Kazemi Somayeh University Teacher of Islamic Azad University, Torbat-E-Jam Branch, Iran

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Investigating the Relation between Outsourcing Customer Services to

Private Section and Job Satisfaction

(Case study: West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department Stuff)

Kazemi Somayeh

University Teacher of Islamic Azad University, Torbat-E-Jam Branch, Iran

Shokrzadeh Morteza

University Teacher of Islamic Azad University, Jolfa International Branch, Iran The Member of Young Researchers Club of Jolfa-Iran

Jafari Parisa (Corresponding author)

MA student of Marketing Management of Islamic Azad University, Torbat-E-Jam

Branch, Iran

Abdoli Maryam

MA student of Marketing Management of Islamic Azad University, Torbat-E-Jam Branch, Iran

The Member of Young Researchers Club of Tabriz-Iran

Abstract

The policy of economic practices to private section has been widely developing in two past decades all over the world. Outsourcing public industries to private section, autonomy of manufacturing firms, decentralization of manufacturing units, and revolution of economic management system in Iran are prevalent issues in economic discussions. Outsourcing as a privatization method has been replacing public service and product development. For this purpose, privatization of west Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department as an important economic section was chosen as the subject of this paper to investigate job satisfaction of its stuff and its impacts on the performance of the department. One main and 5 subsidiary hypotheses were set and a questionnaire was designed to test them. Measuring validity and consistency of the questionnaires, they were distributed among sample population. Using Cochran formulation, 290 people were selected from the sample. Collecting questionnaires, their results were classified and a correlational T-test was used to analyze data. Due to the results, 5 factors of job satisfaction according to Stephan Robins impacted the performance of west Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department.

Key words: Performance, Outsourcing, Job Satisfaction, Customer Service

1. Introduction

Lining between public and private sections ' roles has been a difficult task considering the necessities of every time. Even in the same society, either public or private sections have been prevalent in specific time periods. Government as a responsible organization for society interferes in economic affairs to compensate its social costs. The extent of governmental interference, in economic affairs has been as a discussion topic of many scientists. Some believe that government should have full authority of economy to do its responsibilities, like protecting society against violence,

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invasion, injustice or creating welfare and employment. Others believe that for inefficiency of government in economic affairs, private sections should hold these responsibilities. But the third and moderate group believes in cooperation of both public and private sections. In Iran, according to Constitution, government should be responsible for fundamental economic activities in the country but outsourcing and privatization of public organizations and firms is possible; so, some organizations were privatized (Hoseini 2002).

In most developing countries, cooperation of private sections in dealing with augmentative demands of public corporations is essential. In developing countries the capabilities of public agencies and corporations in providing water, house, public transportation, and removing wastes is limited (Percopenco 2001). Progress of financial status of middle-class and increasing demands of goods and services like communication and transportation are the reasons for private section cooperation (Soltaniarabshahi 2005).

Privatization can be a reasonable economic policy which needs a context to bloom, but is influenced by economic conditions. Since privatization seeks to reduce budgeting costs and direct governmental impact, provide public resources, deregulate and balance hindering rules, increase productivity and stuff motivations, decentralization policies in the form of outsourcing has been accelerated to yield more productivity and public investments. Following mentioned policies, privatization of West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department has been considered to accomplish the goals of Communication and Technology Ministry using the advantages of competitive markets, escaping public management and decentralization since 2001. Now, it is time to investigate the impacts of this practice on stuff satisfaction before and after privatization. For this means, performance in the form of stuff satisfaction according to the factors of Robins including , supportive colleagues, , equitable rewards, supportive working conditions, job involvement, and mentally challenging works was measured to investigate the relation of outsourcing customer service to private sources according to mentioned indices.

The main question of this research is:

“Is there any relation between outsourcing customer service to private sections and stuff satisfaction of West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department?”

The answer to this question lies in answering the following hypotheses:

1. There is a significant relation between supportive colleagues before and after privatizing West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department.

2. There is a significant relation between equitable rewards before and after outsourcing West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department.

3. There is a significant relation between supportive working conditions before and after outsourcing West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department.

4. There is a significant relation between job involvement before and after outsourcing West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department.

5. There is a significant relation between mentally challenging work before and after outsourcing West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department.

Theoretical frame of present research is a mixture of International Labor Organization pattern and Stephan Robin’s theory.

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2.Methodology

This paper is of applied type using survey method which is prevalent in quantitative researches. In this method, for the lack of possibility of studying all population behavior, sampling or investigating is used. In this way, a sample is selected and the results are generalized. The people selected for this purpose make sample population. For research reliability, the sample should represent the whole society. In other words, survey research is for investigating the nature of personal features and perceptions (views, believes, and interests) by analyzing the answers to carefully-designed questions (Tabatabai 2007).

3.Population and sample

Population and sample of this study is West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department including 19 towns. For calculating sample volume, Cochran formulation was used, where t , confidence coefficient was 1.96, d favorite probable precision 0.05, p 0.5, and q 0.5. Total Sample number was 290 from which 240 belonged to Orumieh, 30 to Khoy, 12 to Mako, and 3 to Chaldoran. The questionnaires were distributed among them all.

Stephan Robin’s theory Supportive colleagues Equitable rewards Supportive working conditions Job involvement Mentally challenging works Stuff job satisfaction Customer satisfaction International Labor Organization pattern

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JANUARY 2012 VOL 3,NO 9 4.Data gathering tools

To gather data and test the hypotheses, a researcher-made questionnaire was used including 12 questions about before and 12 questions about after outsourcing. A 5-point Likert scale was used with the items very little to very much. The questions required the participants to express their ideas about the performance of West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department.

5.Data analysis

To analyze data, inductive statistics were used by applying a correlational T-test. Main hypothesis test. There is a significant difference between outsourcing customer services to private section and stuff satisfaction of West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

H1. There is a significant difference between outsourcing customer services to private section and stuff satisfaction of West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

H0. There isn't a significant difference between outsourcing customer services to private section and stuff satisfaction of West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

Considering 0.000 significance for correlational T- test (< 0.05) and t number = 20.197 and a freedom degree value of 289, bigger than critical t value, a significant difference between 2 means (of 37.18 for stuff job satisfaction before outsourcing and 27.76 after that ) is confirmed.

Due to the higher mean job satisfaction of the stuff before outsourcing, it can be concluded that outsourcing has decreased job satisfaction of the stuff.

H1 test. There is a significant difference between supportive colleague’s number in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

H1. There is a significant difference between supportive colleague’s number in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

H0. There isn’t a significant difference between supportive colleague’s number in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

Considering 0.000 significance for correlational T- test (< 0.05) and t number =15.058 and a freedom degree value of 289, bigger than critical t value, a significant difference between 2 means (of 9.22 for stuff job satisfaction before outsourcing and 6.93 after that ) is confirmed.

So H1 is confirmed and H0 is rejected. In other words, there is a significant difference between supportive colleague’s number in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

Due to higher mean of supportive colleague’s number in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before privatization, it can be concluded that outsourcing has decreased service quality and job satisfaction as well.

H2 test. There is a significant difference between equitable rewards in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

H1. There is a significant difference between equitable rewards in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

H0. There is not a significant difference between equitable rewards in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

Considering 0.000 significance for correlational T- test (< 0.05) and t number =7.754 and a freedom degree value of 289, bigger than critical t value, a significant difference

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between 2 means (of 8.19 for stuff job satisfaction before outsourcing and 7.22 after that ) is confirmed.

So, H1 is confirmed and H0 is rejected. In other words, there is a significant relation between equitable rewards in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

Due to the higher mean equitable rewards value before outsourcing, it can be concluded that outsourcing has decreased equitable rewards of the stuff.

H3 test. There is a significant difference between supportive working conditions in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

H1. There is a significant difference between supportive working conditions in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

H0. There is n’t a significant difference between supportive working conditions in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

So, H1 is confirmed and H0 is rejected. In other words, there is a significant difference between supportive working conditions in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

Due to the higher mean value of supportive working conditions before outsourcing, it can be concluded that outsourcing has decreased supportive working conditions and stuff job satisfaction as well.

H4 test. There is a significant difference between job involvement in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

H0. There is not a significant difference between job involvement in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

So, H1 is confirmed and H0 is rejected.

In other words, there is a significant difference between supportive working to person in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

Due to the higher mean of supportive working condition before outsourcing, it can be concluded that outsourcing has decreased supportive working condition and stuff job satisfaction as well.

H5 test. There is a significant difference between mentally challenging works in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

H0. There is n’t a significant difference between mentally challenging works in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

So, H1 is confirmed and H0 is rejected.

In other words, there is a significant difference between mentally challenging works in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department before and after privatization.

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Due to the higher mean of mentally challenging works before outsourcing it can be concluded that outsourcing has decreased mentally challenging works and stuff job satisfaction as well.

6.Conclusion

According to the results of this study, the following results were achieved:

H1. Using 12 questions about before and after outsourcing consideing 5 job satisfaction factors in West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department, this hypothesis was measured. Due to higher mean values of stuff job satisfaction before outsourcing, it can be concluded that outsourcing has decreased stuff job satisfaction and their performance as well.

Sub H1. This hypothesis was measured by 3 questionnaires. Due to higher mean values of supportive colleagues, before outsourcing it can be concluded that outsourcing has decreased supportive colleagues and stuff job satisfaction.

Sub H2. This hypothesis was measured by 3 questionnaires. Due to higher mean value of equitable rewards before outsourcing, it can be concluded that outsourcing has decreased equitable rewards and job satisfaction.

Sub H3. This hypothesis was measured by 2 questionnaires. Due to higher mean of supportive working conditions before outsourcing, it can be concluded that outsourcing has decreased supportive working conditions and job satisfaction.

Sub H4. This hypothesis was measured by 2 questionnaires. Due to higher mean of job involvement before outsourcing, it can be concluded that outsourcing has job involvement and job satisfaction.

Sub H5. This hypothesis was measured by 2 questionnaires. Due to higher mean of mentally challenging work before outsourcing, it can be concluded that outsourcing has decreased mentally challenging work and job satisfaction.

7.Suggestions

T

o investigate stuff job satisfaction of West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department, the answers to given questionnaires were measured. The results showed less stuff job satisfaction after outsourcing and five Robins ' factors including, supportive colleagues, , equitable rewards, supportive working conditions, job involvement, and mentally challenging works has decreased as well.

From a holistic view, it should be considered that outsourcing and privatization can yield positive results when they are done parallel with other market reforms to reach expected goals and economic developments. Using the experiences of successful and unsuccessful countries like Pakistan and considering necessary context for privatization, rules, motivating private sections for cooperation, omitting complicated bureaucracy, decision making to the interests of decision- makers, and exerting structural balancing policies and economic stability can be of great help in outsourcing and privatization. Due to low rate of job satisfaction among West Azerbaijan Telecommunication Department stuff, the following suggestions are represented:

1.Outsourcing and privatization should accompany a pre-defined and coherent cultural program in a way that penetrates in the believes of stuff and people making them hopeful to positive effects in future. Since without human resource supports, these processes even in the case of performance will be temporary and can’t continue successfully.

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2. In relation to the results of H1 , caring about the views of co-workers, mutual understanding and close relations with them are suggested.

3. In relation to the results of H2 equal facilities, wages, and benefits should be given to the stuff.

4. In relation to the results of H3, it is suggested that organizational officials try to create a close, friendly, and without -stress work environment f or the stuff.

5. In relation to the results of H4, considering the proportion of positions and people should be considered to create a peaceful and safe environment.

6. In relation to the results of H5, it is suggested to consider the skills and talents of the stuff, creating a happy and encouraging atmosphere.

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