Diversity Resistance in Organizations - Research Proposal Example

CHAPTER INTRODUCTION The bureaucratic, tightly controlled economies of the Cold War era have yielded to free trade and an era of technological advancement and enhanced communication where the Internet has revolutionized the availability of information, creating a knowledge based economy. (Thurow 2000, p 116). The result is the emergence of a new social order, based upon the free market and private interests, as opposed to State intervention.(Dumenil and Levy, 2000). The neo-liberal counterrevolution is a phenomenon whereby the developed countries of the West have capitalized on the fall of Communism and the expanding role of the media to promote privatization, entrepreneurship and the propagation of the free market across the globe.(Herman, 2006). This trend towards neo liberalism has had a significant impact on development. The most significant of these is the spread of the capitalistic philosophy across the globe. The theoretical basis to support the neo-liberal position is that of global convergence, where the integration of world markets purportedly will produce an equity in global development outcomes across all nations Globalization has produced radical changes in the world such that “knowledge and technology have become the dominant social forces shaping society.” (Hage and Powers, 1997:2). As a result, knowledge management has become an integral aspect of competitive advantage for an organization and human resource managers are expected to play a vital role in today’s business scenario. Human resource management has increasingly changed from a cost factor to a success factor. (Biesalski, no date). Knowledge management is closely related to the HR department, because the role of HR is related to strengthening the team and team efforts to control collective knowledge of the organization. The knowledge possessed by a firm is largely in the domain of expertise and experience possessed by the employees of the firm. Human Resource personnel manage the skills and talents of employees, but they are managed by every leader of the organization. In this context Peter Cheese, Robert J. Thomas, Elizabeth Craig, in the book, “Talent Powered Organization: Strategies for Globalization” say, “ Given the strategic importance of talent and the ability to create and develop it, nurturing and developing talent has to become everyone’s responsibility in every organization” (pg 46). Recruitment of skilled and qualified employees is a vital strategy for a company to function successfully in the global environment. Retention of those skilled employees is equally important because such specialist personnel are in short supply and a Company may find it difficult to replace the experience and training of individual employees, especially the more skilled employees. Here in this context I would like to refer a quote by Nick Wreden in “Profit Brand: How to Increase the Profitability, Accountability” “Studies by consultant Bain & Co. showed that the companies with the highest employee retention also had the highest customer retention.” Further it is also said that “companies with the highest employee retention were the most profitable.” (pg.181) Problem Statement The Organization spends a huge amount to recruit and train the employees. The purpose behind spending huge money on the employees’ training is that the employees should give maximum output and show excellent performance for the growth of the firm. But when those employees leave the firm, the organization has to bear an immense loss of time and investment. Moreover, it is very difficult for the managers to recruit the skilled employees again because in the knowledge economy their demand is very high. And when the managers after recruiting such employees, fail to retain them, then this is the great loss for the company. This loss can however, be mitigated if the leaders of the organization take proper initiative to retain the employees. And the same subject is studied here in this research. This is a quantitative research study and the study aims at providing useful information about Human resource practices, especially the focus is on how effectively the leaders can retain the employees and what techniques can be used to do so. The study aims at Assessing the role of HR personnel in improving employee commitment is an important objective of this study. The study also identifies the limitations of the leaders in their approach of suggesting improvement. . The theoretical base of the study on employee commitment is the research on staff commitment and how it can be improved. The leadership styles within organizations and the impact of these styles upon employees are also a part of this study. The participants in this study comprise HR professionals and employees in the IT field. Participant views are gathered from the above mentioned sections to get proper feedback. The organizations considered for this are firms in Doha in the state of Qatar. Background G. Kameswari, Director of HR, Knoah Solutions who has more than 12 years of experience has explained the effective techniques to the managers and leaders who recruit the skilled employees, and how skilled employees. The leaders of the organization should constantly motivate the skilled employees, not just in form of giving them money but apart from money they need the feeling of belongingness and recognition. According to Buchen (2006), HR professionals are described as those individuals who are in a leadership position, with the responsibility for recruitment and retention of employees, staff training and structuring. Training and retaining of the employees is an important function of all departmental managers along with the HR professionals. Lloyd F. Novick, Cynthia B. Morrow, Glen P. Mays in the book “Public Health Administration: Principle of Population based Management have explained three factors which are related to the organizational commitment. “Belief in the goals and values of the organization, [2] willingness to exert considerable efforts on behalf of the organization, and [3] desire to continue work with the organization.” (pg270). Marrow (1993) has defined employee commitment as the one who remain associated with the organization. “Harter Schmidt and Hayer (2002) showed that the personalities of managers directly influence the satisfaction of their subordinates, and that the satisfaction level of the subordinates directly influences the performance of the organization.” (Personality and Fate of Organization, by Robert Hogan) So according to the above mentioned research, the leaders play key role in changing the entire atmosphere of the organization by their influence on the employees. While leadership does play an important role in the success of an organization, and impacts upon employees, the continuance of employee commitment can be enhanced through the leaders of the organization. Purpose of this study The purpose of this quantitative research is to provide information about Human resource practices, especially in examining how effectively an organization can retain its employees and what are the techniques being used to do so. Assessing the role of HR services in improving employee commitment is an important objective of this study, will also identify the limitations in the organization’s approach, in order to suggest improvements. The theoretical base of the study on employee commitment is the research on staff commitment and the study further discusses on the base should be improved through motivation. The leaders can use the effective way of giving rewards and bonuses to motivate the employees. The leadership styles within organizations and the impact of these styles upon employees are also a part of this study. Theories of motivation are also explored in this study in order to assess how they are contributing to effective motivation and retention of employees. Significance of the study The extent and nature of research into human resource practices in the Middle East and Doha in particular, is limited. This research study is therefore likely to contribute valuable insight into the contextual factors that may play a role in influencing motivation of employees in the Middle East and Doha in particular. Existing research into human resource practices and their impact upon motivation of employees have all been gathered in the Western context, therefore the extent of their applicability in the Middle East may be limited, or may need a re-evaluation in the light of contextual factors operating in the Middle East. This study may contribute fresh, new data on human resource practices and their impact upon retention of employees in the Middle East. Significance of the study to the retention of employees The subject of this research study is the retention of employees, which is being examined through an organization in Doha. Since retention of employees is influenced by the kind of human resource practices that are being used within an organization,(Dibble, 1999; Philips and O’Connell, 2003;Taylor 2002), this study could shed light on the factors that are affecting the retention of employees in Doha, since motivational strategies in existence at an organization will be examined in this study. Nature of the Study The theoretical framework determines the intent and motivation for a study, as well the way in which the knowledge is interpreted and studied (Mertens, 2005). A pragmatic approach is used in this quantitative study, because a pragmatic approach places the research problem as the centre of focus and applies all possible approaches towards understanding the research problem. This approach is quite suitable for a study on retention of employees in the Middle East because it focuses on the research problem, i.e, the role of the human resource department in retaining employees. The question of employee retention in Doha has not been adequately researched, therefore the application of a pragmatic approach allows the use of all possible methods in deriving answers to the research problem. Applying a pragmatic approach also allows for the use of quantitative methods in analysis of the data. The methodology used in this dissertation is quantitative. A quantitative approach is based upon the premise that there is only one truth and quantitative methods lend themselves well to those studies where general trends among the population are to be discerned through the use of large numbers of participants and numerical analysis of data (Troachim, 2001). A quantitative approach is preferred for this study because of the limited time frame available; adopting a qualitative approach involves an elaborate interview collection process using a large participant base and qualitative analysis of the data. But a quantitative assessment measure would be more apt because it is the quickest and simplest to analyze in the shortest time frame.(Onwuegbuzie and Leech, 2005). A comprehensive literature review of human resource practices of retention of employees provides the background information and secondary data needed to assess the research questions. The secondary data is a source of permanent information available in a form that may be easily checked by others (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2003). But this secondary information needs to be supplemented by primary data because the variables used in secondary data sources may not be the most appropriate for the current research questions (Bryman, 2001), especially because research information available on human resource practices in Doha is limited. The primary data for this study is collected from the questionnaire/survey. One of the problems with collection of primary data for this study is that the information being collected is largely subjective and is not amenable to quantitative analysis. The survey instrument selected for the study is a research questionnaire, being a favored tool which can often provide a cheap and effective way of collecting data in a structured and manageable form” (Wilkinson & Birmingham 2003). Using a Likert style questionnaire helps to address the problem of subjective responses, because it allows for the collection of subjective participant attitudes in a numerical format. This would facilitate quantitative analysis and has therefore bene selected as the research instrument for the study. This study will collect data from both HR professionals and managers as well as employees in a specific organization in Doha targeted to participate in this study. Data will be collected from these individuals by way of a survey questionnaire on (a) the kind of services which are currently being provided by the HR department and (b) how satisfied the employees are, with such levels of service. The Likert style AIM survey questionnaire will contain several variables measuring verbal responses in numerical values in the range of 1 to 5, each response signifying the level of importance accorded by the respondent to a particular question. A Likert questionnaire consists of questions which have a similar weight in the respondent’s mind, hence they may be compared to determine their relative weight. For each variable the response provided by the participant will provide an idea of the degree of importance that he or she attaches to it. By averaging out the responses from all the participants, it is possible to obtain an overall score of how significant a particular variable is from the perspective of the research questions that have been proposed in this study. Reliability and validity in this quantitative study are to be established through triangulation of data collected in the study, enabling redefinition to reflect multiple ways of establishing truth.(Golafshani, 2003). Convenience sampling will be used in this study by targeting one specific organization in Doha , where the participation of HR personnel and other leaders will be sought, together with employee feedback. Random sampling has been rejected for this study because it would involve selection of participants from a wide variety of firms and probability samplings would involve a great deal of time and effort. SPSS statistical software will be used to carry out an analysis of the results. Correlations will be assessed between variables and chi square analysis will be carried out to determine the relative significance of the variables. Hypothesis The premise of this research study is that employee commitment is related to the levels of productivity of a firm. The study sets out to examine how human resource practices and motivation techniques within an organization in Doha are contributing to the retention of employees in that organization. The nature of HR services provided and the relationship between HR personnel and other managers may also influence the levels of staff commitment. This study aims to determine whether the nature of HR services provided within a firm is related to the levels of staff commitment. The hypothesis that forms the underlying basis of this study is: HR services and staff commitment are related. The null hypothesis proposed in this study is: HR services provided in the organization and staff commitment are related. On this basis, should the null hypothesis be disproved in this study, the alternative hypothesis would be: No relationship exists between HR services provided and staff commitment. In this survey the questionnaire are circulated among the employees of different designation and different departments. The independent variable will be the job satisfaction and thus the retention of the employees, while this will be tested against several dependent variables such as (a) wages and bonuses (b) recognition on the job (c) teamwork and (d) availability of training, giving responsibility to the employees, flexibility of the leaders while dealing with his subordinates and similar variables. Theoretical framework The theoretical underpinning of this study focuses upon staff commitment and how HR managers can provide solution to motivate employees. Through this research I have tried to explore the theories pertaining to motivation of employees, because the objective of this study aims at examining how the Human resource managers handle the process of retention of employees and how they can do the retention process more effectively by increasing motivation of employees. It must be noted however that if this retention is not under the framework of HR manager, then how the other leaders take initiatives to retain and satisfied their employees. Maslow’s theory is the basis of motivation and is based upon individual needs; it states that employee behavior is motivated by different kinds of needs and behavior is motivated by the most pressing unsatisfied need. When that need is satisfied, the next need becomes the most pressing need. It has been contended however that Maslow’s theory is too rigid to explain unstable employee needs and that the hierarchy of needs set out by the theory may not be accurate.(www.envisonsoftware.com). Hence, another theory discussed in this study is Clayton Aldefer’s ERG theory (Existence, Relatedness and Growth), which addresses the limitations in Maslow’s theory and also takes into account the cultural factors that could explain why different needs may not be ranked in the same order of importance in different cultures. The expectancy theory postulates that motivation is a combination of (a) valence or the value of the perceived outcome, (b) instrumentality or the belief that if certain actions are complete, the outcome can be achieved and (c) expectancy or the belief that the actions can be completed.(www.changingminds.org). This proposal explores this and other theories pertaining to motivation of employees, because the objective of this study is to examine how the Human resource department is handling motivation and retention of employees. The conceptual framework of this study is that the HR department influences retention of employees and hence an organization is likely to be more productive in a global environment if the functioning of the HR department and other leaders is refined. Definitions: Some of the terms used in the study are described below: Motivation: The desire of an employee to perform his or her job well Retention: Keeping employees within the organization Human resource management: The recruitment and management of employees working within a firm Culture: The prevailing religious and social beliefs that propel conduct within a particular context Organizational culture: The beliefs and atmosphere prevailing within an organization Assumptions Several assumptions are made in this study. Firstly, participants are to be informed that they may refuse to participate in the study if they do not wish to do so; hence voluntary participation of employees and managers taking part in the study is assumed. 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