Contract management and service delivery in Uganda national bureau of standards

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of Contract management on Service delivery in UNBS. A self-administered Opened ended questionnaire was designed and was administered to a sample of 152 staff of UNBS from different regional offices however, out of the 152, 140 questionnaires were returned showing a 92.1% response rate. The study involved one of each variable; the independent, moderating and dependent variable. The independent variable; contract management measured in the aspects of contract monitoring, the level of stakeholder involvement and records management. The moderating variable; Corruption was measured using respondents opinions on practices viewed to subject unethical influence outside the procurement process. The dependent variable; service delivery was measured using the timeliness. The items capturing the constructs and consequently the variables were tagged to a five point likert ordinal scale which ranged from; Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree which points were coded one to five . That is 5 for Strongly Agree, 4 for Agree, 3 for Not Sure, 2 for Strongly Disagree and 1 for Strongly Disagree. A factor structure of contract management carried out showed stakeholder involvement as the most impot1ant factor followed by contract monitoring and lastly records management. A correlation analysis indicted a significant positive relationship between contract management and service delivery (r=0.354, p=0.01). Regression showed that contract management had a significant positive effect on service delivery of (Beta=0.4 78, P<0.1 ). The predictive power of contract management on service delivery was found to be 11.90% (Adjusted R Square=0.119). Descriptive statics were used for other factors that influence Service Delivery as well as recommendations for service delivery improvements. The other factors that influenced service delivery were established and Recommendations for service delivery improvements recommended. While the moderating variable test of corruption indicated no effect on the relationship between contract management and service delivery. In conclusion, the results obtained support the hypothesis that contract management has a positive effect on service delivery.