From 2008 to now, Innocent Nkurunziza has distinguished himself by a brilliant career in the management and operation of the water supply network of the Burundi water and electricity board of (REGIDESO) through an extraordinary rise in positions of responsibility.
He has embarked on an Executive Doctorate of Business Administration (EDBA) on the theme « Influence of co-production on consumer satisfaction and quality of service: the case of REGIDESO’s public drinking water service – BURUNDI » as a managerial alternative in spite of botched liberalisation. His thesis will be defended in March 2024 under the supervision of Prof. Jean-François Lemoine, Professor at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France.
Thesis Direction
Pr Jean-François Lemoine
Thesis Title
Influence of co-production on consumer satisfaction: the case of REGIDESO’s public drinking water service (Burundi)
Abstract
REGIDESO has tried various management methods, such as outsourcing the distribution of bills to private third parties, collection of consumption debts by an external company, and other options introduced by the 2000 liberalisation law, but without success. In view of the above, would citizen participation (co-production) in the production chain of the public drinking water service be a source of satisfaction for beneficiaries or an alternative for reviving REGIDESO ?
Firstly, a qualitative study involving interviews with a ten employees of the public drinking water service led us to discover the organisation of REGIDESO’s public drinking water service and, consequently, the degree of citizen participation in any given task of the service, the customer satisfaction and the quality of the service offered.
Secondly, on the basis of the results obtained by interview, we constructed six (6) hypotheses which we tested with data collected from a random sample of 391 consumers of REGIDESO’s public drinking water service.
It was noted that consumer co-production would have a positive influence on consumer satisfaction and that the moderating effect of service quality on this influence would be positive, and that service quality would have a positive influence on consumer satisfaction and the moderating effect of co-production on this influence would be negative.