How SMEs Differ From Their Larger Counterparts - Essay Example

METHODOLOGY - PART FOR DISSERTATION goes here] [Your goes here] [Due the paper] How SMEs Differ From Their Larger Counterparts? Methodology Sample In the proposed study, the researcher will study the responses of 100 participants. The researcher will use a questionnaire as the primary information tool for the research. For getting information through secondary sources, the researcher will use a wide range of scholarly journals (business management and employee psychology related journals), books, and some internet articles.

The main objective of the research is to explore the ways that can be used to motivate the staff of John Lewis and Starbucks. During the research, the researcher will interview 20 employees of these companies personally, whereas 80 survey forms (40 each) will be sent to the companies. The people chosen for the interview will include some senior and some fresh employees. The interviews will be conducted at the places chosen by the interviewees in order to make them feel valued by the researcher.

As far as the duration of the interviews is concerned, each interview will take at least ten minutes and responses will be recorded on a paper. Interviews will help in knowing the viewpoints of employees regarding the importance of motivation and satisfaction. The participants will be selected and evaluated regardless of any kind of religious, ethnic, racial, and gender difference between them. The study will include participants based on following criteria: (a) age limit of 19 to 40 (19 years for entry level employees and 40 years is the age range for experienced and senior employees of John Lewis and Starbucks), and (b) 15 employees who will have worked for some other company in the past (experienced ones).

The ethical consideration for this particular research topic will be the privacy of information provided by the participants. All participants will be taken in confidence by ensuring them that their personal information will not be used elsewhere. There will be a confidential form along with the questionnaire signed by the researcher to ensure that the obtained information will be used only for this particular research. Research Questions The guiding questions for the research will be: 1. What are the factors that increase or decrease employee motivation? 2. What is the relationship between employee motivation and job productivity?

Measures This is going to be a longitudinal study which will determine the factors that can increase the level of employee motivation. The research participants will be asked to fill in a questionnaire that will be designed to investigate the methods or ways that can be used to improve employee job satisfaction and motivation. Data gathered from these surveys will provide the researcher with important information regarding the issue. The questionnaire will be prepared using Likert scale model because of its effectiveness in getting true parameter values (Grace-Martin 2009) and will be distributed among participants through emails.

The questions included in the questionnaire will be good enough to obtain required information. There will be no bias in the questions as all of them will be general and will gather a particular set of information. Some of the main questions included in the questionnaire will be: 1. What is your current level of education and income? 2. What is the importance of motivation for employees in your view? 3. Do you think satisfaction is the key to improved job performances? (If yes, what role does it play) 4.

What are your perceived advantages of giving performance-based incentives to employees? 5. What are the factors that may decrease your motivation level? 6. Do you think achievement motivation can drive for competency? 7. What role can ‘giving employees some powers as a way to motivate them’ can play in increasing employee motivation and job satisfaction? 8. Which factor among these can best increase your job satisfaction and motivation? a.) Praising good efforts, b.) Compensation, c.) Offering benefits, d.) Giving ownership to staff 9.

What were the factors that caused you leave your previous job? (for experienced employees) These questions will be very helpful in getting relevant information about the research topic. Analysis Technique Qualitative design will be suitable for this particular study because it will help in getting detailed information about the issue. This type of research will also help the researcher get an insight into real factors that build employee motivation and make them satisfied wit their jobs. This research will also help in dealing with the value-laden research questions in an effective manner.

Quantitative design will not be selected because it will generalize the results in the form of numbers and figures, which will not help the researcher in this particular study. If we talk about the validity of the research, we can say that there will be no threat to validity of the research because the researcher will take information from authentic sources, such as, working employees (from the two companies under study) and journal articles (secondary sources). References Grace-Martin, K 2009, Can Likert Scale Data Ever Be Continuous?

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