About Expert


Key Topics
Finalising Research Question and Methodology
This research paper will be going through two distinct research methods:
Primary research
Secondary research
Secondary research will include consulting all the previous related studies to understand the relationship, and reach necessary conclusions.
The major benefits of doing secondary research are:
existing information helps form a base
it will work as a base for further primary research
the categories and elements will give background about the preferred way of corporations to structure the world
However, this method has certain limitations as we saw in the analysis of a research paper previously. Most of the papers mentioned in the literature review done earlier, lack specificity or does not exactly address the question of concern. Also, most papers were from a different period, so it might be possible that circumstances have changed a lot after that period. The introduction of new generation employees with a different set of cultures might impact the study, that are not taken into consideration in most of the studies, and, therefore, universality of any of those research studies can’t be approved.
The secondary research done – few during literature review – and upcoming reviews will aid to our paper. However, due to the existing limitations of secondary research, this paper also focuses on the collection of primary data.
Survey Method will gather unique information that is not available from other sources. It will help in getting to standardized measurement as same information will be collected from every respondent. The survey data will act as a complement to existing data from secondary resources.
Survey Design:
Our survey design will be cross-sectional. Cross-sectional data are collected at one point in time from a sample selected to represent a larger population. Therefore, this will give us the fair idea to judge whole business throughout the world.
Survey Model:
Our survey method is decided based on seven critical elements. They are population, characteristics of the sample, types of questions, question topic, response rate, and cost incurred, and expected time. Adding all these elements will help us choose what is best for our research.
Population: Our population is very large – targeting all industries as a whole, without discriminating by demographics and industry – and employed in various industries. Therefore, we will use the random sampling technique to choose our sample for data collection.
Types of Question: Research question that is to be answered through this research will require answers to set of multiple choice questions that will be sent to various candidates.
Question Topic: All the questions will try to know the answers to the first part of all three questions and factors – through multiple choice questions.
Response rate: Our research will identify the response rate to any questionnaire of our sample and based on that will try to send only to those number of respondents from where reply can be expected.
Cost Incurred: Cost incurred in this method will be negligible as we will be sending emails and to our respondents to gather the data. This will save our time and money, and along with that it will give respondents enough freedom to answer the questionnaire as per their convenience.
Time: This method will take at least a week as gathering and compilation of data will take some time. It is obvious that all the respondents will not answer within a single day, and some might take even a week to reply.
Data Collection Method:
There are various methods to collect data in Survey Design Methodology. We chose two of them – Mail and The Web – and discarded the rest –Personal Interview and Telephone – because of certain limitations.
Reason we choose to distribute question paper through mails and put an online survey through internet because:
These methods are low on cost
No extra team effort is required to handle the data collection and can be done by even few team member
Helps get access to even those populations that can’t be accessed through otherwise, even to international populations
Gives freedom to consult others while answering the questions.
Reduces time implementing the methodology
Web surveys can help formulate complex skip patterns in programming
However these two methods have certain limitation that should not be ignored:
Good sample is always required for the survey purpose
Incentives are required to make respondents fill the questionnaire
Data collection period slows down
While representative samples get difficult to focus in web surveys, however as our research sample is broad, this limitation will not be a constraint
Reasons why we ignored telephone and personal interview options for data collection:
Interview:
Cost incurred in conducting specific interview will be costly
Data collection period will lengthy
Have to select proper unbiased expert interviewers
Telephonic interview:
Those respondents can be left whose telephone numbers are not available or those who don’t sport telephone connections.
Constraints as per lengthy questionnaires are concerned
Statistical Tools:
We will be using correlation and regression to come up with the required correlation between different factors. Also, data summary will help us understand the data in the light of collected questionnaire. For the purpose of regression and correlation, MS Excel will be used. Also, to get a better understanding, data analysis pack ‘r’ will also be used.
Alternative Methods:
There was various other research methodologies that didn’t consider for the purpose of research. They are mentioned below with the suitable reasons on why we didn’t find it fit.
Case Study Method:
This method could have been used for our research. Analyzing case studies would be cost effective but following limitations hold us back:
The wider population cannot necessarily fit into the collected data of a case.
This reduces the relevancy of the study.
Lack of scientific case studies will not help us reach some concrete conclusions
Most of the case studies are done on specific industry or person and therefore,there will be difficulty in getting unbiased collected data.
Through case studies, a reliable cause and effect can be determined.
Observation Method:
Instead of using ears and voice, eyes could be brought to play through this method, and might have helped us. But below limitations couldn’t be ignored:
Observer’s bias can come into play
Past problems, opinions, and attitude can’t be studied
a conjunctive occurrence of event and observer’s presence is rare
This concludes our selection of research methodology and selection of one method over another.
The methodology picked for the research is based on two different type of work. The primary and secondary research. Out of the two methods, secondary research is imperative for the research question that I have been trying to address. From the previous work it becomes easy to find answers to the current situations and problems. However, the answer might not be 100% apt for the given situation.
My chosen topic is about the impact of human resource management practices on the corporate performance. Using the previous studies it has become easier to find different perspective to my research questions. For example, one of the research questions is “Filling internal vacancies is helpful as compared to outside hire”. There can be multiple perspective to this question. One of the research paper points out that it is always beneficial to fill the vacancy from someone working with the company for a long time. It promotes trust among employees as everybody stands a chance if any similar opportunity comes up in future. However, another view states that it is good to hire someone from outside if someone is qualified and has competitive skills as compared to the people working within the organization. It brings the fresh outlook for the company and things might change for a good rather than following the monotonous process.
In a nutshell, secondary research quantifies the facts about the internal hire vs external hire. Hence, it is easy to establish a correlation using the secondary method of research. Another methodology adopted for the research is survey research. It is helpful in gathering personal perception data from the public based on their real life experience. This will be helpful in answering the second question about non-structured approach within in an organization and its impact on the employee perception and productivity.
Strengths and weakness of choosing a particular methodology and why other methodologies would not be as useful or appropriate
Chosen methodologies have their own limitations. First of all, the secondary research methodology is based on studying the research papers from the previous years. The authors adopted different methodologies to analyse the results, but the corporates have changed manifolds from the past. Hence, the results and analysis might not be applicable to the current study.
Apart from the secondary research, there are a few limitations associated with the survey design and data collection methodology. The first problem is with the anonymity of the behavior of the chosen sample set. For example, one of the research questions is about filling the vacancies from the people working within the company. Hence, people on the top level management will differ in perspective as compared to the people who are trying to move up the ladder within the company. Hence, the survey questions might get extreme views depending on the chosen subset.
On the other hand, if I talk about the relevance of the current methodologies to my research, I find both the methods to be useful. Quantitative information can only be collected by interacting with the people from different positions and companies working in the HR unit. It will be easy to quantify the results. However, I have to ensure that I take views from varied positions and people working with a company. It will give a broader perspective to the research question rather than limiting it to a few set of answers. Secondly, the secondary research is very important because there has been numerous studies from the area of HR based on productivity, corporate performance etc. All the previous studies are limited to a certain area, but insightful information is provided about the human resource management practices. It is hard to substitute these methodology because there is no other method that can summarize the qualitative results better than secondary study.
Qualitative data is collected from the previous studies based on the human resource management concepts and related topics. The previous year studies will help in establishing and refining the hypothesis. Quantitative data will be collected using surveys. A survey model will be designed and followed to collect data for the given research question. E-mailing and conducting online survey is one way to execute the data collection methodology. The first set of respondents will come from my company as it is the research that I am conducting to improve the HR practices within my company. I will pick people from different division and based on their positions, I will send across survey questions. For example, if I need answer to the question that how can qualified people can contribute to the organization success, then a manager leading a team is a better option than the newly joined fresher. It is because someone working at higher position is more informed about the work of the people and their productivity. For employees working low down the hierarchy, I will ask questions intended to collect information about the internal filling of a vacancy. It is highly probable that people working on the lower end of the chain might be biased in their views, hence the inputs from the higher management is a must. Moreover, someone who is an external recruit will be able to counter the argument and response provided by the employees internal to the company.
There can be one major ethical issue that come from secondary research. It is not possible to establish that researcher was not biased while conducting a study. It might be a case that researcher only collected the data that supports their notion or ideas. Hence, it provides an incorrect picture to the readers. It is possible to avoid the ethical issue by diligent study. As a researcher it is my first responsibility not to include data in the research without verifying the validity of the research. Hence, referring multiple studies for one component of corporate performance is a must. It will give a multiple perspective to the problem and an unbiased an balanced output can be provided.
Nfer.ac.uk,. 'How To Choose Your Research Methods'. N.p., 2015. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.
Palgrave.com,. 'Choosing Appropriate Research Methodologies'. N.p., 2015. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.
Neuman, William Lawrence. Social Research Methods. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1997. Print.
Faculty.frostburg.edu,. 'Research Methods: Cyberlab For Psychological Research'. N.p., 2015. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.
Faculty.webster.edu,. 'Research Methods'. N.p., 2015. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.
Linguistics, Research et al. 'Research Methods In Linguistics'. Cambridge University Press. N.p., 2015. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.