Commitments and Realities of Service Delivery Innovation: Exploring out the Gaps Facing Gazetted Class III Officers at Local Level Governments of Nepal
Pramod Niroula and Shailendra Prasad Bhatt
Newly appointed gazzetted class III officers who graduated from Basic Administration Training (BAT) organized by Nepal Administrative Staff College (NASC) have committed themselves towards “innovation” in service delivery once they assume government offices. This study explored out the realities of service delivery innovation as committed in the basic administration training by the gazzetted class III officers deputed/adjusted at local level governments of Nepal. The status of service delivery innovation opted by the officers has been analyzed with the framework of service gap model as suggested by Parasuraman et al. (1985). This study obtained insider-perspectives through face-to face and online conversations and interviews. The perspectives and insights obtained in the form of information and evidences were then transcribed, and content analyzed to generate a pattern that best indicated and accounted the realities of service delivery innovation. This study revealed the existence of wider gap between gazzetted class III officers’ preservice commitment of service delivery innovation and reality status at local level governments. The local level governments’ status of service delivery innovation has not been realized to its best at the present. Development of this situation has been found to be the outcome of limited congruence in the thought, and decision making process between elected and selected officials accompanied by the inherent practice of being at ‘status-quo’. This undermined the importance of innovation culture in service delivery as a formalized and systemic approach. The enduring fear/reluctance to accepting and implementing systemic change has been perceived as a critical threat to professional career by elected representatives and locally appointed selected representatives. Despite their competencies and enduring efforts, gazzetted class III officers still have ample space to break the silos and to establish service delivery innovation as the formal culture and system in the local level governments.
Keywords: Service, Innovation, Service Delivery Innovation, Local Level Governments, Nepal
================================================================================================
Cultural Politics of Governance: Democracy, Patronage and State-Society Relations in Nepal
Tulasi Sharan Sigdel
This research examines local governance and administration of everyday life in Nepal through the lens of road users’ committees and road transportation. Nepali state has been mobilizing such committees with theoretical wrapper of institutionalizing grassroots democracy and participatory development. As one of the major actors for local development, user’s committees have not only transpired local development projects but also have facilitated for consolidating political patronage and administrative privilege. This research explains how the private actors engaged in road transportation services in rural Nepal benefit and enjoy capital accumulation, practice monopolized power, negotiate the everyday administrative spaces and provide sub-standard services. While doing so, this paper has benefitted from Bourdieu’s idea of ‘habitus’ and Gramsci’s theory of ‘hegemony’ and it has drawn evidences from multi-sited ethnographic methods to reflect on the ways both private and public actors territorialize local transportation services which reinforce long standing inequality, marginality of services and form a new social habitus. Besides, it brings in the stories of everyday practices of ordinary citizens to challenge existing unequal cultural ideologies entrenched in Nepalese society.
Keywords: Road transportation, governance, ethnographic methods, private and public roads
================================================================================================
Social Development Initiatives of Provincial Government in Nepal: A Case of Province No. 2
Manisha Maharjan and Rajendra Adhikari
Nepal moved from a unitary system with a three level federal system of government. The Provincial government is a new introduction and is assigned with all necessary functions that facilitate and support administrative, service delivery and developmental functions. Social development is the most priority functional area for the provinces since social development is the most critical for achieving the national commitments. This study has tried to assess provincial governments’ initiatives and commitments for working in social development sector as reflected in provincial governments’ policies and programs, annual and periodic plans, budget, and institutional arrangements as well as analyze
challenges for executing programs/ initiatives for social development. Province 2 was selected for this study as the provinces that have HDI values lower than the national average. This study has covered three social sectors namely Education, Health and Employment as these are the vital human rights and plays a key role in human, social, and economic development. The data were collected through review of periodic plans of province, Redbook and policy and program of the province. The information was validated with the 4 officials of Province two through online medium. Province 2 government has accorded special importance to education and health in the periodic plans and the policy and program. Province two have given importance in girl‘s education as well as educating the Dalit and marginalized communities. Likewise, in the sector of heath, province two has been allocated budget for multi nutritional program, improvement of sexual and reproductive health of females as well as for awareness campaigns against the harmful traditional practices and gender based violence. A large chunk of provincial government budget has been allocated for upgrade of district hospitals into equipped hospitals. Likewise, in employment sector, provincial government has focused on youth and has allocated budget to build the skills, knowledge and capacity of youth through trainings in agriculture sector rather than in foreign employment. However, there has been there has been severe underuse of allocated budget. Inadequate human resources, frequent mobility of them, weak monitoring and support mechanism, no integration of accountability with performance were critical limitations that caused significant delay in the implementation of programs.
Keywords: Provincial government, social development, education, health, employment, annual budget
================================================================================================
Towards Zero Tolerance to Corruption: Is Corruption Scenario Changing in Nepal
Shiva Hari Adhikari and Ashrita Dhital
This study evaluated a very delicate issue of corruption. It has attempted to identify the changed scenario of corruption in Nepal and illustrated the initiations that the government of Nepal has commenced towards the zero tolerance to corruption. This study is a result of the analysis of the research question ‘Is the corruption scenario changing in Nepal?’ This study combined a triangulation approach in order to fulfill the set objective. The unit of analysis was every day’s newspaper during the year 2017 to 2019. Based on the nature of content published in the newspaper and backing up with the legal frameworks and functionalities of anti-corruption agencies, three major categories were created. They included: 1) punitive actions, 2) preventive measures and promotional activities, and 3) corruption related research/report/view. On the other hand, for the qualitative content, a logic framework model of program assessment was used to analyze the content and information. It has also attempted to disentangle the three different nature of anti-corruption strategy - punitive actions, preventive measures and promotional activities, and corruption related research/report/view- and its impact on corruption control. The outcome of anti-corruption initiatives are assessed by using independent sample t-test and multiple regression analysis. The changes in punitive actions, preventive and promotional activities, and corruption related research/report/view before and after the election was assessed and found that there are significant differences between the means of the two periods. Anti-corruption agencies getting its chief/chief commissioner, in comparison to without chief/chief commissioner, has more number of punitive actions against corruption. Although this study could not justify the relationship between the punitive actions, preventive and promotional activities, and corruption related research/report/ view but discovered that punitive actions, preventive and promotional activities, and corruption related research/report/view against corruption after the election or change in government had significantly increased compared to before election or change in government.
Keywords: towards zero tolerance to corruption, preventive, punitive, promotional, anti-corruption agencies, corruption
================================================================================================
A study on Complaint Management of Public Offices in Nepal
Geetanjali Upadhyaya and Anita Poudel
The objective of this study was to analyze the complaint management practices in public offices of Nepal. The study further attempted to understand the familiarity of complaint handling procedure/ guideline among service providers and service seekers, to explore complaint handling process existing in public organization and to analyze existing complaint management arrangement for the continuous improvement of the organization. The study used quantitative method using questionnaire survey. The study found that public organizations have made provisions for complaint management; however, the spirit of ensuring citizen-centricity in complaint handling was under prioritized and not institutionalized at public organizations in Nepal.
Keywords: Complaint management, Public offices
================================================================================================
Analyzing the Status of Improvement in Public Service Delivery through E-Government Implementation in Department of Passport, Nepal
Shyan Kirat Rai and Shital Moktan Tamang
Passport is an essential document required to travel countries other than that of residence. People travel abroad in search of employment, higher education, immigration, and refreshment and the requirement of passport is obvious. In order to issue a passport the filled form has to be sent to Department of Passport (DoP) with the verified information. The information verification is a very sensitive and lengthy process in Nepal as it is a paper based system, which is initiated and done from the local level. All the information at local level are in paper-based system as digitization of data has not been done. The DoP has implemented online pre-enrollment system to facilitate the passport application processing. The assumption is always made that the introduction of technology improves the service delivery. The research objective is to explore the online pre-enrollment system of DoP in passport processing and understand whether the system implementation has been able to generate the desired effect of improving the public service delivery to the targeted audience as a part of GoN. A mixed method approach is used to perform the research. E-Government Maturity Models (E-GovMM) and SWOT analysis are used to analyze the status of existing online pre-enrollment system and a purposive survey is done to collect the views of the officials on the use of the system. The qualitative and quantitative data are collected through observations, historical records, documentary, and online survey. The collected data are analyzed to obtain the findings which is used to understand the service provider perspective on status of public service delivery through the implementation of the e-government system. The findings from the E-GovMM and SWOT analysis showed that the maturity level of the system is in alignment with the existing status of the online pre-enrollment system, which has attained the transactional level of maturity. Despite the low level of development in telecommunication infrastructure in Nepal the citizens participate in the use of the e-government system. From the descriptive analysis of the survey with the employees of the DoP it can be deducted that - the online pre-enrollment system implementation in DoP has helped to improve the passport processing process.
Keywords: pre-enrollment system, e-government, public service delivery, passport processing
================================================================================================
Challenges of implementing strategic management at public organizations of Nepal
Pratibha Dhungana and Achala Dahal
Most of the organizations face significant difficulties in implementing the strategies as the strategies fail to produce the desired performance in the organization due to the poor implementation. It is often found that there are difficulties in most of the public organizations to accept and own the strategic plan for planning of the organizational activities due to which there is comparatively less research publication found in this area. In this context, the study was done to determine the underlying challenges in the implementation of strategic management in public organizations of Nepal. The study adopted the researchers understanding based on the review of documents, interviews with the officers at strategy implementation position at Nepal Administrative Staff College and Lalitpur District Court. The analysis was done on the basis of the commonalities of the challenges shared by the officials during the process. The information was analyzed using qualitative method and case was prepared. This study was based on Kurt Verweire strategy - commitment and alignment model. From the finding of this study it is understood that clarity in strategy is directly dependent on experience or involvement of organization in formulation and implementation of the strategy and inherent of organizational value in strategy. The study established that inadequate funding and untimely disbursement of resources was hindrance to the effective implementation of strategies at both organisations. The analysis of the study presented that although there was participation and involvement of all level of employee in strategy formulation and action plan preparation, the implementing level employees are not well informed about the amendments and review process which had created the information gap among employees and decrease the level of ownership towards the strategic plan implementation. However, there was never issue of commitment in the top level management at both the public organizations. The dedication of all employees are equally important for alignment of the strategy and commitment in this study model.
Keywords: Strategy, Alignment, Commitment model
================================================================================================
Change of Organizational Culture in Nepal Government and its Application at Local Level
Shailaja Upadhyaya and Basanta Raj Sigdel
This study assesses the implications of changed governance landscape and thus the organization culture of Government of Nepal and its implication at the local level. Starting from the provision of the Constitution of Nepal, Local government operation act 2074,other various acts and reports and experts’ opinion on the matter of the changed role demanded of the local level and appropriate organizational culture for the same ,was accessed for the same. The literature review and meta-analysis suggested that to embody the result oriented, employee oriented organisation culture with open system and pragmatic work procedures at the best may help recovering from the challenges that change has offered.
Keywords: Organizational culture, local level, metaanalysis, governance
================================================================================================
Civil Service: What makes urban millennials onboard?
Antovna Gyawali and Chandni Kayastha
The study aims to find out the factors that motivate urban millennials to join civil services. The findings emphasize on the public service motivation factors that help to onboard this group of millennials. Millennial generation is the dominant workforce whose outlook on work appears to differ significantly from previous generations. Urban millennials who have attended private schools and colleges are social, tech-savvy, seek for transparency and feedback, and advancement oriented which makes them the emerging leaders. Therefore, it is crucial to have their presence in the civil services.
In this study, five cases of civil servants who belong to the urban millennial generation were interviewed and studied. The case-based method helped the researchers to explore the factors that motivated the chosen urban millennials to join the service. It was found out that there was the low presence of urban millennials in service. To attract this generation, the study shows that the government should focus on making the image of public service positive, bridge the gap of lack of information about the government jobs and the recruitment procedure, have role models for the current generation and the up-coming generation, and a competitive salary to lead a quality life. Since millennials care much more than the salary, the opportunities for growth and advancement that the government services provide should be highlighted.
Key words: Millennials, civil services, onboarding, recruitment, public organization
================================================================================================
Perception of Government Employees towards their performance
Pritha Paudyal and Roshani Bhujel
Employees’ motivation has a fundamental role in every organisation striving to achieve higher performances. The objective of this study was to assess perception of government employees towards their performance. This study is based on the primary data of 64 government employees of Nepal. For the data analysis, descriptive approach was used. The study concludes that large number of government employees perceive demotivation and are not satisfied at work to perform well.
Keywords: government employees, perception, performance
================================================================================================
Perceived Procedural Fairness in Performance Appraisal and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour in Public Organizations in Nepal: Mediating role of Intrinsic Motivation
Anup Bhurtel
The effectiveness of performance appraisal (PA) system has remained an area of research interest due to its issues related to fairness in the organizational context and procedural fairness of PA as perceived by employees affects their motivation level and their organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB). In this regard, this paper assesses the extent to which perceived procedural fairness of public organization employees in Nepal affects their OCB and their intrinsic motivation. Further, it examines the mediating role of intrinsic motivation in the relationship between perceived procedural fairness in PA and OCB. An online survey was carried out on 104 officers of Class III and Class II level of government of Nepal.
Data after conducting confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was analysed using descriptive statistics and structural equation modelling (SEM). Results showed that procedural fairness in PA significantly affected both OCB and intrinsic motivation. The effect of PA’s procedural fairness on OCB was weak while that on intrinsic motivation was moderate. Further, intrinsic motivation fully mediated the relationship between procedural fairness in PA and OCB in officers of public organizations of Nepal. Limitations and research implications are discussed in the paper.
Keywords: performance appraisal, procedural fairness, intrinsic motivation, organizational citizenship behavior
================================================================================================
Social and Environmental Safeguards in Road Projects: A Comparative Analysis of Existing Laws and Field Observation
Tara Prasad Kharel
Social and environmental safeguards are important aspect of the development management. So, this study analyzes the clear picture of social and environmental safeguards in road projects funded by the government of Nepal. This study reviewed the policies and frameworks related to safeguards and analyzed qualitative data based on the principles and frameworks of safeguards. The results showed that there is serious lack of compliance of national laws and frameworks in government funded road projects and no any provision of social and environmental safeguards. Furthermore, the analysis shows that there has been no serious concern given for social and environmental safeguards during planning and implementation of government projects as well. The study concludes that there has been no proper policy, framework and national guidelines in the area of safeguards. Furthermore, it also requires clear policy and legal provision for implementing, supervising and monitoring and evaluating the government funded projects.
Keywords: Social Safeguards, Environmental Safeguards, Development Projects, Laws
================================================================================================
Trust in Public and Political Institutions: What Nepali Citizen Says?
Anil Kumar Gupta
The trust in public and political institutions is an indication of democratic governance which is receiving growing attention in governance research internationally. The legitimacy of public and political institutions is heavily reliant on citizen trust which is critical for a healthy democracy in a nation. In this regard, this study aimed to examine the pattern of citizen trust in public and political institutions of Nepal. The data used in this study was taken from a Nepal National Governance Survey 2017/18 and data were analyzed by applying an ordered logit model. The main findings of this study have shown that public trust in public and political institutions is not satisfactory. Citizens' trust in political institutions is relatively low compared to public institutions. Citizens have a low level of trust in ministers, political parties and parliamentarians. This indicates that citizens are not satisfied with the performance, actions, and behavior of the political institutions. Compared to political institutions, citizens have more trust in public institutions. Some public institutions have attracted a relatively high level of citizens' trust, while others have a low level of trust. Public institutions such as the army and the media have a higher level of citizen trust, while police and civil servants/bureaucrats have a lower level of citizen trust. This has shown that the army and the media are the most trusted and the police and civil servants/ bureaucrats are the least trusted public institution in Nepal. It has shown that citizens are quite satisfied with the performance of the army and the media than the police and the servants/bureaucrats. It is interesting to note that citizens' trust in public and political institutions is also positively and negatively influenced by demographics, social associations, and other variables.
Keywords: Citizen, trust, democracy, legitimacy, public and political institutions
================================================================================================
Representative Bureaucracy in Nepali Civil Service: Exploring the Encounters of Women
Anil Kumar Gupta, Gobinda Bhandari, and Shushma Manandhar
Representative bureaucracy is a sign of inclusive or democratic governance. Different country of the world including Nepal has adopted different policies to confirm meaningful representation of women in civil service. Civil service organization should be gender-sensitive/friendly legally but in reality, women official's experiences gender influenced behaviors. In this regard, this study explored different encounters of women officials experienced in Nepali civil service. This study employed a qualitative approach where the case study was adopted as a strategy of inquiry. Six information-rich cases were selected purposively and in-depth interviews were carried out. The result of the study showed that invisible gender stereotypes are prevalent in Nepali civil service. Women officials are experiencing gender inclined behaviors because of gender-biased mindset. Despite this, women officials are feeling proud to be a part of civil service, and are prepared to face the gender inclined behavior and qualifying themselves to defense challenges with oozing self-confidence.
Key words: Women, civil service, gender-biased
================================================================================================
Does Workforce Diversity Influence Employee Performance? An Empirical Analysis of Nepali Civil Service
Shailendra Prasad Bhatt, Anil Kumar Gupta and Devi Dutta Bhatta
In the last few years, workforce diversity and employee performance have gained intensive attention among policymakers, scholars and management expert all over the world including Nepal. Nepali civil service has become socially and demographically diverse than ever before after the introduction of inclusion policy in 2007 through the second amendment of the Civil Service Act, 1993. In this regard, this study examined the influences of workforce diversity on employee performance. In total 120 civil service employees were interviewed through structured self-administrative questionnaire and data were analyzed by applying descriptive and inferential statistics. Finding showed that civil service employees were more positively perceived in the organizational practices of respecting gender and caste/ethnicity diversity than age diversity. Civil service employee perceived themselves as a performer. However, the level of perceived diversity and performance is varied by their personal/demographic attributes. This study also showed that perceived diversity and performance is significantly positively associated. It is remarkable to note that respecting gender and caste/ethnicity diversity have more influence on performance. Civil service employees who positively perceived organizational practices of respecting diversity are more likely to be a performer than who did not. Hence, this study concludes that workforce diversity has a positive influence on employee performance.
Keywords: Workforce diversity, performance, gender, age and caste/ethnicity
================================================================================================
A Two-Level Self-Assessment of Service Quality of Selected Public and Private Hospitals of Nepal Using European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Model
Raghu Bista, Pramod Niroula and Shailendra Prasad Bhatt
Although there are lots of development and improvement in the health sector of Nepal, the quality measurement of Nepali hospitals is yet to be evaluated and accessed. Quality health service with excellent hospital facilities is prime focus of both public and private sector. There is a need of the study to evaluate
and access continuous improvement in the health sectors including hospitals. In this study, the EFQM model was used to measure the service provider’s perception towards service quality status improvement and management. This study focused on evaluating service quality of selected public and private hospitals of Nepal by using EFQM excellence model originally developed by European Foundation for Quality management (EFQM). This study is a cross-sectional survey carried out using a 57-item questionnaire that focused on two objects: the hospital as a whole and its clinical departments. A total of 36 respondents participated in the study which comprised of senior level and mid-level managers of selected public and private hospitals. The hospitals have been selected using purposive sampling method. From this study, it was found that in each private and public hospitals higher management level perceived that they are in good position in enabler factors than that of middle level manager perceived. It is remarkable to note that private hospitals are toward
positive trend in result criteria than that of public hospital. The overall score under enabler and result criteria across hospitals validates the relationship between enabler factor and result criteria envisioned in the EFQM model because it supports the fact that not better results can be achieved until input (enabler) factors are strong enough to support its result framework. In comparison to the standard EFQM Excellence Model value, it is surprisingly found that the weightage of all enabler factors and value of result criteria of public hospitals are significantly lower.
Keywords: Total quality management, EFQM Model, service quality, enabler factors, result criteria
================================================================================================
Determinants of Adult Learning: Analysis Based on End-Term Evaluation of Training Program
Anita Poudel, Shiva Hari Adhikari and Shilu Pradhan
Adult learning is understood beyond the acquisition of knowledge and behavioral change. Training helps to develop knowledge, skills and behavioral change. Adult learners focus more on learning process and are characterized by goal orientation. They connect their past experience with their current knowledge base and activities and try to judge about the usefulness of the training program. And, if they found the knowledge as useful in their current job situation or in future endeavor, they pay attention towards the subject matter and be satisfied with the training program and feel that the program was useful. This study attempts to explore the determinants that impact adult learning by utilizing quantitative data that are compiled from the ‘End-Term Evaluation Questionnaire’ of the training programs conducted by Capacity Development Resource Center during November 2015 to November 2018. In total, feedback/reaction level evaluations of 1025 participants are considered as the input to analyze the determinants of adult learning. Primarily, three components named instructional controlled/training methods, informal learning environment and others have been identified as independent variables, adult learning being dependent variable. Under instructional controlled/training methods, four factors - interactive lecture, group exercise, field visit and simulation – have been encompassed. An exploratory study on the variables indicated that six variables out of eight having significant impact on adult learning. Appropriateness of lecture, organization of training, perception on relevancy of subject dealt, logical presentation of subject matter, group exercise/exercise and field visit are found to have a positive relationship with adult learning. However, the two dummy variables (i.e. simulation
as a methodology used and informal learning environment) are found to be insignificant in determining the adult learning.
================================================================================================
Ethics as Value Proposition and Its Sustenance among Officials of the Government of Nepal: Analysis Based on 31st Batch of Basic Administration Training
Shiva Hari Adhikari, Geetanjali Upadhyaya and Ashrita Dhital
Civil service is a service of public trust. Civil servants or bureaucrats adhering to ethics and morality-based value help in generating substantial public trust. The context in which Nepal’s civil service is being operated in a continuous change. The promulgation of new constitution and the full operation of 761 governments of Nepal have provided great opportunity for the civil servants or bureaucrats in serving the citizens as per the aspirations of the Constitution and values of Nepali civil service. Realizing the importance of value and its commitment with the aim of making civil service trustworthy, Nepal Administrative Staff College (NASC) initiated ‘value commitment program’ as one of the key programs of Basic Administration Training (BAT). The ‘value commitment program’ was first introduced in the 31st BAT in 2017. NASC engaged all the 31st BAT trainee officers collectively in generating the values on their own through participative process. By doing so, NASC believed that they will adhere to it throughout their professional and personal life. It has already been
two years since the ‘value commitment program’ and the researchers believed it is the right time to assess whether they abide by the values which they collectively proposed and committed. Considering all these, this study tried to identify what do the government officials of 31st BAT value most in their profession at this point of time. By doing so, we analyzed whether any change has been occurred in their proposition at the beginning of service period and now. By employing mixed method of data collection, this study surveyed 126 officers from 31st BAT and data analysis has been done accordingly. Officers are found to be enthusiastic in adhering to the values in their work place and personal life and bringing changes at organizational and individual levels.
They tried to be positive towards any situations and problems and kept on delivering services to the service receivers. The research team found that use of information and communication technology has helped officers in being citizen friendly and transparent. However, we discovered that officers generally fear taking even reasonable risks and blame the socio-political landscape which restricted them being a change agent.
================================================================================================
Role of Intermediary in Public Service Delivery: A Case Study of Transport Management Office, Ekantakuna, Lalitpur
Roshani Bhujel, Pritha Paudyal, Pramod Niroula
This paper attempts to assess the relations among service seeker, service provider and intermediary at Transport Management Office, Ekantakuna, Lalitpur. The triangulation of relationship among these value chains actors in service delivery process were assessed through in-depth interviews which comprised of
independent set of semi-structured questionnaire as a checklist each for service seeker, service provider and intermediary. Further, to validate the information obtained from the interview, research team also approached intermediary as a perspective service seeker who was in urgent need of license renewal. The findings of the study reflected that the presence of intermediary in service delivery process matters in terms of facilitation to both the service seeker and service provider in highly different levels. The extent of facilitation has been found to be the matter of subjective discourse despite of the fact that it is only the single nature of service (license issuance and renewal).
Keywords: intermediary, service seeker, service provider, value chain actors, service delivery process
================================================================================================
Role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Education in ICT Entrepreneurship Development in Nepal
Shital Moktan Tamang and Sushil Thapa
Information and Communication Technology helps to connect with the rest of the world and opens up wide range of opportunities for businesses. ICT entrepreneurs are a blend of tech entrepreneurs and online entrepreneurs who develop products and services by using ICT technologies. The products and services may be catered to the clients through the use of internet and cloud computing technologies. ICT entrepreneurs perform entrepreneurial activities related to core ICT areas such as software, hardware, networking or online businesses. Nepal is following the path towards increasing ICT entrepreneurship activities. Businesses such as Hamro Bazaar, Daraz, Foodmandu, eSewa etc. are leading Nepalese business to another level and generating employment opportunities for the youths of Nepal. With many ICT startups emerging in Nepal, it is not known whether the ICT entrepreneurs are influenced to start up their business because they have some training or educational degree in the field of ICT or because the market is driving them despite their area of study.
Thus, this paper analyzes whether there is a role of ICT education in ICT entrepreneurship development in Nepal. The paper also tries to analyze whether the ICT entrepreneurs perceive the government policies and practices as supportive for doing ICT businesses. The study followed explanatory sequential mixed method, and semi-structured survey questionnaire and interview was used as data collection tools. The study revealed that ICT entrepreneurs have either an academic degree or specialized training on ICT or both. The courses are seen as a catalyst for influencing or motivating factors for start-up of ICT businesses. However, they perceive that having only academic degree on ICT is not sufficient. Specialized trainings are preferred for starting up successful ICT business. ICT entrepreneurs do not perceive the ICT policies and physical infrastructure environment to be conducive as expected for conducting ICT business. However, they recognize that the government is trying to gradually improve the scenario. They agree that there has been a significant change
in Nepal in the past few years thus, supporting ICT entrepreneurship to flourish in Nepal.
Keywords: ICT entrepreneurship, ICT startups, ICT scholars, ICT, Entrepreneurship
================================================================================================
Towards Engaged Civil Service: Employee Engagement Survey, 2019
Basanta Raj Sigdel, Shailaja Upadhyaya and Damodar Basyal
Actively engaged workforce is need of the day in civil service that drives effective service delivery to the citizens as envisioned in the constitution and the new system of governance in Nepal. Studies show that civil service can achieve excellence by efficiently and effectively increasing their employee engagement (Ruyle, 2009). Though a lot of research has been carried out in the area of engagement, there remains paucity of academic literature regarding status of employee engagement, and its drivers in the context of Nepalese public sector. The research aimed at measuring level of employee engagement in Nepali civil service and identifying key drivers of employee engagement. Following descriptive deign, the study utilized work of Schaufeli et.al (2002) in seven-point scale to measure status of employee engagement in three major dimensions of engagement-Vigour, Dedication and Absorption. The study based on questionnaire survey among 139 officers in 21 different ministries of the Government of Nepal and constitutional bodies. The study finds “Average” level engagement of civil service with mean score of 4.66 in seven-point scale in three major domains of employee engagement. The study also finds that employee engagement is positively correlated with the age of employees, level of educational qualification, service period. Interestingly, employee engagement is higher for technical employees as compared to the non-technical ones. The study analyzed three driver domains- personal factors, human resource practice and work environment that explains degree of engagement in Nepali civil service. The research depicts that personal factors comprising of locus of control, learning attitude and work ethics have highest degree of correlation with employee engagement making it the major determinant or the
key driver of employee engagement for the civil servants of Nepal. Similarly, human resource practices and work environment respectively explain the degree of employee engagement.
Keywords: Employee engagement, civil service, human resource
================================================================================================