Statistical Tools on Management Research

Requirement

Please help me with the secondary research - will it be interviews? How do you plan to get information from previous students in the second research? 

Solution

Research Methodology and Methods (Data Collection)

Before delving into the current methodology and methods adopted to conduct this research, it would be fruitful to understand the difference between both the terms. 
Methodology tells us how research has been done and how we will find out things we want to and the process that will be used to gain the knowledge. It explains the reason for using certain methods in the research.On the other hand, Methods denote to the tools and techniques that are used in research such as surveys, interviews or observation. It includes the statistical tools that are applied to drill down to the results.

This research paper will be going through one of the two distinct research methods:

  • 1.    Primary research

  • 2.    Secondary research 

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. 

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Survey Design: Our survey design will be cross-sectional. Collection of cross-sectional data was facilitated from a sample that represented substantial 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, features of sample, question prepared, question subtopics, response taken from respondents, 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 on 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:

  1. - Cost incurred in conducting specific interview will be costly

  2. - Data collection period will lengthy

  3. - Have to select proper unbiased expert interviewers

    Telephonic interview:

  1. - Those respondents can be left whose telephone numbers are not available or those who do not sport telephone connections.

  2. - Constraints as per lengthy questionnaires are concerned 

A questionnaire has been given at the end of the report, taken from a research company (Qualtrics) prepared by Scott Smith.

Moreover, the previous research papers of the various researchers will be referred to understand what has been done for this topic and what insight can be gained from those papers to improve the current topic of study. Those research papers will guide in developing suitable research questions and associated hypotheses.

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 were various other research methodologies that didn’t consider for the purpose of research. They are mentioned below with the suitable reasons on why we did not 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:

  1. - The wider population cannot necessarily fit into the collected data of a case. This reduces the relevancy of the study.

  2. - Lack of scientific case studies will not help us reach some concrete conclusions

  3. - Most of the case studies are done on specific industry or person and therefore, there will be difficulty in getting unbiased collected data.

  4. - 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. However, below limitations could notbe ignored:

  1. - Observer’s bias can come into play

  2. - Past problems, opinions, and attitude cannot be studied

  3. - 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.Strengths and weakness of choosing a particular methodology and why other methodologies would not be as useful or appropriate.

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There are a few limitations associated with the survey design and data collection methodology that belongs to the primary research method. 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 research is very important because there have 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 this methodology because there is no other method that can summarize the qualitative results better than study.

Data collection tool methodology and sample size appropriateness determination

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 ananswer to the question that how can qualified people can contribute to the organization success, and then a manager leading a team is a better option than the newly joined fresher. It is because someone working at ahigher 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. 

Ethical Issues in the research and resolution on the problem

There can be one major ethical issue that come from 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 and balanced output can be provided. 

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