are included in the KANO survey,which are further classified into attractive factors,important factors and basic factors.A cross-analysis of demand types and demographic characteristics is also made.The sixth chapter proposes the quality control countermeasures from both planning and operating layers.Basing on the foregoing empirical studies,we raise a quality-oriented public information service design model,and discuss the service design factors,design principles,and design procedures to deal with the crisis circumstances.And based on TQM theory,a total process quality control method is also put forward to improve the service quality,from service preparation to service delivery and remedy.The major innovations of this dissertation include:(1)a PISQual scale is designed and verified to measure the service quality;(2)a total process quality control method is proposed and a quality-oriented service design model is constructed.The slow development of public information service in China limits the research on this topic in some extent.Our study also has some limitations,first of them is that the PISQ ual scale is not developed in a high-level scientific way.Besides,the analysis of the special demand under crisis circumstances is incomplete.And we still need to make a further discussion on the service control measures,and give more operative advices to both the government agencies and the public to improve the perceived service quality and satisfaction,especially when in crises.