Leadership & Business Management (CHAPTER 3)

Research Methodology

Methodology of the study presents the procedure how the required quantum of information and data set has been obtained by the investigator and then evaluated for the decision-making purpose.

Research philosophy

Research philosophy indicates express the knowledge & researcher’s own belief about how world is perceived or appeared and interpreted as paradigm. The main difficulty or hurdle in conducting research successfully is the incoherent distribution or classification of philosophies like ontology, doxology & anxiology. There are two very popular paradigm that are positivism and anti-positivism, also called interpretivist. First is based on the ontology that universe is external, henceforth, it is only a single objective regardless of investigator’s own perception and belief. Thus, they used a highly-rigid, more-controlled or structured approach to achieve the outcome (Hunleth, 2011). Positivist philosophers develop appropriate hypothesis and maintain a clear differentiation between science and social behaviour. In the current investigation, positivism philosophy has been used by the scholar to examine numerical and statistical data. In this, scholar prioritizes the objectivity and applied logical tests to study the issue. On the contrary side, interpretivism believed in multiplicity of the real world. Therefore, interpretivist follows a socially constructed disciplined structure to conduct the study instead of objective. They do not use any rigid or highly controlled structure and prefers more flexibility through designing research questions. There were many debates done earlier regarding the selection of philosophies in different kind of investigations (Mackey and Gass, 2015).

Research approach

Genernlly, two research approaches are very famous that are inductive versus deductive approaches. First starts with a small area of observation to designing questions and then its analysis to evaluate the chosen issues. However, on the contrary side, deductive moves from starting a general theory or statements to the creation of hypothesis in order to develop a right solution based on the real evidence. Quantitative investigations entails the use of deductive approaches to assess or evaluate the relationship or linkage between the models and research conducted and incorporated in natural scientific model (Hussain and Khuddro, 2016). In the current area of investigation, investigator used deductive approach, in which, qualitative data has been evaluated through using thematic approach. In despite of this, qualitative researches predominantely emphasizes to use inductive approach which lay more focus on the emergence and development of new theory and reject the natural scientific model.

Research design

The process by which researchers integrate or incorporate distinctive research elements or components coherently or precisely, termed as design. Appropriate selection of the design is important for the researcher to take into consider the chosen issue effectively. The framework provides a blueprint for the data gathering, measurement and its analysis as well. There are different types of design can be selected to conduct the research such as descriptive, analytical, exploratory, longitudinal, cross-sectional and many others (Wiek and Lang, 2016). Descriptive study helps to describe each and every phenomenon of the study to gain desired outcome whereas analytical aims at critically examining the real situation to interpret and analyze the issue. It must be noted that descriptive and analytical designs are different from each other, in the first, scholars asks questions just to describe or identify the situations whereas in the later, researcher attempts to detect its reasons and consequences also. On the other side, exploratory design is used in a latest or new area of investigation, where the concept is unclear therefore; scholar use this design to investigate or develop basic understanding towards the topic. Longitudinal design gain preferences among scholar when he or she observe or survey the same group of respondents or participants over the period whereas cross-sectional is an observational study that is used to analyze the data at a specific point of time (Mackey and Gass, 2015).

Considering all of the above, descriptive design has been chosen taking into consideration the purpose of the study, formulated questions and target population magnitude. This study was selected in order to accurately describe or represent the situation for drawn a right conclusion. It will drive benefit to produce or gather good quantum of responses from the selected participants and build greater confidence in addressing questions of special interest (Research design, 2009). In despite, it has several downfalls side like time-consuming to make it sure that selection of sample is representation, designing instrument of the study for the data collection and a good response rate. Moreover, there is also a limit for the researcher regarding the number of questions that a questionnaire can contains.

Cross sectional research design has been taken into account, in which, data has been analyzed about the selected outlet, Woolsworth Ghana to examine the motivational issues faced by an the retail outlet regarding its monetary as well as non-monetary reward system.

Research strategy

Strategy of the investigation presents the way, in which, researcher will question the objectives of the study. Quantitative, qualitative and mixed are the three well-known strategies or types of investigation. First emphasizes upon quantifying the data collection and measurement process, in opposed, later make use of distinctive theories, perceptions, behaviour, models & approaches without the need of data quantification (Cuomo and Massaro, 2016). On the other side, in case where researcher combines or integrates the elements of both the quantitative and qualitative study is called as mixed research strategy.

To this end, the present study supports mixed strategy to obtain required set of data and sufficient quantum of both the numerical and non-numerical information in order to examine the current issues faced by the Woolworths, Ghana while motivating their personnel. It includes triangulation and complementarity, first refers to reviewing and examining evidences from different sources based on convergence results whereas later helps to consider and address distinctive facets of the selected phenomenon (English and Kirshner, 2016).

Sources of data collection

Data collection is regarded as the process of acquiring & obtaining enough set or quantum of information to conduct the study successfully. There are two sources of data collection exists in the front of the scholar that are primary and secondary data sources, narrated underneath:

Primary source of data collection

Primary data source refers to that material which is required to be acquired by the researcher in the way of original research. It can be done in various ways like systematic observation, interview, information archived, distribution of questionnaire to the participants and case study evaluation. These data are termed as primary sources because they are being collected and gathered considering the rationale and aim of the study and interpreted by the scholar to answer the arguments with proper evidences. It is the most reliable and effective way of gathering necessary set of data for the framed objective by doing a real survey by the investigator (Gray and Malins, 2016). Here, content analysis technique is often utilized by the scholars to evaluate and examine the qualitative set of gathered information whereas information that are available in non-numerical form is analysed using thematic approach. It is a technique that is utilized to carry out qualitative data analysis through tables like respondents, percentage, etc. Undoubtedly, researchers requires lengthy time to select a representation sample design questionnaire and obtain data, still, provides content specific data which is extremely helpful for the purpose of the study. Moreover, prominent and reliability of the information can be ensured through sufficient privacy and confidentiality.

Secondary source of data collection

Unlike the primary sources, data that are either available in published or non-published material or available to the investigator to use it directly without conducting a real investigation is called secondary source of data gathering procedure. It encompasses multiple of sources like books, web research, article study, journals, industrial reports and others. There are some precautions needs to be followed before utilizing the secondary sources such as data must not be time-outdated otherwise it may have an adverse impact to the objective and will not assist to draw a right solution of the study (Neuman and Robson, 2012). Along with this, it is also a necessary requirement to test that the data available to the researcher fits and suitable the current research aim and objective otherwise if it is unfit for the given study then it may mislead the solution or outcome.

After making analysis of both the data collection techniques, it becomes clear that in the present study, both the primary and secondary sources of data gathering has been incorporated for collecting sufficient quantum of data set and inquire the issue effectively and in depth. Under the primary source, materialistic information has been generated through doing a web survey by designing a structured questionnaire (English and Kirshner, 2016). However, under the secondary way of data gathering, information has been collected through previous published journals, annual reports, blog page and articles available online to investigate various motivational models, theories and concepts and the issues and difficulties in motivating employees.

Sampling

Population refers to the total number of units from which a representative sample of adequate size of respondents will be chosen. Alternative, it can be said that the individuals that satisfies the criteria of selection in the sample which is required to be studied by the researcher and from which the sample will be selected is known as universe. None of the investigator can study all the individuals or population because it is very large therefore; sampling is preferred by the investigator (Robson and McCarta, 2016). The process by which scholar selects the small number of units, elements or individuals from a population to generalize the results and study the entire universe is termed as sampling. Here, taking proper precautions is necessary to ensure that selected group of participants represent the entire population and helpful to analyze the whole population. With the current study, entire employee base of Woolworths was the universe for the scholar. It will be conducted online to minimize time in the data collection process.

Probabilistic and non-probalistic are the two sampling methods that can be followed in sample selection process, in the first, sample is selected without any classification or bifurcation on a random basis (Neuman and Robson, 2012). In this, every individual unit or element of the universe have equal chance or probability to include the sample whereas on the contrary side, under the non-probalistic sampling method, units have distinctive possibility or probability in the sample selection.

To this end, under the current area of study, random (probabilistic sampling), in order to select members randomly, investigator set several procedures and assure the representation sample selection by providing equal chance of being chosen. However, under the size, a sample of 8 members from the existing workforce of Woolworths has been chosen.

Research Instrument

Questionnaire is an instrument used for the collection of standardized set of questions about the individuals or group of individuals selected under sample. It covers both the open-ended and close-ended questions for gathering data. Its benefit is it provides realistic information whereas low response rate of the participants, literacy issues, language barrier are the drawbacks of it. The questionnaire had been designed in two sections, one is about demographic information of the participants whereas second section was designed following content-centered approach that provided highly important information to the researcher to assess the effectiveness of reward mechanism on employees motivation for fulfilling the aim of the study (Research Instruments for Data Collection, 2014).

Data Analysis

In order to examine and analyze gathered set of data, both the thematic as well as statistical techniques have been used. Here, first has been taken into consideration to examine and evaluate the non-numerical information. However, statistical software, thematic has been given preferences to test the claim of the designing of hypothesis. The reason behind selecting thematic approach is to lay emphasize upon pinpointing and observing the pattern within the available data set. Every theme describe and express the pattern that was really important to descrive the prevailing phenomenon linked with the specific area of investigation (Neuman and Robson, 2012). However, on the other hand, in the process of business intelligence and quantitative analysis, statistical technique preferred to gather and scruitinize the data to find out the necessary facts for drawing a realistic conclusion. Here, different tests like descriptive study, correlation, regression analysis has been executed in thematic approach.

Ethical Considerations

Scholar has complied with the ethical implications of the study through adhering with the safety legislations to safeguard the information in the questionnaire filled by the respondents. High confidentiality of the data gathered prohibits delivery of its access to any of the unauthorized party. Along with this, data protection law also has been followed to reduce the possibility of data theft and maintain privacy and safeguarding (Miller and et.al., 2012). In contrast, the secondary data collection, plagiarism & manipulation ethical issues have been eliminated through giving enough and adequate credibility to the sources with the proper citation.

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