UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST OF ENGLAND

Bristol Business School

EVALUATION OF THE PUBLIC RELATION

OFFICES OF THE FIVE STATE INSTITUTIONS

OF BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

By

Nebojsa Regoje

The dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Master of

Arts in Management (Public Administration Reform).

January 2010

PERSONAL INTEREST

The researcher worked as the Head of the Public Relation Office of the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia-Herzegovina and he was not actively

performing that duty at the time of the research. He wanted to explore possibilities of

combining his personal knowledge and experience gained while executing that duty

with the theoretical concepts he become aware of during MA in Management (Public

Administration Reform) programme with the purpose of achieving better public

service.

OBJECTIVES

It is hoped that this research will accomplish the following objectives:

O1: - to identify measurables suitable for evaluation of the PR offices of

the state institutions;

O2: - to establish the opinion of the external customers about the PR

offices of the five chosen state institutions;

O3: - to determine the measure of relevance of services offered by PR

offices;

O4: - to compare the processes and practices of different PR offices in

order to establish "best practice" that will serve as improvement target;

O5: - to examine possibilities for finding areas of the processes in which

improvements are desirable and/or needed;

O6: - to give recommendations for further development of the services;

O7: - to build a model of performance evaluation that could be used in the

future for assessment of the PR offices.

POLAR REPRESENTATION OF THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES

(Source: Slack et al., 2007, Figure 2.10a, p. 54)

2.2.2 IMPORTANCE AND PERFORMANCE

The polar representation gives a picture of the present situation of the

performance objectives against the wished one or the competitions. However, it does

not point towards the priority improvement areas. Slack et al. (2007) suggests that

improvement priorities should be judged either by requirements of clients or

performance of competition. Introduction of some kind of measure of importance to

the customers to the performance objectives measurement provides two dimensions

template as a tool in determining the priority areas of operations that need

improvement.

The first dimension, importance to the customers, is assessed through three

categories, qualifiers, order winners, and less important factors, each further divided

into three points representing strong, medium, and weak position making actual nine-

point evaluation scale (Slack et al., 2007).

The second dimension, the performance objectives measurement, is reflected

through assessment of the performance on each objective against other or the

competitors (Slack et al., 2007; Johnston and Clark, 2005). Performance on each of

individual factors is judged as better, same, or worse than others. In a similar way as

importance scale, nine-point performance scale is derived by rating each of three

categories as strong, medium, or weak.

"The importance-performance matrix" (Slack et al., 2007, p. 589) is a

technique that brings together scores that indicate the relative importance and relative

performance of different competitive factors in order to prioritise them as candidates

for improvements. Each competitive factor is positioned inside the matrix according

to scores or ratings (Figure 2). The performance against the competitors and the

importance to the customers, rated on a nine-point scale, are plotted on a graphic that

is divided into the zones of improvements priority. The four zones are regarded as

"excess?", "appropriate", "improve", and "urgent-action" (Slack and Lewis, 2008).

THE IMPORTANCE-PERFORMANCE MATRIX (Source: Slack and Lewis, 2008, Figure 6.7, p. 179)

The "appropriate" zone has as its lower boundary the line that represents minimal

acceptability. Moving performance above of this line is the first objective that should

be considered in any improvements process. The factors that are placed inside this

area should be considered satisfactory, but the trend of improvements should be to

move towards the upper sector of this zone.

The "improve" zone contains factors that need improvements. The factors located to

the right of this zone and those near the border with urgent-action zone are more

EVALUATION OF COOPERATION WITH PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICES OF B&H STATE INSTITUTIONS

Criteria Parliamentary Assembly

Presidency of B&H

Council of Ministers

Court of B&H

MFA B&H

How soon after an event public announcements are delivered

Relevance and reliability of information from announcements

Quality of announcements (language, style, photographs)

Quality of response upon your questions (speed, reliability, completeness, correctness)

General readiness for cooperation (accessibility, return of calls, means of communication)

COMMENT: (if any)

- Enter evaluation for each question and each institution using 1 (bad) to 5 (excellent). - Filled questionnaire please return to Nebojsa.Regoje@mvp.gov.ba. - For additional explanations call 062/106160.

2.00

3.00

4.00SPEED

RELEVANCE

QUALITYRESPONSIVENESS

GENERAL

PARLIAMENTPRESIDENCYCOUNCILCOURTMFAAVERAGE

3.3 PRESENTATION OF THE RESULTS

Results of the research consist of quantitative data, obtained by the first and

the second survey, and qualitative data, obtained by the two surveys and interviews.

In this section, all of the results were presented in the forms that allow analysis of the

data that were commented in order to facilitate process of drawing conclusions and

formulating recommendations.

3.3.1 THE FIRST SURVEY

Numerical data of the first survey were sorted in the table in Appendix 9 and

presented graphically on the Chart 2.

SUMMARY OF THE RESULTS (Adapted from Slack et al., 2007, figure 2.10, p. 54)

3.18

2.94

3.293.43 3.38

3.25

1.00

2.00

3.00

4.00

5.00

PARLIAMENT PRESIDENCY COUNCIL COURT MFA OVERALL

Institution

Ave

rage

Sco

re

Comparing average ratings of all of the institutions for different criteria

(Appendix 9 and Chart 2) reveal that the Court has scored better than others on three

criteria, Quality (3.23) together with MFA, Relevance (3.93) and Responsiveness

(3.20), while the Parliament has the highest General score (3.56). An average rating

of MFA for Speed (3.48) is better than average scores of the other institutions.

MFA's rating is not the lowest on any of the criteria, while the Presidency has all the

lowest ratings for individual criteria other than Speed (3.28), where the Parliament

(2.97) has the lowest score.

The average rating of MFA for all of the criteria (3.38) is above Overall (3.25)

and the second best, only 0.05 behind the Court of B-H (3.43) that has the highest

average rating (Chart 3). The lowest average rating has the Presidency at 2.94, while

the Council of the Ministers and the Parliament have the same average score of 3.29,

closest to Overall. It is interesting to note that the Council has also individual criteria

averages close to Overall (Chart 2).

AVERAGE RATINGS OF EACH INSTITUTION FOR ALL CRITERIA

3.30

3.60

3.052.98

3.28 3.25

2.00

2.50

3.00

3.50

4.00

SPEED RELEVANCE QUALITY RESPONSIVENESS GENERAL AVERAGE

Criteria

Ave

rage

Sco

re

There is a very high rating for Relevance (3.60), higher than any other criteria

(Chart 4). This is a logical consequence of a very high interest of media for the news

coming from the top state institutions and that is the only criterion for which all

individual scores of all of the institutions are above 3. The scores for Responsiveness

(2.98) and Quality (3.05) are below Average and that is indication of the media's

dissatisfaction with PR offices' activity in this area.

AVERAGE RATINGS OF EACH CRITERION FOR ALL INSTITUTION

It is interesting and useful to analyse comments (Appendix 11) submitted by

respondents. They reveal several issues deemed to be problematic and, while in some

of the cases the PR offices cannot change anything, in some other cases the

comments show the way in which improvements should be directed.

Several objections were about unequal respect of the three languages and two

alphabets that are in official use in the country (answers No. 15, 22) while MFA was

EVALUATION OF COOPERATION WITH PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICES OF B&H STATE INSTITUTIONS

TYPE OF MEDIA

News Agency Daily Papers

Periodical Magazine Radio

Television Please choose a type of media by deleting unsuitable options.

- Please rank the criteria by numerical evaluation so that each mark is used only once: five (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT), four (IMPORTANT), three (RELATIVELY IMPORTANT), two (SMALL IMPORTANCE), or one (THE LEAST IMPORTANT). - Filled questionnaire please return to Nebojsa.Regoje@mvp.gov.ba. - For additional explanations call 062/106160.

Criteria Mark How soon after an event public announcements are delivered 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1

Relevance and reliability of information from announcements 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1

Quality of announcements (language, style, photographs) 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1

Quality of response upon your questions (speed, reliability, completeness, correctness) 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1

General readiness for cooperation (accessibility, return of calls, means of communication) 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1

COMMENTS: (if any) SUGGESTIONS: (if any)

3.06

3.88

2.00

3.092.97

1.50

2.00

2.50

3.00

3.50

4.00

SPEED RELEVANCE QUALITY RESPONSIVENESS GENERALCriteria

Cus

tom

ers'

Impo

rtan

ce

the journalists' world, delay in reception of requested information is equal to not

receiving it at all.

AVERAGE RANKINGS OF EACH CRITERION

The second survey provided qualitative information, in addition to the

quantitative. Respondents gave some very interesting comments and suggestions,

attached in translated form in the Appendix 12.

Several of them commented on the chosen criteria, explaining that all of them

are of almost equal importance (answers No. 2, 8, 9, and 15) while others simply

emphasise which are the most important for them (14, 17, and 22). Good illustration

of importance of the criteria is shown by a sentence from the comment of respondent

number 15:

What do you need for reliable information at 7:30 for News at 7?

0.50

1.00

1.50

2.00

2.50

3.00

3.50

4.00

4.50

5.00

0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50 5.00

Importance for Customers

Perf

orm

ance

Aga

inst

Com

petit

ion

d) THE COURT OF BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

IMPORTANCE-PERFORMANCE MATRIX (Adapted from Slack and Lewis, 2008, Figure 6.7, p. 179)

THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

2.00

QUALITY

2.97

GENERAL

3.06

SPEED

3.09

RESPONSIVENESS

3.88

RELEVANCE

Key: Importance for customers, values and symbols

Appendix 13: INTERVIEW GUIDE

Institution: Interviewee(s) name(s): Interviewee(s) position(s): Date and duration of interview: Place of interview:

1. BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION:

- outline of the purpose of research

- presentation of the importance-performance matrix

- comments

2. OFFICE PERSONNEL:

- position of the office in the structure of the institution

- number of employees according the systematisation and actual situation

- educational and professional background

- additional training and development in PR and/or management skills

- compensation, rewards, penalties, motivation

3. EQUIPMENT:

- currant situation within the office

- use of modern IT technology

- communication equipment

4. COOPERATION:

- other offices and/or individuals from the same institution

- cooperation with PR offices of other institutions

- relation with the media

5. PRODUCTION OF PRESS STATEMENTS / ANNOUNCEMENTS:

- process of production (preparations, presence to an actual event, photographing)

- technical issues (typing, translating and/or proofreading, printing)

- consultations and/or approval before delivery

- delivery

6. ANSWERING QUESTIONS AND RESPONDING ON REQUESTS FROM

MEDIA:

- means of receiving questions and delivering answers

- obtaining the information needed for the answer

- consultations and/or approval to answer

- average time from reception to delivery

7. OTHER TASKS:

- organisation of press conferences

- promotions, special events, briefings

- travel with the officials

8. EVALUATION OF THE WORK:

- presence in media / clipping analysis

- satisfaction of the superiors

- satisfaction of media people

- what is the goal of PR

9. CLOSING:

- any other comment, question that was not asked

- synthesise findings

- reiterate how I will use this information

- thank the participant(s)

in the chapter 2.0 Literature Review. The chapter 3.0 Practical Examination

contains descriptions of the methodology and the research design as well as

the presentation of the results. The final chapter 4.0 Discussion,

Recommendations, and Conclusions wraps up the findings culminating in the

eleven steps programme for introduction of lean thinking and implementation

of improvements.

The performance evaluation model could be formulated in the four

stages:

1. Definition of the measurables

The same performance indicators or factors used in this project could

be used for any non-profit service oriented organisation as they are developed

on the basis of the main characteristics of the services. Of course, the factors

could be adjusted to better describe needs of the customers in the other

research cases.

2. Practical research

The mixed-methods research used in this study could be adjusted so

that the balance between qualitative and quantitative data better serve the

organisation under the examination.

3. Presentation and analysis of data

Clear presentation of data, using graphical and/or tabular presentation

used in this project, make analysis of the data easier which aid the process of

making conclusions.

4. Implementation of improvements

The final stage is introduction of lean thinking following the eleven

steps programme and implementation of the improvements.

In the focus of PR offices should be journalists, i.e. public (tax-payers that pay them),

rather than bosses who change after elections.

Classification was created on the basis of the theoretical considerations

explained in the section 2.2.2 Importance and Performance. The same

literature review section supported the discussion of the quantitative data in

the section 4.1 Discussion/RQ3.

Analysis of the qualitative data from the two surveys and the

interviews revealed processes that contain wastes that should be eliminated.

The findings (Appendices 11, 12, and 14 to 18) were presented in the 3.3

Presentation of the Results and commented in the section 4.1 Discussion/RQ3

on the basis of 2.3.1 Waste.

O6: Recommendations for further development of the services were given

as the eleven steps programme:

1. "Learn about Lean"

2. "Commit to Lean"

3. "What does the customer really need?"

4. "Choose the Value Stream"

5. "Which steps create value and which generate waste

6. "Map the Current State"

7. "Determine Lean Metrics"

8. "Map the Future State"

9. "What process improvements will be necessary to achieve the

future state?" and "How can work flow with fewer interruptions?"

10. "Create Kaizen Plans"

11. "Implement Kaizen Plans".

The programme was based on the theoretical concepts described in

the section 2.3.2 Value Stream Mapping and presented in the section 4.2

Recommendations.

O7: The final and ultimate objective to build a model of performance

evaluation that could be used in the future for assessment of the PR offices

was built through-out the entire dissertation. Theoretical foundations were set

R E F E R E N C E S Keyte, B and Locher, D (2004) The Complete Lean Enterprise: Value Stream Mapping for

Administrative and Office Processes, Productivity Press, New York. Regoje, N (2008) Operations and Information Management - Assignment: Public Relations Office of

the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia-Herzegovina - Performance Measurement, University of the West of England, Bristol.

Slack, N, Chamberss, P and Johnston R (2007) Operations Management (5th edn), Pearson Education

Limited, Essex. Slack, N and Lewis, M (2008) Operations Strategy (2nd edn), Pearson Education Limited, Essex. Tapping, D, Luyster, T and Shuker, T (2002) Value Stream Management - Eight Steps to Planning,

Mapping, and Sustaining Lean Improvements, Productivity Press, New York. Tapping, D and Shuker, T (2003) Value Stream Management for the Lean Office - Eight Steps to

Planning, Mapping, and Sustaining Lean Improvements in Administrative Areas, Productivity Press, New York.