Addis Ababa UniversitySchool of Business and Administration Department of Accounting and Finance

Module: Business Research Methods (MBA 613)

Challenges to Implement Business Process Reengineering

(BPR) at Samara University

Prepared by:

Naod Mekonnen (GSR/2338/02)

Submitted to:

Wollela A Y (Ph.D)

June 2010

ContentsChapter 1: Introduction..................................................................................................2

1.1 Overview.........................................................................................................21.2. Statement of the problems..................................................................................41.3. Purpose of the study...........................................................................................5

Chapter 2: Literature review..........................................................................................62.1. Business Process Reengineering (BPR): theory.................................................6

2.1.1 BPR in higher education institution.........................................................82.1.2 BPR implementation barriers..................................................................9

2.2 Empirical studies on BPR.............................................................................112.3 Conclusion and knowledge gap....................................................................13

Chapter 3: Research design.........................................................................................143.1 Research questions........................................................................................143.2 Research design............................................................................................14

3.2.1 Research method adopted......................................................................17Chapter 4: Significant, delimitation, final structure, work plan, and budgeted cost of the study.......................................................................................................................21

4.1 Significant of the study.................................................................................214.2 Delimitation of the study..............................................................................214.3 Final structure of the study...........................................................................214.4 Work plan......................................................................................................214.5 Budgeted cost................................................................................................21

Reference.....................................................................................................................22Appendix: 1- Summary of key success/failure factors in BPR...................................25Appendix: 2- Survey instrument..................................................................................26Appendix: 3 - Work plan of the study.........................................................................31Appendix: 4 - Budgeted cost of the study...................................................................32

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Chapter 1: Introduction

This proposal is prepared to study the challenges faced by Samara University to

implement Business Process Reengineering (BPR). Among various management

tools, BPR is one of the management tool that can help the organization for effective,

efficient and economic performance of business processes though dramatic and

radical redesign of processes. It can also help to contributes benefit to the external

stakeholders of the organization.

The aim of this introductory chapter is to provide background information on the

proposed study. The remaining sections of this chapter organized as follows: The first

section presents overview of Samara University inline with BPR so as to provide

background for the proposed study. The second section presents the statement of

problems. Next, purpose of the study presented in the third section.

1.1 Overview

Samara University is one of recently inaugurated universities in Ethiopia, which is

located North-Eastern part of Ethiopia- region two, Afar. At the beginning of 2008,

the University begins the conventional teaching-learning businesses by accepting

more than 1,000 students assigned by the Ethiopian Ministry of Education (MoE). In

doing so, the University adopted the ways of doing businesses from elder universities

of Ethiopia like Addis Ababa University, Mekelle University and so on.

However, the adopted processes criticized being as old fashioned processes that are

scattered in pieces of tasks among unites of the University. That in turn dissatisfied

both the customers and service providers. In addition, those old fashioned work

practices lack to enhance the Ethiopian universities for effective, efficient and

economic performance.

As a result, the Ethiopian Ministry of Capacity Building (MCB) tries to introduce

transformation in Ethiopia in the ways in which works have to be done by all

government organization through BPR. Thus, under the delegation of MoE, Ethiopian

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universities, including Samara University, engaged in BPR project starting from the

last two years (2008 and 2009).

To carry out BPR project at Samara University, the University’s management had

identified five processes and assigned redesign team members in October 2008.

Eventually, the University finished the redesign phase of BPR in May 2009 and

assigned an implementation team to commence the implementation of newly

designed processes in June 2009. However, the University not yet implemented the

newly redesigned processes. With this regard, Linden (1998) noted that the biggest

disappointment of organizations’ on BPR is with the implementation or more

specifically, lack of implementation. Likewise, Hammer and Champy (1993)

estimated that about between 50 to 70 percent of BPR initiative fails to achieve their

objectives.

Studies on the key success and failure factors of BPR implementation attempted to

approach to identify different sets of factors (Ahmad et al., 2007; Al-Mashari and

Zairi, 1999; Attaran and Wood, 1999; Allen and Fifield, 1999). These factors include

change management, management competency and support, organizational culture,

project planning and management, IT infrastructure and financial resources. Beside

this, Attaran (2000) attempted to identify barriers to successful implementation of

BPR; however, the author claimed that the difference between success and failure did

not depend on company size or resources, but on appropriate planning and avoidance

of pitfalls.

The above mentioned studies examined the factors that affect successful

implementation of BPR. The factors identified by various authors are almost similar,

except Allen and Fifield (1999) and Terziovskia et al. (2002) depart on the IT factor.

In Ethiopia, although the introduction of BPR is recent phenomenon, specific factors

that affect BPR implementation and their magnitudes, remained open questions.

Particularly, Samara University faced challenges to implement the redesigned

processes. Thus, it is appropriate to study the challenges faced at the early stage that

will help to take corrective action before the project completely failed. As a result, the

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study will attempt to contribute to the literature by studying through a mixed method

of research design to identify the factors that affect BPR implementation and to better

understand the magnitudes of various factors that affect BPR implementation.

1.2. Statement of the problems

The traditional working practices of Ethiopian public organizations criticized as being

fragmented across various units of the organization. And each unit focused only on

one task that leads to frustrate the customers from ups and downs to get services from

various units’ handoffs. As such, the traditional working practices are not efficient,

effective and economical in this changing and competitive environment.

To alleviate like the above mentioned working practices, recently, the Ethiopian

MCB tries to introduce transformation in Ethiopia in which works have to be done by

all governmental organization through BPR. Accordingly, under the delegation of

MoE, Ethiopian universities, including Samara University, engaged with BPR project

to drastically change the traditional work practices with a new one. Having this, in

May 2009 Samara University finished the first phase of BPR project by redesigning

new processes and arranged implementation team to commence the implementation

process.

However, the University not yet implemented any of redesigned processes. Although

in BPR principles all of the redesigned processes shall not be implemented once

rather step-by-step of pilot study, at least some selected redesigned processes have to

be piloted and implemented. Otherwise, the rate of failure increased as time passed.

Thus, this lack of implementation implied that the University’s BPR project faced

challenges to implement and its intended objective remained on shelf. In this regard,

Allen and Fifield (1999) and United States General Accounting Office (1997) noted

that implementing BPR project is far from straight forward activities. In addition to

the challenges, Attaran and Wood (1999) added that BPR is still an unfulfilled

promise for many organizations despite all the energy, money and efforts spent by

organization trying to make their organizations’ reengineering efforts successful. In

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general, as more organizations undertake BPR, issues in implementing become major

concerns.

Samara University BPR implementation challenges could be traced to various factors

that were identified by different authors (Ahmad et al., 2007; Al-Mashari and Zairi,

1999; Allen and Fifield, 1999; Attaran and Wood, 1999), such as change

management, management competency and support, organizational culture, project

planning and management, IT and Financial resources.

However, the specific factors that the University faced to implement BPR and the

magnitude of their effect not addressed on prior literature. Therefore, it is worth

researching to identify the factors that affect BPR implementation and their

magnitude on the implementation process.

1.3. Purpose of the study

The purpose of this two-phase, sequential mixed method study will be to examine

BPR implementation. In the first phase, quantitative survey research questions will

identify factors that lead to faced challenges to implement BPR with BPR

implementation and redesign team members of Samara University. Information from

this quantitative phase will be used further in second qualitative phase. In the second

phase, qualitative interviews will be used to understand the magnitude of identified

factors as challenges to implement BPR with the University president and two vice

presidents at Samara University. The reason for following up with qualitative

research in the second phase is to better understand the magnitude of the identified

factors. In general, the purpose of this study will be:

to identify the factors that lead to face challenges to implement BPR at

Samara University and to better understand the magnitude of the identified

factors.

The following chapter presents review of literature regarding to BPR along with its

theory and empirical studies on it, and finally it presents conclusions and gap on BPR

literature specific to the Ethiopian case.

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Chapter 2: Literature review

Today, globalization along with key driving forces such as customers behavior,

competition among businesses and change in the working environment have created

tough environment for organization that has been working with outdated philosophies

and principles of work practices. Although those outdated philosophies and principles

succeed to cope up the socio-economic challenges of that time, they cannot fit today’s

new environment. The new environment requires organizations to realize new

working practices that can make up them to be responsive and flexible for the

changing environment. In doing so, organizations adopt various types of management

tools such as Total Quality Management (TQM), Restructuring, Business Process

Reengineering (BPR), and so on.

In light of the above induction, the aim of this chapter is to review literature on BPR

and factors that can impede successful BPR implementation. Accordingly, the review

of literature will help to establishes conceptual framework for the proposed study and

highlight previous studies on BPR implementation with their underling concepts so as

to helps to identify gaps in the literature and forward research questions for the

proposed study. The review part has three sections. The first section presents reviews

regarding to theory of BPR, then, the following section presents prior empirical

studies on BPR implementation. Finally, section three presents conclusions and gaps

in literature.

2.1. Business Process Reengineering (BPR): theory

As indicated previously BPR is one of the management tools undertaken by

organizations to respond to the changing environment. BPR is about beginning a new

from scratch; starting over entirely by considering how jobs in the organization put

together. Thus, it entails the fundamental and radical redesign of the business process

to replace the old/traditional processes with a new one for the pursuit of new direction

and perspective of the organization.

BPR has been popular business reorganization for the past to decade. The term

‘Business Process Reengineering’ was first introduced by Hammer (1990) and

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Davenport and Short (1990). Tanoglu (2004) claimed that during the beginning of

1990s, with globalization and extraordinary pace of development in the IT area, three

driving forces (customers, competition and change) resulted BPR.

Following the introduction of concepts on BPR by Hammer (1990) and Davenport

and Short (1990), many authors called BPR as process innovation, business process

redesign, business reengineering, or process reengineering (Revenaugh, 1994).

Because of these nomenclature variations, Tanoglu (2004) claimed Hammer and

Champy (1993) BPR definition is widely accepted. Hammer and Champy (1993)

defined BPR as:

“…is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to

achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of

performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed”.

According to the authors, this definition comprises four keywords: fundamental,

radical, dramatic and process. These four keywords of BPR implied that before

redesigning the process understanding the ‘fundamental’ business operation is

necessary, while it ignores the underlying rules and assumptions to ‘radically’

redesign the process for ‘dramatic’ performance of business ‘process’ that can be

measured the in terms of speed, cost and quality.

Having this insight, BPR has its own methodology and principles along with step-by-

step procedures that encompasses starting from developing organizational mission to

the final implementation of BPR project. Thus, in order to carry out BPR project, a

series steps have to be taken. With respect to the steps, various authors (Linden,

1998; Hammer and Champy, 1993) pioneered various set of steps. Although all of

steps to carry out BPR not reviewed here due to scope limitation of the proposed

study, some Attaran’s and Wood’s (1999) general guide lines outlined hereunder, and

later Linden’s (1998) implementation steps presented.

Reengineering effort should be by a clearly defined strategic mission.

Reengineering should focus on important cross organizational business

processes critical to the mission of the organization.

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Cost reduction is not the only goal of reengineering. Seeking opportunities for

new sources of revenue growth could be an important driving for the

reengineering efforts.

Leadership plays an important role in the success of reengineering.

After the first phase of BPR completed with redesigned process, the next phase is

implementation of the redesigned process. According to Hummer and Champy

(1993), the implementation phase involves two points. One is the redesigned process

tested and implemented, and the other point is the alignment of organization’s

structure, management and measurement system, values and beliefs, and IT to the

new process. So, the new process will furnish the required result of value.

Organizations should adopt a suitable BPR methodology to serve as a management

framework for the implementation (Attaran, 2000; Linden, 1998). The following are

outlined by Linden (1998) as steps to be followed during the implementation phase.

(i) Develop a charter; (ii) Establish communication strategies; (iii) Hold an all hand

meeting to review the model; (iv) Prepare a detailed implementation plan; (v) Run

pilot tests, revise the redesigned processes if needed; (vi) Implement short-term

changes; (vii) Phase in long-term changes; and (vii) Measure the performance of the

new process.

These steps stressed that an implementation plan should be developed to spells out

the work that needs to be done, with time frames, decision points, and resource

allocations. Also, training and workforce issues are important for effective

implementation plan. Pilot testing provides a method for refining the process and

building support for the full implementation. Further, the steps stressed the

importance of ongoing performance measurement and feedback to continually

improve the new processes once it is in place.

1.1.1 BPR in higher education institution

The motivation to undertake BPR project is usually the realization of breakthrough

performance improvement. Lingus (1993) (cited in Terziovskia et al., 2002) claimed

that a “30-35% reduction in the cost of sales; 75-80% reduction in delivery time; 60-

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80% reduction in inventory; 65-70% reduction in the cost of quality; and

unpredictable but substantial increased market share”, were all possible through

effective BPR. In general, as indicated previously the three driving forces (change,

competition and customer) redirect organizations to look new working practices.

As a result, many organizations in various industries (banking, automobile, services,

and so on) used BPR as a panacea for organizational illness and to respond to high

level of competition, changing environment and customer need (Mnisha, 2004;

Attaran and Wood, 1999). In these regards, since educational institutions function

similar to any other business organizations, tools used by business organizations can

be implemented by them too (Balaji, 2004). Thus, BPR can be used to reorganize

educational institutions. Likewise, educational institutions in pursuit of improved

performance used BPR in various countries. For example, in Malaysia, New Zealand,

Spain, United Kingdom (UK), and United State of America (USA) educational

institution implemented BPR to enhance efficiency, effectiveness and economic

performance (Sohail et al., 2006; Balaji, 2004; Adenso-Diaz and  Canteli, 2004; Allen

and Fifield, 1999; Casey, 1995). Casey (1995) stressed that BPR offers a thoroughly

researched and well-crafted prescriptions punch list for evaluating how well a college

or university runs its business. Therefore, these experiences highlighted that higher

education institutions can adopt BPR for the enhancements of their performances like

other types of business organizations.

1.1.2 BPR implementation barriers

BPR will have significant positive results if implemented correctly. Several authors

(Attaran and Wood, 1999; Terziovskia et al., 2003; Revenaugh, 1994) indicated

numerous organizations (Ford Motor, Wal-Mart, IBM Credit Co., etc) achieved larger

cost reduction, higher profits, improved quality and productivity, faster response to

market and customer service through BPR. However, despite the significant growth

of BPR literature and increasingly useed by many organizations, not all organizations

achieved their intended result through BPR. As Hammer and Champy (1993)

estimated, about 70 percent of BPR projects fail to achieve dramatic results that the

organizations intended to achieve. Beside this, linden (1998) noted the biggest source

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of organizational disappointment with BPR change effort is implementation, or more

specifically, lack of implementation. Thus, as more organizations undertaken BPR

project, issues on the BPR implementation becomes a major concern.

There are many reasons that make BPR project fails. To understand thoroughly the

issues involved on BPR implementation failure, this section reviewed the primary

barriers for effective BPR implementation.

Attaran and Wood (1999) identified five primary obstacles to more effective BPR

implementation. They are misunderstanding of the concept, misapplication of the

term, lack of proper strategy, management failure to change, and failing to recognize

the importance of people. Attaran’s and Wood’s (1999) five primary obstacls

underlying thought is appropriate. Such as BPR is not downsizing, automation,

restructuring, or more of the same. It is dramatic revising of the organization process

and changing the way in which work is carried out. BPR requires creative thinking

and new perspective on the part of management, and top management must change

their ways of thinking and develop new skills. Employees play an important role in

the success of BPR. Hence, employees fear about job displacement due to newly

redesigned process and coping with resistance to BPR changing needs to be

alleviated. Without an effective approach to deal with employees involved in the BPR

effort, the implementation is certain to fail.

Attaran (2000) advanced the above discussed five primary obstacles (Attaran and

Wood, 1999) to eight. The author also clarified the difference between success and

failure as not depend on the company size or resources, but on appropriate planning

and avoidance of pitfalls. The additional three primary obstacles are ‘lack of

flexibility’ in terms of existing rigid infrastructure of the organization; ‘lack of

organizational communication’ to loop feedbacks for employees to air their concerns;

and ‘failure to test the process’ to understand the impact of any process change. At

the end, Attaran (2000) concluded that organization often fail to achieve BPR

objectives because they trivialize the concept and ignoring the pitfalls can be

dangerous because it makes the BPR effort just another shot lived improvement.

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On the top of the above mentioned factors, Al-Mashari and Zairi (1999) recognized

that the implementation process of BPR is complex and needs to be checked against

several success and failure factors to ensure successful implementation, as well as to

avoid implementation pitfalls. In their review of both soft and hard factors that cause

success and failure of BPR effort, they had identified five dimensions, such as change

management, management competency and support, organizational structure, project

planning and management, IT infrastructure. Also they had distilled the five success

and failure factors in to thirty three and twenty two subgroups, respectively (see

appendix 1).

The above mentioned factors for the failure of BPR implementation suggest that BPR

implementation process constrained by various factors. However, the exact

relationships between these factors and BPR implementation failure (success), and

the magnitude of different factor for the implementation failure remained as open,

that need to be addressed. So far, reviews of literature regarding to BPR theory

presented the following section presents empirical studies on BPR.

1.2 Empirical studies on BPR

As indicated previously, organizations adopt BPR for better performance. The driving

factors to undertake BPR may traced to the ‘three C’s’ of change, competition and

customers (Hammer and Champy, 1993). Starting from the introduction of BPR at the

beginning of 1990s, issues rearing to BPR increased and various researchers had

undertaken studies on it, to date. In this section selected empirical studies on BPR

reviewed.

Research carried out by Ahmad et al. (2007) showed critical success factors of BPR

in Malaysia higher education institutions. The study used a case study based on open

ended interviews to the top management and BPR team of the three selected private

higher education in Malaysia. The findings highlighted that seven factors were

critical for the successful implementation of BPR. The factors are team work and

quality culture, quality management system and satisfactory rewards, effective

change management, less bureaucratic and participative, IT or information system,

effective project management, and adequate financial resources. In general, their

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study provides important lessons as a condition for the success of BPR project.

Whereas, they had override other factors for the success of BPR implementation,

such as misunderstanding of the concept and misapplication of terms of BPR that

were outlined by Attaran and Wood (1999), flexibility and communication that were

outlined by Attaran (2000). As such, it is difficult to limiting critical success factors

in to seven.

Allen and Fiefield (1999) studied the applicability of BPR to higher institution in the

UK along with factors that affect the change process of BPR. In doing so, the

researchers adopted case study approach on five selected universities of UK and

gathered data through seven structured interviews from project stakeholders in the

universities undergoing BPR programs. At the first glance, the researchers identified

a range of factors that make implementing BPR in these universities a difficult

process. Those factors are senior management approval, complex information

requirements, institutional policies and entrenched values, academic freedom, inertia,

business process improvement (conservative change programs), IT driven change,

maintaining the status quo, failure to reengineer human resources, and organizational

transformation.

The findings drawn from the study (Allen and Fiefield, 1999) are that the

organizational culture and structure of higher education institutions limit the degree

of change sought from BPR and insufficient attention given to the human resources

side of change management. And the selected five universities are for the most part of

implementing represent a limited approximation of BPR techniques. In other words,

the undertaken BPR project is not about radically changing the organization by

obliterating existing processes, instead it is process improvement. The radical change

of BPR conflicted with the organizational factors mentioned previously. Particularly,

the power of academic departments, the professional status of academics and inertia

within the universities make radical changing unlikely.

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1.3 Conclusion and knowledge gap

Organizations required responding to changing environments through various

management tools; and BPR is one of the management tool undertaken by

organizations to enhance their performance. Beside this, the concept of BPR was first

introduced by Hammer (1990) and Davenport and Short (1990) as a result of

globalization and extraordinary pace of IT development with the three driving forces

of customers, competition, and change.

Various organization employed BPR in pursuit of improved performances and to

respond to changing environment. Since education institutions function like other

type of businesses, BPR also used by education institutions in Malaysia, New

Zealand, Spain, UK, and USA (Sohail et al., 2006; Balaji, 2004; Adenso-Diaz and 

Canteli, 2004; Allen and Fifield, 1999; Casey, 1995).

Despite the increased use of BPR in various organization resulted enhanced

performance, not all organization realized the promises of BPR. According to

Hammer and Champy (1993) estimate, about 70 percent of BPR project failed.

Various authors (Al-Mashari and Zairi, 1999; Attaran, 2000) mentioned numerous

failure factors of BPR. Such as: misunderstanding of BPR concepts, misapplications

of BPR terms, management failure to change, etc. The study conducted by Ahmad et

al. (2007) showed that seven factors contribute for the success of BPR project for

Malaysia’s higher education institution. Allen and Fiefield (1999) study indicate that

factors that were not identified by other researchers, such as academic freedom and

complex information requirements.

As per the researcher knowledge, there is no comprehensive study on BPR

implementation challenges in Ethiopia. Thus, this gap leads to originate the following

research question and a need to study on BPR implementation challenges:

What are the various factors Samara University faced challenges to implement BPR

and their magnitudes to affect BPR implementation?

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Chapter 3: Research design

The previous chapter presented reviews of literature on BPR along with various

factors as barrier to implement BPR. Regarding to Ethiopian higher education

institution, Samara University in specific, the literature review confirms that there is

no studies on BPR implementation challenges.

The purpose of this chapter is to present the research questions, the main principles of

research methodology and the choice of the appropriate research method for the

proposed study, respectively presented in this chapter.

1.4 Research questions

As mentioned in chapter 1, the purpose of the study is to identify the factors that lead

to face challenges to implement BPR at Samara University and to better understand

the magnitude of the identified factors. To achieve the intended purposes as well as

the research problem the research questions developed in this section.

Factors that affect BPR implementation varied from organization to organization.

Beside this, the characters and magnitudes of various factors varied among

organizations. Thus, the following three research questions developed as follow.

RQ1. What are the challenging factors that the university faces to implement

BPR? Why Samara University does faced challenges to implement

BPR?

RQ2. How do those factors affect BPR implementation at the University?

RQ3. What is the magnitude of each factor that affects the University’s BPR

project?

1.5 Research design

There are three types of research design: quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods

designs. Quantitative research is a means for testing objective theories by examining

the relationship among variables. On the other hand, qualitative research is a means

for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social

or human problem. Between the two strands, mixed methods research is an approach

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to inquire that combines or associates both quantitative and qualitative designs

(Creswell 2009, p. 4). However, the selection of a research design involves the

considerations of the worldview assumptions the research brings to study, research

problem nature, procedures of inquiry, the researcher experience, audiences for the

study, and data collection methods, analysis and interpretation (Creswell 2009, p. 3).

As tried to indicate the types of research design and their meaning previously,

quantitative and qualitative designs have distinct characters, while mixed methods

design shares the characters of both designs. The research design involves the

interactions of philosophical worldview, strategies of inquiry, and specific methods

for the quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods design (Creswell 2009, p. 5). The

following sections discussed the philosophical worldview, strategies of inquiry, and

methods for each types of research in which it will help to choose for the proposed

study.

Quantitative research design possesses the postpositivist worldview assumption that

encompasses ‘deterministic philosophy’ in which causes probably determine the

effect, and ‘reductionistic philosophy’ to reduce the ideas into a small, discrete set of

ideas to test variables that comprise hypotheses and research questions.

Postpositivism develop knowledge based on objective observation and measurement

as well as verify theories that govern the world (Creswell 2009, p. 7). Quantitative

design employs strategies of inquiry such as survey and experiment, and collect data

through standardized instruments that are close-ended question and numeric data.

Using statistical method it generalizes about the population from the sample

(Creswell 2009, p. 145-152).

Qualitative research design possesses social constructivism worldview assumptions

that holds individuals seek to understand the world in which they live and work. The

participant views relied and participants construct meanings and the researcher

inductively develops theory or pattern of subjective meaning (Creswell 2009, p. 8).

Qualitative research design tries to assess experiences and events contextually within

the participants’ natural setting. It employs strategies of inquiry like ethnographies,

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grounded theory, case study, phenomenological research and narrative research and

collect data through observation, interviews, text and image data that are open-ended

and emerging. The findings are subjective that the inquirer inductively generates

meanings from the data collected in the field (Creswell 2009, p. 11-13).

Mixed methods design possesses the pragmatic worldview that focused on the

research problem for the consequence of actions. Pragmatic worldview uses

pluralistic approach to drive knowledge about the problem. Accordingly, researchers

have a freedom to choose the methods, techniques, and procedures of research that

best suits the purposes of the study. Thus, mixed method design involves

philosophical assumptions to use the mix of quantitative and qualitative designs

(Creswell 2009, p. 10). It employs strategies of inquiry such as sequential, concurrent

and transformative mixed method and both close and open ended, standardized and

emerging, quantitative and qualitative data collected.

In general, quantitative and qualitative designs have their own inherent advantages

and disadvantages. Although the advantages and disadvantages of them not discussed

here, mixed methods design emanated to utilize the advantages and to tackle the

disadvantages of the two designs. As cited in Creswell (2009, p. 14), the concept of

mixing different methods originated in 1959 when Campbell and Fisk used multi-

methods to study validity of psychological traits. The reasons for mixing methods

includes to triangulate data source for the sake of convergence across quantitative and

qualitative methods; to integrate or combine the quantitative and qualitative data to

identify participants or questions to ask for the other method or to reinforce each

other; or transformative to advocate marginalized groups (Creswell 2009, p. 14).

Having these, several studies on BPR in terms of research design, used quantitative

and qualitative designs. In the case of BPR implementation in higher education,

researchers like Ahmad et al., 2007; Sohail et al., 2006; Balaji, 2004; Allen and

Fiefield, 1999 used qualitative research design. On the other hand, studies on BPR

implementation in other industries, researchers like Tennant and Yi-Chieh, 2005;

Terziovskia et al., 2002; O’Neill and Sohal, 1998 used quantitative research design.

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These practices suggest that both types of research designs could be applicable to

study BPR implementation. Thus, as indicated in chapter 1, section 1.1 and 1.3, the

study will use the mixed methods design to get the benefits of mixed methods design.

The following sections discussed the proposed method adopted.

1.5.1 Research method adopted

As indicated earlier, to get a brief understanding of the research problem and to

benefit from the method adopted, mixed method design will be used to study the

Samara University’s challenges to implement BPR. Beside this, sequential

explanatory strategy will be used. This strategy is characterized by the collection and

analysis of quantitative data in a first phase of research followed by the collection and

analysis of qualitative data in a second phase that builds on the result of the initial

quantitative results (Creswell 2009, p. 211). Thus, in the first phase of the study,

survey will be used to identify factors that affect BPR implementation. And in a

second phase, results from the first phase will be used further to better understand the

magnitude of identified factors. The following sections discussed the quantitative and

qualitative feature of mixed methods that will be used during the study.

1.5.1.1 Quantitative feature of mixed method

In a first phase, the quantitative feature of research design will identify factors that

affect BPR implementation at Samara University. The following subsections

presented the strategy of inquiry; sampling design; survey instrument; variables,

research questions and items on a survey; and data analysis and interpretation.

Survey design

To gather data relevant for the identification of factors that affect BPR

implementation, the study will employ survey strategy through self administered

structure questionnaires with BPR project team members of the University. In this

strategy, data will be collected one point in time (cross sectional). The rationale to

adopt survey strategy is the economy of the design and the rapid turnaround in data

collection. Particularly, the later one (rapid turnaround) will fits the sample that will

be selected from BPR redesign and implementation team members, because all team

members, except one individual, not available at the university premises (e.g.

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educational leave). Thus, the respondents will be surveyed using e-mail

questionnaires to reach dispersed geographical area that the respondents reside.

Sample design

To study the University’s BPR project, the study population units will constitutes

University’s service providers and users. However, defining the study population and

study units depend on the research problem and study objectives (Walonick, 2005).

Thus, unless the University implemented BPR, all service providers and users will

not be the population. So, the population study units constitute individuals directly

involved with BPR project and the sampling frame ought to be list of individuals

involved with the University BPR project - in number twenty-three individuals.

Although in quantitative design to select sample advised to use random sampling

(Creswell 2009, p. 148), in this study due to small number of population (23 in

numbers) the sample selection will tend to use non-probability sample. As Babble

(1990) noted non-probability sample in which respondents are chosen based on their

convenience and availability (cited in Creswell 2009, p. 148). So, the study proposed

to select respondents based on the convenience sample and respondents will be

selected who are willing and available to complete the survey. In addition, the

population stratified in to two groups before selecting the sample – redesign team

members and implementation team members. As indicated in the chapter 1, the

University redesigned five processes, wherein two individual from each five

processes (ten individuals) will be selected based on the convenience. That is one

individual used to as redesign and implementation team member, and the other one is

selected only used to as redesign team member. This will help to identify factors

related during the redesign phase and implementation phase as challenges.

Survey instrument

The questionnaire instrument will be developed from comprehensive literature review

that related to BPR implementation and its barriers to implement successfully, for

now tentative sample questionnaire provided in Appendix II. The survey instrument

will be closed ended designed to collect quantitative data. Beside this, the cover page

of the instrument will indicate the purpose of the study, the importance of their

18

responses to the study along with the confidentiality, procedures to mark their

responses and emphasize to return the instrument within the response period with.

Email addresses of respondents will be acquired from the University Human

Resource Department. And in order to ensure highest response rate, respondents will

be asked their willingness to participate to the study through email letter before the

questionnaire emailed. After getting their willingness and questionnaire developed,

questionnaires will be forwarded to the respondents through email.

Variables, research questions and items on a survey The following table presents the independent variable and dependent variable of the

study with the research questions and items on the survey instrument.

Variable name Research questions Items of the survey

Independent variable:

Factors related to

implement BPR

Research question: What are the

challenging factors that the

university faces to implement BPR?

Survey instrument

question: 12, 13, 15,

16, 17, 19, 20, 21,

22, 23, and 24

Dependent variable:

Challenges to

implement BPR

Research question: Why Samara

University does face challenges to

implement BPR?

Survey instrument

question: 3, 5, 6, 8,

9, 10, and 11

Table 1: Variables, research questions and items on a survey

Data analysis and interpretation At the first glance, the numbers of sample who did and did not returned the

questionnaire will be reported with tabular presentation in terms of numbers and

percentages to describe respondents and non-respondents. To check the response bias,

respondent – non-respondent check will be employed and all non-respondents will be

communicated through email letter, if they are out of the home country, otherwise via

phone.

For the purpose of obtaining information for the quantitative research question, the

survey responses will be analyzed through statistical tools. To analyze responses of

‘Yes/No’ and ‘Agree/Disagree’ frequency percentage will be used to get the rated

19

responses. As well as data collected will be analyzed through simple percentage

analysis, mean and regression analysis. Tables and graphs will be used to give a clear

view of the distribution of the responses that will be given by the respondents to each

question in the questionnaire.

1.5.1.2 Qualitative feature of mixed method

As earlier mentioned this study will employ two phase- sequential explanatory

strategy. In a first phase quantitative data will be gathered through questionnaires

survey. The data further will be used in a second phase of qualitative research.

Accordingly, the connection or mixing will occur between quantitative data analysis

and the data collection of second phase research. Therefore, the analysis of

quantitative data and its results will help to prepare qualitative interview questions. In

this regard, the identified factors that impede the BPR implementation will be further

used to better understand their magnitude as challenges to implement BPR at Samara

University.

To gather data for the second phase, case study strategy will be used to inquire the

research problem through face-to-face interviews with selected respondents. Hence,

in qualitative design the sampling design is purposeful sampling design; the

interviewee will be the university president and two vice presidents.

Before conducting the interview, the respondents’ willingness will be asked first.

After getting their willingness and schedules, the researcher will interview the

respondents at Samara University using interview protocol and by making

handwriting notes. Thus three interviews will be held, the questions will be used

could be emerging to ensure all key areas of the topic to be covered.

Qualitative data collected from respondents will be noticed in to appropriate contexts

and written down, and will be assigned codes based on topic or theme. Potentially the

themes will be broken down into fragments. Codes which have been applied to the

data then act as interpretations.

20

Chapter 4: Significant, delimitation, final structure, work plan, and budgeted cost of the study

1.6 Significant of the study

The subject matter of this proposed study at the completion will benefits different

classes of groups including the management body of the University, because it will

draws attention where corrective action is necessary to implement BPR. Also it will

add value to those who would like to pursue their research on BPR, because the

introduction of BPR in Ethiopia is a recent phenomenon.

1.7 Delimitation of the study

The paper will provide a framework for future research to explore the University’s

BPR project along with the documents prepared by the redesign team members in

which this proposed study not considered.

1.8 Final structure of the study

The final structure of the study report will have four chapters. Chapter one will

presents the introduction part of the study that constitutes overview, statement of

problems, purposes of the study and report structure. Chapter two will presents

comprehensive literature review with theory and empirical study. Chapter three will

presents both the quantitative and qualitative features of the mixed method data

analysis and interpretation sequentially. Finally, chapter four will presents conclusion

and recommendation.

1.9 Work plan

Generally, the study will take about three months starting from September 2010 to the

end of November 2010. And all tasks will be performed by the researcher and the

tasks includes from securing funds to the final report communication. The detailed

tasks presented in the appendix section of ‘3’.

1.10 Budgeted cost

Most often, it is appropriate to have fund to undertake the study. So, approximately

Birr 3,593 budgeted to conduct the study and the detailed cost breakdowns presented

in appendix ‘4’.

21

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24

25

Appendix: 1- Summary of key success/failure factors in BPR

Figure 1: A summary of key success/failure factors in BPR (source: Al-Mashari and

Zairi, 1999)

26

Appendix: 2- Survey instrument

BPR implementation challenges survey

The study is entitled “Challenges to implement BPR at Samara University”. The

researcher is Naod Mekonnen, who is currently M.Sc. in Accounting and Finance

student in Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The purpose of the study is to identify the factors that lead to face challenges to

implement BPR and to better understand the magnitude of the identified factors at

Samara University. Thus, to carry out this study sample of BPR redesign and

implementation team members selected because the study needs your participation to

respond for the questionnaire and the result obtain from the questionnaire further

studied to better understand the magnitudes of challenges that the university faced to

implement BPR.

The questionnaire results will be recorded namelessly and confidentiality will be

preserved. Responses name will not be included in the study report. At the end of the

study the summery of the study will be forwarded to you through your e-mail

address.

Marking and return procedures:

To mark your responses please use ‘text highlighter’ or ‘font color’, and as much as

possible ‘within three weeks return the questionnaire’ by the address given bellow.

Example of marking procedure:

1. Which one best describe your …….(if your choice is “b” mark “b” and save

the document)

a. XXXXXX

b. YYYYYY

c. ZZZZZZZ

Thank you in advance

Naod Mekonnen

E-mail: naod@mail2rap.com

27

1. Which category best describe your position during BPR project of the university.

a. Redesign team member

b. Redesign team member and implementation team member

2. Which one best describe the time frame to implement BPR full at the university

a. Less than one year

b. Between one year - to - two years

c. Between two years – to – three years

d. Between three years – to – four years

e. More than four years

3. BPR project of the University being too costly undertake.

a. Not strongly agree

b. Not agree

c. Agree

d. Strongly agree

4. Which of the followings are expectation of changes as a result of BPR implementation

(you can choose more than one items).

a. Cost reduction of the processes

b. Decreased process time cycle

c. Increased use of technology in processes

d. Increased use of human resources in the process

5. Who is responsible for the implementation of BPR (you can choose more than one items)?

a. Redesign team members selected as implementation team members

b. Top managements

c. University’s employees other than redesign team members

d. External consultants

6. Which area of the University difficult to change through BPR?

a. Administrative area

b. Academic area

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7. Dou you agree that if the university implemented BPR successfully will benefit

from better performance?

a. Not strongly agree

b. Not agree

c. Agree

d. Strongly agree

8. The university’s processes extremely redesigned that in turn leads to face

challenges to implement BPR.

a. Agree

b. Not agree

9. The university being convinced the need for BPR before BPR project starts.

a. Yes

b. No

10. The reason for BPR project initiatives of the University caused by the felt need of

change of high demand for the services offered by the University.

a. Yes

b. No

11. The fundamental source of difficulty for the university struggling to implement

BPR is the fact that processes get reengineering and management does not.

a. Not strongly agree

b. Not agree

c. Agree

d. Strongly agree

12. University’s employees’ resistance to change and their fears about job

displacement need to be alleviated and explained for success of BPR

implementation.

a. Yes

b. No

29

13. Do you think that the organizational cultural change initiate for the success of

BPR implementation at the University.

a. Yes

b. No

14. Total involvements of top management who have real power to change absolutely

necessary to implement.

a. Agree

b. Disagree

15. Failure to implement BPR caused by lack of support demonstrated by the

University highest level management

a. Agree

b. Disagree

16. Do you think that existing infrastructure of the University paused the

implementation process.

a. Yes

b. No

17. Lack of organizational communication contributes to the challenges of BPR

implementation.

a. Yes

b. No

18. What role has information technology played to the University redesigned

processes?

a. No role

b. Minimal role

c. Enabling role

d. Extreme driving force

19. Customer feed back used during the redesign phase

a. Yes

b. No

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20. Lack of financial resources contributes to the failure of BPR.

a. Agree

b. Disagree

21. Lack of information technology infrastructure results BPR implementation

failure.

a. Not strongly agree

b. Not agree

c. Agree

d. Strongly agree

22. Insufficient trainings on BPR implementation contribute to the failure of BPR

project.

a. Not strongly agree

b. Not agree

c. Agree

d. Strongly agree

23. Ineffective BPR teams contribute to the failure of BPR project.

a. Not strongly agree

b. Not agree

c. Agree

d. Strongly agree

24. Existing governmental proclamations, regulations, rules and directive contribute

to the failure of BPR.

a. Not strongly agree

b. Not agree

c. Agree

d. Strongly agree

25. There is little chance of implementing BPR at the University.

a. Not strongly agree

b. Not agree

c. Agree

d. Strongly agree

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Activities/tasks Duration in months

Sep, 2010 Oct, 2010 Nov, 2010

1 Securing fund

2 Comprehensive literature review

3 Developing the final questionnaire

4 Acquiring email addresses and sample selection

5 Asking respondents willingness to participate through email

6 Emailing questionnaires to respondent and receiving questionnaire response

7 Quantitative data analysis and interpretation

8 Qualitative interview question preparation

9 Asking the interviewee for willingness

10 Researcher voyage from Addis Ababa to Samara

11 Conducting interview with the university president and two vice presidents

12 Researcher voyage from Samara to Addis Ababa

13 Qualitative data analysis and interpretation

14 Final report writing along with conclusion and recommendation

15 Communication the final finding

Gantt Chart1: Detail work plan

Appendix: 3 - Work plan of the study

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Appendix: 4 - Budgeted cost of the study

Items Measurement Price (Birr) Total price (Birr)

Paper 1 realm 60 60

Pen 1 dozen 24 24

Pencil ½ dozen 12 12

Laptop rental1 3 month 15birr/day 1350

Printing 60 pages 2birr/page 120

Transportation2 2 voyage 200 birr/voyage 400

Per dium3 10 days 120 Birr/day 1200

Mobile card4 1 card 100 Birr/ card 100

Sub total Birr 3266

Contingency (10 % of subtotal) 326.6

Grand total Birr 3592.6

Table 2: Detail budgeted cost

1 To have portable data processing, storage and retrieval computer to the researcher till the final report communication

2 From Addis Ababa to Samara and vice versa to interview University presidents at Samara University

3 Since the University located in very hot part of Ethiopia, it is appropriate to have desert perdium 4 To communicate with the University Human Resource Department to get email addresses of the

team members and to communicate to get the willingness of the presidents.

33