The Effectiveness of Services Outsourcing in Sri Lankan State Universities

Universities in Sri Lanka are in the process of rapid development in tertiary education. In this context, service outsourcing becomes a crucial element of enhancing university functionalities in terms of cleaning, security and cafeteria in particular. Meanwhile, there is considerable debate on the effectiveness of outsourcing services. This study attempts to resolve this controversy by examining the effectiveness of Outsourcing services in Sri Lankan state Universities. Meanwhile, a limited number of studies has been conducted on Outsourcing in higher educational institutes and no other research has yet assessed the effectiveness of outsourcing services in Sri Lankan Universities. Hence the main objective of this study is to assess the effectiveness of outsourcing services in Sri Lankan universities. Primary data has been collected from the administrative employees working in Universities. Two stage cluster sampling method was used to obtain 132 responses from administrative staff in University of Peradeniya, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka and Eastern University, Sri Lanka. Descriptive analysis and One-way ANOVA were carried on the collected data. The result reveals that there are differences in the effectiveness of cafeteria and security services among the three universities. The effectiveness of outsourced cleaning service is at high level in all the three universities. The effectiveness of outsourced cafeteria service is at a high level in University of Peradeniya, moderate level in Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka and low level in Eastern University, Sri Lanka. Similarly, the effectiveness of outsourced security service is at high level in both University of Peradeniya and Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka while itis at a moderate level at Eastern University, Sri Lanka. Hence Implications of this research and the recommendation of this study suggested that the Scholars, institutional administrators and policymakers need to understand the outsourcing phenomenon and whether it is effective and beneficial to the organisation.