Factors Affecting the Achievement of Good Governance in HRM: The Empirical Study of Local Governments in Southern Part of Thailand
Jutamanee Trakulmututa, Asst. Prof. Dr. Bussabong Chaijareonwattana
Journal of Human Resources Management and Labor Studies, 1(1), pp. 01-08.
Abstract
This research showed the factors affecting the achievement of good governance in HRM. For this research, 387 local government organizations were used as the samples. The data gathering instrument was questionnaires with semantic differential scale. The statistics model for data analysis was Goodness of Fit Measures with evident data. Researcher used the Linear Structure Relationship to analyze the combination of casual factors among the Path Analysis. The research found as follows. The casual factors affected the achievement of good governance in HRM of the local governments in Southern Part of Thailand were fairness of awareness, the characteristics of the implementing agencies and the acceptance of implementers. The causal factors that had indirect effect to the achievement of good governance in HRM of Local Government in Southern Part of Thailand were policy standard and objectives, resources, the organizational communication, economic, social and political conditions. The causal factors that had the direct negative effect on others were the characteristics of the implementing agencies, which had a direct negative effect on ‘the organizational communication and the acceptance of implementers, which had a direct negative effect on achievement of good governance in HRM of Local Government in Southern Part of Thailand. These factors proved variances of good governance in HRM of the local governments in Thailand at 60.1 percent. By path analysis, we obtained the model that fits the evident data and satisfies the fixed criteria of Goodness of Fit Measures of the model. These are Chi-square statistics is 5.950 at the degrees of freedom of 7, Goodness of fit Index is at 0.996, Adjusted Goodness of fit Index is at 0.980, Root Mean Square Residual is t 0.010 and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation is at 0.000.

Keywords: Good Governance in HRM, Policy Implementation, and Fairness Awareness

1. Introduction

High technology caused the society to be

changed to a borderless interconnected society.

For the target of sustainable development, capability in competition of local might improve by government organizations.The Economics and Social Development Plan 8thand 9th of Thailand (1997-2006) indicated that Thai government chose the good governance as the main strategy in developing and solving the problems of the country. These strategic plans were adopted at every level of government organizations to set its function. The local government organizations were the most intouch to the communities and also the some of the government organizations which were expected to be the good governance in their own HRM process. So, it was the finding for the research question what were the factors affected the achievement of good governance in HRM.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Good Governance in HRM

In 1999, Office of the Prime Minister in Thailand has legislated The Regulation of Good Governance (1999) which has given the aspects of Good Governance into 6 dimensions which were as mentioned below:

- Rule of Law

The rule of law referred to a principle of governance in which all of the people, institutions and entities, public and private, including the state were accountable to laws that were publicly promulgated, equally enforced and independently adjudicated; which were consistent with international human rights norms and standards. It required measures to ensure adherence to the principles of supremacy of law, equality before the law, accountability to the law, fairness in the application of the law, separation of powers, participation in decisionmaking, legal certainty,avoidance of arbitrariness and procedural and legal transparency

- Rule of Mora

Rule of moral meant to ensure that the civil servants should work with the righteousness and advance the people in their self-development by being honest, diligent, patient etc. in their way of living

- Rule of Transparency

Transparency implied to the work that stakeholders able to investigate in any process. Transparencyin the act of government would help to reduce the corruptions, inefficiency of the civil servants, and it also increases the performance as a whole.

- Rule of Participation

This rule intended to encourage the participation of the citizens by giving the opportunity to know, and opportunity to make the decisions on the process of the projects. This rule also meant to increase the capacities of the citizens in participating in the procedures that affected the living of the community. Therefore, the participation is an interchanged relationship of communication and opinion between government and its citizens.

- Rule of Accountability

Accountability was an ethical code for governance. It was often used synonymously as the matter of responsibility, answerability, blame worthiness and liability. The accountability, as an aspect of governance, had been central to the discussions related to problems at the public sector, nonprofit corporate, and the private world. In leadership roles, accountability was the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions, and policies.

It also included with the administration, governance, and implementation within the scope of the role or employment position and encompassing the obligation to report, explained and be answerable for resulting consequences. Administrative accountability meant to internal rules and norms.

Some independent commissions were also mechanisms to hold civil servant within the administration of government to be accountable. Within department or ministry, behavior was bounded by rules and regulations, and civil servants were subordinated in a hierarchy and accountable to superiors.

- Rule of Value for Money

Value for Money was the term used to assess whether or not an organization had obtained the maximum benefit from the resources available to it. It did not only measure the cost of goods and services, but also tookan account of mix of quality, cost or resources used, fitness for purpose, timeliness and convenience to judge or not. They constituted good value when they were implemented. Achieving Value for Money might be described in terms of the 'three Es' - economy, efficiency and effectiveness.

In this research, we adapted the concept of good governance applied to the human resource management (HRM) process of local governments in Thailand which had defined into 4 components (Prommapan, B. et al., 2004)which were

1. Human Resource Procurement that consisted of 5 factors; human resource planning, task analysis, searching, selection, and appointment
2. Human Resource Reward that consisted of 6 factors; promotion, salary increase, performance appraisal, remuneration, transfer, and motivation
3. Human Resource Development which consisted of 3 factors; training, education, and career planning and development
4. Human Resource Maintenance and Preservation which consisted of personnel rapport, health and security, disciplinary action and discharge.
The adapted concepts were used to set the index for indicating the achievement of good governance in HRM.

2.2 Policy Implementation

There were the implementation models from many researchers (Van Meter and Van Horn,1975; Edwards,1980; Cheema and Rondinelli, 1983) which had similar factors such as resources, environment condition, implementers, organization (implementing agency) etc. But most of them differed in the context of cause and effects but this study adapted the factors from the policy implementation model of Van Meter and Van Horn (1975) which described the six variables affected the performance of policy implementation, those were:

- Policy standard and objectives that elaborated on the overall policy.
- The available resources to support the implementation process.
- The organizational communication and enforcement activities.
- The Characteristics of the implementing agencies such as formal and informal organization.
- Economic, social and political conditions during implementation time.
- The acceptance of implementers in implementation.
And the relationship of the variables showed in the model below.

Model Below

2.3 Fairness Awareness

The concept of fairness awareness was from the Group-value/ Relational model (Tyler & Lind, 1992) which explained why people cared about justice. The Group-value model, later renamed as the rational model, explained that inclusion within a group could provide a sense of selfworth and identity. Fair treatment was important because it conveyed information about the quality of one’s relationships with authorities and members of his group. In general, therational model indicated a positive relationship within-group if procedure was seen as fair. In the other hand, the procedure was perceived as unfair if the relationship was negative or that individual was a low-status member of the group.These feeling of group membership partially mediated the relationship between the rational judgments and group-oriented behavior (e.g., complained with group rules and extra role behaviors directed at group).

A good deal of research on the fair topics had documented how people respond to these transgressions. Normally, when others treated them fairly they were more likely to cooperate, support the decisions, and offer assistance when they needed it (Tyler & Smith, 1998).

However, when others treated them unfairly they were more likely to seek revenge (Bies& Tripp, 2001), take legal action (Lind, et al. 2001), steal (Greenberg, 1997) and become aggressive (Folger & Skarlicki, 1998). It meant justices pull the people together and injustices push them apart. (Cropanzano et al., 2001)

So, this research we chose the causal factors from the policy implementation model of Van Meter and Van Horn (1975) to test together with the another causal factor which was ‘Fairness Awareness’ for resulting the achievement of the Good Governance in HRM of local Governments in Southern Part of Thailand.

3. Research Objectives

To analyze the path analysis ofthe factors affecting to the achievement of Good Governance in HRM of the local governments in Southern Part of Thailand.

4. Research Method

The data for this study were collected from the local government organizations in Southern Part of Thailand.

The total numbers of local government organizations were 1190 in Southern Part of Thailand. Approximately 400 organizations were chosen by stratified random sampling and 1600 questionnaires distributed in the ratio of 4 questionnaires per 1 organization which would be calculated for average of that organization. Further, 1548 questionnaires from 387 organizations were returned, that resulted in the response rate of 96.75 %. The measures of these questionnaires were five-point Likert’s scales anchored by “strongly agree” and “strongly disagree” to measure the index in six dimensions of Good Governance in human resource management. Cronbach’s Alpha was used to assess the reliability of each of the measures. The Alpha of all scales exceeded the cut-off 0.60 recommended by Sekaran (2003).The Cronbach’s Alpha for the study were between 0.79 and 0.88, which registered acceptable.

The Goodness of Fit Measure such as Chisquare Statistics, Goodness of fit Index (GFI), Adjusted Goodness of fit Index(AGFI), Root Mean Square Residual(RMR),Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) and qualitative analysis were employed for the data analysis.

5. Research Results

5.1 ‘Fairness Awareness’(fair)had a direct positive effect on ‘achievement of good governance in HRM of Local Government in Southern Part of Thailand’ (ggov)

5.2 The Characteristics of the implementing agencies’ (org) had a direct positive effect on ‘achievement of good governance in HRM of Local Government in Southern Part of Thailand’ (ggov)

5.3 ‘The acceptance of implementers’(staff) had a direct negative effect on ‘achievement of good governance in HRM of Local Government in Southern Part of Thailand’ (ggov)

5.4 ‘Economic, social and political conditions’ (env) had a direct positive effect on ‘resources’ (resou).

5.5 ‘Economic, social and political conditions’ (env) had a direct positive effect on‘the organizational communication’ (commu).

5.6 ‘Economic, social and political conditions’ (env) had a direct positive effecton ‘Fairness Awareness’ (fair).

5.7 ‘Resources’ (resou) had a direct positive effect on ‘the organizational communication’ (commu).

5.8 ‘Resources’ (resou) had a direct positive effect on ‘Fairness Awareness’ (fair).

5.9 ‘Fairness Awareness’ (fair) had a direct positive effect on ‘the organizational communication’ (commu).

5.10 ‘Fairness Awareness’ (fair)had a direct positive effect on ‘The acceptance of implementers’(staff).

5.11 ‘Policy standard and objectives’ (policy) had a direct positive effect on ‘the organizational communication’ (commu).

5.12 ‘The acceptance of implementers’ (staff) had a direct positive effect on ‘The Characteristics of the implementing agencies’ (org).

5.13 ‘Policy standard and objectives’ (policy) had a direct positive effect on ‘resources’ (resou)

5.14 ‘Economic, social and political conditions’ (env) had a direct positive effect on ‘Policy standard and objectives’ (policy).

5.15 ‘The Characteristics of the implementing agencies’ (org) had a direct negative effect on ‘the organizational communication’ (commu).

5.16 ‘The organizational communication’ (commu) had a direct positive effect on ‘The acceptance of implementers’ (staff).

As shown in the Path Analysis Model

5.17 ‘The characteristics of the implementing agencies’ had a highest positive direct effect which was 0.56 significantly at the 0.01 level, then ‘Fairness of Awareness’ had a positive direct effect 0.50 significantly at the 0.01 level, but the factor of ‘The acceptance of implementers ‘had a negative direct effect equal -0.19 without statistic significantly. These three causing factors proved variance of Good Governance in HRM of the local governments in Thailand at 60.1%. The factor which had a highest total effect of Good Governance in HRM was Fairness Awareness and then‘Economic, social and political conditions’ factor.

5.18 By Path Analysis, the model fits the evident data and Goodness of Fit Measures of the model satisfies the fixed criteria. These are Chi-square statistics is 5.95 at the degrees of freedom of 7, Goodness of fit Index is at 0.996, Adjusted Goodness of fit Index is at 0.98, Root Mean Square Residual is at 0.01 and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation is at 0.00.

6. Conclusions

1. The causal factors which had the direct effects on the achievement of good governance in HRM of Local Government in Southern Part of Thailand, were fairness of awareness, the characteristics of the implementing agencies and the acceptance of implementers.

2. The causal factors which had the indirect effect on the achievement of good governance in HRM of Local Government in Southern Part of Thailand, were policy standard and objectives, resources, the organizational communication, economic, social and political conditions.

3. The causal factors that had the direct negative effect to others were ‘The Characteristics of the implementing agencies’ (org) had a direct negative effect on‘ the organizational communication’(commu). ‘The acceptance of implementers’ (staff)had a direct negative effect on ‘achievement of good governance in HRM of Local Government in Southern Part of Thailand’ (ggov)

7. Recommendation

The study of Factors affecting to the achievement of Good Governance in HRM:

The Empirical Study of Local Governments in Southern Part of Thailand, would help the local government to realize, what would be the causal factors of the achievement of Good Governance in HRM, and it helped them to increase the right factors for improving the achievement in the future.