Employee Motivation and Happiness for Organisational Performance

Info: 5241 words (21 pages) Example Dissertation Proposal
Published: 22nd Oct 2021

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Tagged: BusinessEmployment

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1.0 Introduction 3

1.1 Research Title 3

1.2 Background and Rationale 3

1.3 Purpose of the Research 3

1.4 Problem Definition 3

2.0 Research Questions 3

3.0 SMART Research Objectives 3

4.0 Research Philosophies 4

4.1 Phenomenology 4

4.2 Epistemology 4

4.3 Positivism 4

4.4 Ontology 4

4.5 Axiology 4

5.0 Literature Review 5

5.1 Research Strategy 5

5.1.1 Exploratory and Conclusive 5

5.1.2 Descriptive 5

5.1.3 Explanatory 5

5.1.4 Case Study 5

5.2 Research Approach 6

5.2.1 Inductive 6

5.2.2 Deductive 6

5.2.3 Abductive 6

6.0 Research Information and Data Needs 6

6.1 Data Sources 7

6.1.1 Primary 7

6.1.2 Secondary 7

6.2 Data Collection 7

6.2.3 Survey 7

6.2.4 Observation 7

6.2.5 Experimental 7

6.2.6 Archives 7

6.3 Data Types 8

6.3.1 Quantitative 8

6.3.2 Qualitative 8

7.0 Data Sampling Methods 8

7.1 Probability 8

7.2 Non-probability 8

8.0 Relevant Sources and Ethics 8

9.0 Proposed Outline 9

10.0 GANTT Chart 10

11.0 References 11

12.0 Bibliography 12

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Research Title

The proposed research title is “Employee motivation and happiness are essential for driving organisational performance”. The keywords are: employee motivation, employee happiness, job satisfaction, and organizational performance.

1.2 Purpose of Research

The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of the 2016 working conditions and practices on the motivation and happiness of SportsDirect employees and the company’s performance. As noted by (Latham, 1994; Egan, 1998) motivated, satisfied and happy employees will always strive to meet company’s goals and targets. This research will therefore help identify the ongoing HR issues and what could be done to overturn the situation.

1.3 Problem Definition

What working conditions and practices are responsible for employees’ unhappiness and demotivation and poor organisational performance?

2.0 Research Questions

According to Gross and Etzioni (1985 p. 4), “organizational reality and human happiness go hand and hand”. Therefore, the following research questions will be addressed:

What are the causes of employees demotivation?
What working practices are needed to motivate employees?
What are the causes of employees’ unhappiness and lack of job satisfaction?
What working conditions are required to create job satisfaction and happiness?
How can performance be improved through motivated and happy employees?

3.0 SMART Research Objectives

The research objectives will include:

Reduce the current 22% attrition rate to 10% over 2 year period
Review and improve current working conditions in next 3 months?
Develop a project to implement HR industry best practices over 2 year period
Improve the Health and Safety issues in the next one month?
Implement incentives, compensation and benefits schemes comparable to the industry standard

4.0 Research Philosophies

Research philosophy in general is linked to one’s view on the development of knowledge, that is, the researcher’s thought will always have effect on how the research is conducted. It comes naturally, however, understanding the philosophy of research is vital as it is the fundamental of how the research is approached and the true understanding of philosophical issues is really helpful. It does help in clarifying the type of research designs which involved the taking into account the kind of evidence needed, the way it would be collected and interpreted , Also it helps researcher get to know the kind of design that work best . Different types of research philosophies are below:

Epistemology

This is refer to as the nature of knowledge , that is , how our surroundings are conceived and what the acceptable knowledge is, if the researcher intends to adopt approach similar to natural scientist, then your epistemological approach is probably going to be positivist.(Jonathan, 2014)

Positivism

This type of research is mainly associated with scientific research; it promotes a more objective reality interpretation through the use of hard data from surveys and experiments. In this case, the researcher is independent from studying object that exist in Isolation from outside world and well structured methodology should be used.

Interpretivism

This type of philosophy deals with system that examines people as well as their social behaviour. Researcher finds out what is occurring as well as why it’s happening though the research is more flexible in methodology approach, less structured and formal to present a good idea from the collected data. (Altinay et al 2015)

5.0 Literature Review

This is a systematic, reproducible and explicit way to identify, evaluate, and synthesizing the current body of finished and recorded work of researchers, practitioners and scholars. The review of research conclusion is based on the original work of other scholars and researchers. (Arlene, 2014)

5.1 Research Strategies

Research strategies considered are as follows:

5.1.1 Exploratory research design

It is a kind of research design that provides an avenue for an open query in order to create an opinion about a particular subject of interest. It mainly explains the nature of a research interest, by using focus group and individual interview as well as expert interview. This strategy will be used for report research being conducted for SportsDirect.

5.1.2 Descriptive Design

This is quantitative in nature and it’s used to explain phenomena as they exist without any form of influencing the subject or object involved. Scientists use this type of research design so as to give explanation about human behaviors, for example using market analysis to look at customer’s habit and also business seeking insight about company practices. This strategy will be used in conjunction with Exploratory for report research being conducted for SportsDirect.

5.1.3 Explanatory

This type of research design is focused on particular information so as to create a casual relationship between different research study variables by placing emphasis on a specific issuein order to adequately illustrate the relationships between the different variables. (Saunder et al, 2012). This strategy will not be considered for report research being conducted for SportsDirect.

5.1.4 Case Study

A case study research design, by nature, is qualitative. It involves an in-depth exploration of a narrow circumstance rather than a wide-ranging statistical survey. In this case, the comprehensive approach of research is constricted into one within the same area of study. Case study research is mostly used to test whether scientific theories or models work in the real world (Cassidy, 2015). This strategy will not be considered for report research being conducted for SportsDirect.

5.2 Research Approach

There are different types of approach to be adopted when carrying out a research: abductive, inductive and deductive.

5.2.1 Abductive research

This approach is a type of research approach that entails compilation of various data for studying or exploration of phenomenon by making relevant modification of current theory or to establish a new theory by successive tests with additional data.

5.2.2 Deductive Approach

Deductive approachis the testing conducted to confirm whether hypothesis, assumptions or theories at hand are valid one. Whenever there are series of theories or hypothesis for research that needs to be rejected or accepted the process is said to be deductive in its approach. The research approach for SportsDirect research will be deductive.

5.2.3 Inductive Approach

This is the type of research approach that promotes the new theories to emerge and generalized. This does notinvolve the hypothesis to be formulated. However, it starts with research questions, objectives and aims to be accomplished during the research study (Dudovskiy, 2015). This research approach will be used in conjunction with deductive approach for the SportsDirect research.

6.0 Research Information and Data Needs

Data are vital and basic input when decision is to be made in a business, various data required for this research work would be collected from both the primary and secondary source.

6.1 Data Sources

The two main sources of Data that would be used are both the primary and the secondary explained below:

6.1.1 Primary Data

The primary sources of data are those data that are fresh, original, collected and gathered mainly for the purpose of this research this would actually be through various means such as interviews with managers, questionnaires, interview and survey.

6.1.2 Secondary Data

These are data that has been gathered, collected and recorded by other party before this research which might not necessarily be for the purpose of this research, these set of data are gathered to deal with research questions and shed more light to the research work, they could be source from various means such as, Text books, online publications, relevant website, business articles and journals. (Kadam et al, 2013).

The primary data needed for this research work will be gathered using various techniques, for instance interviews with sport direct managers. Also questionnaires will be given to staffs to know their opinion about how they are treated, survey will be conducted, and also secondary data will be collected through sport direct annual reports, business publications and other relevant websites to know how motivated and happy the staffs are and how it’s impacting the performance of the business as a whole.

6.2 Data Collection

All data that are required to carry out this research will be sourced from various means

6.3 Data Types

6.3.1 Qualitative Research

This type of data seeks to discern the quality instead of quality of its subject. It mainly purposed to explain the how and why of a phenomenon instead of where, what and when. It is commonly applied in such field as sociology, humanities and anthropology. Each of these fields could be researched using the qualitative methods. (Wisegeek, 2015) it does aid understanding the true meaning that individual ascribe to a particular social or human problem.

6.3.2 Quantitative Research

This approach is used to test objectives theories through the examination of the relationship between different variables. These set of variables could be measured basically on instrument that would enable the analysis of numbered data

7.0 Data Sampling Methods

The gathering of information about a group of people or things in which the researcher is in need of is not an easy task, therefore there is a need to use sampling method to make a true representation of the totality from which the data was collected. (Sociology guide, 2015)

8.0 Relevant Sources and Ethics

The primary materials and data that would be relevant in this research work will involve the permission letter from Sport Direct UK while carrying out interviews with the managers. It will also require formal consent from those that would be participate in the interview, explaining the reasons for interviewing them. Harvard style referencing will be used while referencing all the secondary data gathered through academic research journals and articles, text books, website publications.

9.0 Proposed Report Outline

Chapter One

This aspect is the beginning part of the research work and it’s going to include the research title, background and rationale, the purpose of carrying out the research as well as problem definition.

Chapter Two

This chapter highlights the aims and objectives of the research work with respect to what objectives are to be met for SportsDirect research report.

Chapter Three

This covers the terms of reference of the research report in terms of scope and limitations.

Chapter Four

This chapter explains the significance of the research work with regard to the retail sports industry and SportsDirect in particular.

Chapter Five

The main part of this chapter is the literature review and would be from various relevant publications such as academic journals, research papers, business journals and articles and text books.

Chapter Six

This chapter will deal with the research methodology that would be used in the research work; this will involve the method of collecting the data, research approaches and techniques that are relevant to the research would be critically analyzed.

Chapter Seven

This chapter involves analyzing of all data collected and also application of leanings.

Chapter Eight

This chapter is the final part of the research where opinion to make a final conclusion will be given and also a viable recommendation would be made as to how to deal with the identified problems.

10.0 GANTT Chart

Months /Weeks

March

Week

(4)

April

Week (1 – 2)

April

Week (3)

Activities

Research Background

Literature Review

Research Methodology

Critical Analysis

Recommendation

Conclusion

11.0 References

Objectives in Human Resources [Online] (2016) Available from: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/objectives-human-resources-10456.html [Accessed: 15th April 2017]

Jonathan Wilson, 2014, Essential of Business Research: A Guide to doing your research Project, Sage publication ltd 2014, Arlene Fink University of California,

Conducting Research Literature Reviews, fourth Edition

Human Resource Strategy to Improve Organisational Performance: A Route for British Firms? Fang Lee Cooke (2000)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/25/sports-directs-staff-are-treated-no-better-than-georgian-era-factory-workers [Accessed: 15th April 2017]

http://www.managers.org.uk/insights/news/2016/june/5-things-we-learned-about-management-at-sports-direct [Accessed: 15th April 2017]

Objectives in Human Resources [Online] (2016) Available from: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/objectives-human-resources-10456.html [Accessed: 15th April 2017]

John Martin, Organizational Behaviour and Management - Page 459 [Online] (2005) Available from: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BUDMDCAuRIoC&pg=PA459&dq=motivation+and+organizational+performance&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwizs9Klr7HTAhXHJFAKHeIjATgQ6AEIKTAB#v=onepage&q=motivation%20and%20organizational%20performance&f=false [Accessed: 15^th April 2017]

Marc van Veldhoven, ‎Riccardo Peccei, Well-being and Performance at Work: The Role of Context - Page 99 [Online] (2014) Available from: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VRNWBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA99&dq=employee+motivation+and+organisational+performance&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7jerbprHTAhWGIlAKHeG8D244ChDoAQgpMAE#v=onepage&q=employee%20motivation%20and%20organisational%20performance&f=false [Accessed: 15^th April 2017]

Charmine E.J. Härtel, ‎Yuka Fujimoto, Human Resource Management - Page 283 [Online] (2014) Available from: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nqGaBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA283&dq=employee+motivation+and+organisational+performance&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7jerbprHTAhWGIlAKHeG8D244ChDoAQguMAI#v=onepage&q=employee%20motivation%20and%20organisational%20performance&f=false [Accessed: 15^th April 2017]

Tamer K. Darwish, Strategic HRM and Performance: Theory and Practice [Online] (2013) Available from: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rcgwBwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=employee+motivation+and+organisational+performance&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7jerbprHTAhWGIlAKHeG8D244ChDoAQg0MAM#v=onepage&q=employee%20motivation%20and%20organisational%20performance&f=false [Accessed: 15^th April 2017]

Ian O'Boyle, Organisational Performance Management in Sport - Page 17 [Online] (2015) Available from: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hoP4CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA17&dq=employee+motivation+and+organisational+performance&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7jerbprHTAhWGIlAKHeG8D244ChDoAQg6MAQ#v=onepage&q=employee%20motivation%20and%20organisational%20performance&f=false [Accessed: 15^th April 2017

Tamer K. Darwish Strategic HRM and Performance: Theory and Practice - Page 15 [Online] (2013) Available from: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rcgwBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA15&dq=employee+motivation+and+organisational+performance&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7jerbprHTAhWGIlAKHeG8D244ChDoAQhGMAY#v=onepage&q=employee%20motivation%20and%20organisational%20performance&f=false [Accessed: 15^th April 2017

Gary P. Latham, Work Motivation: History, Theory, Research, and Practice [Online] (2007) Available from: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0SoXpZXBrXYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=employee+motivation+and+organisational+performance&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7jerbprHTAhWGIlAKHeG8D244ChDoAQhQMAg#v=onepage&q=employee%20motivation%20and%20organisational%20performance&f=false [Accessed: 15^th April 2017]