Employing Quality Management Principles To Improve The Performance Of Educational Systems: An Empirical Study Of The Effect Of Iso 9001 Standard On Teachers And Administrators Performance In The Indonesian Vocational Education System

ISO 9001 has been world widely implemented in both manufacturing and service organizations. A lot of studies have been conducted to investigate the effects of ISO 9001 implementation on the performance of these organizations. Most of these studies show that ISO 9001 implementation realized positive operational improvements and financial success. Building on the merits of successful implementation of ISO 9001 quality management system in manufacturing and service, educational institutions have been attempted to adopt it in their operations. Even though there are studies relating ISO implementation to education, no research has been done to investigate the effects of ISO 9001 at the individual level. The objective of this research is to investigate the effects of ISO 9001 quality management implementation on the performance of administrators and teachers. The Indonesian vocational education system is selected as a case example as there is a significant number of such institutions in Indonesia that attempt to achieve ISO certification and there is a national need to improve the performance of vocational education. It is a challenge to assess objectively the degree of ISO 9001 implementation in this specific educational context because of the size and diversity. This study relies on survey that measures the respondents’ perception. Hence, this study applies a self-reported survey based performance measurement. The questionnaires are developed based on extensive literature review. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLSSEM) has been used to examine the relationships between the different elements of quality management systems, quality culture; administrator and teacher performances. The study is able to examine multiple interrelated dependence and subsequent relationships simultaneously among examined factors such as teacher and administrator performance, existing iv quality culture and ISO principles; and to incorporate variables that cannot be directly measured, such as leadership, for example. The findings of this study show that ISO 9001 implementation has positive significant effect on the performance of the vocational school administrator and teacher. The study also identifies key influencing elements of the ISO quality management system and examines their direct and indirect relationships with teacher and administrator performances. This study is expected to improve the current practices in implementing ISO and quality culture in any educational settings, specifically in the case of vocational educational system