Research Methodology: Exploring The Impact Of Organizational Culture On Employee Engagement, Performance, And Essay.

A Study that researches if the right culture in a services led organisation exists, then performance and employee engagement should follow.

Describes the major methodology used to collect the data, which will be used to answer the research question.  usually centres on the major methodology of the research, although the same considerations might be briefly mentioned when discussing any secondary methodologies.

This section about data collection must be written so that another researcher can replicate the research, and is required whether a qualitative or quantitative research methodology is used.

Research methodology remains as the systematic way to resolve the problem and it is more of a science studying how research is supposed to be performed. According to Neuman, (2013), the technique or the procedure through which researcher go about their work by describing, explaining and predicting a particular phenomena is known as research methodology. When it comes to research methodology, it can also be asserted that research method is a study of method by which knowledge can be derived.

If the study is required to identify the cultural effect on organizational performance and employee engagement, it is not possible for one to derive conclusive point without applying methods of examining the facts. Thus, this research also follows a particular mechanism or methods to investigate and understand how organizational culture could affect employee engagement and organization’s overall performance. This chapter provides comprehensive detail about how the methods are applied and why they are applied to the study. Justification for each selected method makes it clear that this study leads towards its pre-developed research objectives. In addition, when performing a business or academic research, it is essential to note that unethical attempts are never welcome; thereby, to avoid unethical grounds, study complies with ethical pre-set ethical consideration. Eventually, time required for whole work has been given in the research timeline table.

It is a widely known fact that research philosophy is a set of belief that help to view things in a proper way, to judge and analyse them. However, this set of beliefs could vary on the basis of the type of facts required to be considered and analysed. Mackey and Gass (2015) mentioned that when a study is required to deal with a wide and open topic, it is reasonable to select a philosophy that provides wider scope of opportunity to consider and analyse things. There are three different types of research philosophies namely positivism, interpretivism and realism and each of these categories hold different characteristics and meaning, even their application are quite different (Silverman, 2016). Starting with positivism research philosophy, which is fundamentally based on observable and social entity. Two basic components of positivism philosophy is that data collection and hypothesis. Testing and verification of hypothesis is often required for the future research. Not to mention these two elements, the nature of deriving quantifiable observation from a statistical ground leads this philosophy to be used mostly in studies. For example, to learn how culture is a fundamental organizational entity.

Positivism Research Philosophy

To learn how culture is a fundamental organizational entity affecting performance and employee engagement, researcher must have require quantifiable data to learn how the element is affecting the other entities. In contrast, interpretivism research philosophy could enable the researcher to interpret the study elements and thereby, it could integrate human interest into the research (Taylor, Bogdan & DeVault, 2015). The fundamental of interpretivism philosophy is that it helps to assume that access to reality can only be possible through some social actions like language, shared meaning and instruments. With the exception of this accessibility, other fundamental aspects of this research philosophy is naturalistic approach of gathering information such as interview and observation. However, the following reasons justify why positivism research philosophy is more appropriate to the study.

As organizational performance and level of employee engagement which is supposedly driven by organizational culture, quantifiable data is required. It is important to know to what extent organizational culture impacts the other elements. Hence, both primary and secondary data findings are required to know how and when employees think that organization culture could affect the performance or what type of culture or leadership they expect under the employment contract. Thus, until and unless, real world entities are approached, no conclusion can be drawn. Positivism research philosophy allows researcher to approach the real world entity and take suggestive clues from the secondary data. On the other side, interpretivism research philosophy is not effective for the study because it gives primacy only to secondary data but the stated issues are required additional attention-real-world facts

Research Approach determines how research issues are supposed to be addressed. When addressing research issue such as investigating it and then deriving comprehensive implication, one must have to follow a specified approach, not to mention the other techniques, to derive the desired outcome. Research approaches are usually divided into two different categories such as deductive and inductive research approach. Like research philosophy, research approach can also be divided into two different categories namely inductive and inductive research approach (Panneerselvam, 2014). Deductive approach is fundamentally concerned with development of hypothesis on the basis of the existing theory and then leading to testing of pre-developed research approach. Moreover, this research philosophy also helps to determine the relationship between the variables such as organizational culture and employee engagement.

The fundamental aspect of this research philosophy is that it majorly concerned with deducting conclusion from a particular fact (Flick, 2015). For instance, in the present study, if the impact of organizational culture on employee engagement and performance are to be derived, deductive approach is well-standard method. On the contrary, inductive research approach is opposite in nature as it starts with the observation first and theories are proposed at the end of research outcome or result (Lewis, 2015). However, if inductive research approach is considered for the present study, then there is an alarming fact which needs to be noted that the deductive approach does not imply disregarding theories at the time of formulating research questions and objectives. Thus, considering this drawback, deductive research has been selected and applied to the study but the following reasons solidly justify the selection of the same.

Interpretivism Research Philosophy

Justifying the deductive research approach

Firstly, deductive research approach provides the possibility to explain the causal relationship concepts and variables. For example, if pre-evolutionary concepts of organizational culture is accessed back, it can be observed that both employees and organizational culture are inter-related and both drive each other. There is a clear cause and effect relation between the concept and variable. If leaders do not communicate with the employees, employees may feel disrespected. Employees may feel that their values and opinions are not acknowledged. On the other side, organization experiences there is clear lack of effort in productivity. Consequently, both the variables drive or influence each other. Besides the cause-effect relationship, there is formulated concepts of organizational culture which should also be aligned and contrasted with the variables. So to sum up all these, deductive research approach is highly required.

It has been identified that different textbooks provide different meanings on research design. For example, some authors consider research design as the choice between qualitative and quantitative research technique, while others argue that research design is basically the choice of particularly methods of collecting data and analysing them. In the present study, research design is taken and considered as general plan about is supposed to be done to answer the research questions. Hence, the major significant elements of the design include research strategies and methods that are highly associated with data collection and analysis.

Research design is divided into three different categories namely exploratory, explanatory and conclusive or descriptive research design. According to Smith (2015) exploratory research design focuses on exploring particular research aspects of the research area, nonetheless, exploratory research design does not aim to provide final or conclusive research answers to research questions. Moreover, it can change the direction of the study in the middle. In contrast, explanatory research is generally conducted for a particular problem which was not well researched in the previous attempt; it is kind of research design which mainly helps to focus on some of the aspects of the research (Ledford & Gast, 2018).  For example, if a study is required to perform on the factors causing employee turnover in the organization, explanatory research design may only study some of the aspect of employee turnover but it does not provide solution to prevent or minimize the rate of employee turnover.

With the exception of these, two there is another research design mostly used in the academic study is descriptive research design. Descriptive research design is quantitative in nature and it is not efficient to open-ended questions and when analysing the responses, it fundamentally uses the tools like means, average, median and frequency (Dang & Pheng, 2015). However, as the present is not supposed to study any particular problem and develop, solution, exploratory research design is a more appropriate choice. This means, the study is determined to identify whether organizational culture influence organizational performance and employee engagement.  Thus, exploratory research design explores how organizational culture can influence performance and engagement of employees.

Selection of Research Philosophy

Before getting into the techniques of collecting information, it is essential to learn what type of data is required to be collected for the study. In the present study both primary and secondary data is used; the process of collecting information is divided into two different categories namely primary data collection and secondary data collection. Hence, secondary data is a type of data that has already been published in books, journal, newspapers, journals and online portals. Undoubtedly, there is plenty of sources of secondary data; thereby, in the study, secondary data has been collected from books, journal article and newspaper articles of few large organizations. On the other side, primary data is for first use, which means the data is not used by before any scholar or authority. According to Roberts (2013), primary data is divided into two different categories quantitative and qualitative data collection method.

Quantitative Data: According to Gioia, Corley & Hamilton (2013) quantitative data collection method is used based in mathematical calculation in different formats. This method may include close-ended questionnaire, methods of correlation, regression, mean, mode and median. The positive aspect of this data collection method is that it is cheaper to apply within a shorter duration of time compared to qualitative methods.

Qualitative Data: Unlike quantitative data collection method, qualitative data does not involve numbers, digits or any sort of mathematical calculations (Humphries, 2017). This research method is closely associated with words, sounds, emotions and other non-quantifiable elements. However, to analyse the impact of organizational culture on employee engagement and employee performance, it is important to consider a real-world fact, which could be broad in nature. Thus, to fulfil this needs, in the study, an organization from healthcare industry has been considered. Qualitative data in the study has been collected by performing interview among the employees of the organization from healthcare setting and case studies. Interview participants have been selected on the basis of sampling method which is discussed in the following. On the other side, quantitative method has not been used in the study because quantitative data lacks details about the cultural traits as the respondents do not have scope to express their views through close-ended questions.

Interview method: Interview is usually defined as qualitative study technique which involves in-depth individual interview with limited number of respondents to unearth how organizational culture in hospital is significantly affecting performance and employee engagement (Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 2014). Study involves 5 senior organizational members for collecting data from the interview method. There are two different types of interview methods namely structured and semi-structured; so considering this variation, study has implemented the semi-structured interview method to ask additional questions related to the topic apart from the pre-set questions.

Research Approach

Case studies:  It has been identified that case studies aim to analyse particular issues within a specific boundaries or organization. Although, case study method can be applied in a myriad way but the study only follows explanatory method to focus or aim to answer how or why questions with limited control. For example, the type in the study looks like an investigation into organizational culture to learn how it influence performance and employee engagement

Sampling is explained as the specific set of principle used to choose members of population who are considered to be taking part in the study. Sampling method is applied when the population size is too large and in such case there is no other choice but to select members from particular population size. Sampling method is in general divided into two different categories namely probability sampling and non-probability sampling (O’reilly & Parker, 2013).

However, the process of sampling in primary and secondary data can be different due to the distinctive nature of collecting information. So, as the primary data is fundamentally is used to measure the impact of organizational culture on employee performance, sampling for the primary data starts from the target and size of population. Considering this very technique, study uses non-probability sampling method and the major reason behind this is conveyance of the participants. This means as the study involves the organizational members, it is highly important to ensure the availability of organizational members. Thereby, non-probability sampling method is apt for the current study. According to Csikszentmihalyi and Larson (2014), target population represents a particular segment within a greater population that are effectively positioned to serve as primary data source for the study. For example, for this dissertation entitled “A Study That Researches If the Right Culture in a service led Organisation Exists. Than Performance and Employee Engagement should follow”, hence, the target population consists the individual of the hospital in Europe.

Sampling frame:  Sampling frame is generally explained as the list of people within a target population who are supposed to contribute to the study. Thus, in the current study, sampling frame is extensive list of managerial staff of the hospital.  Hence, the size of sampling frame is 10 individuals.

Sample size: This is the ultimate number of individuals from sampling frame 10, who actually participates in the primary data collection method. So, the size of sample is 5 individuals, who took part in the interview method.

Deductive Research Approach

To collect primary data for the analysis, study develops open-ended questionnaires to ask the selected respondents about how their culture is affecting overall performance and employee engagement.  First, the questionnaire has been developed and then they are distributed among the individuals the emails. However, before approaching the respondents to do the same, an organizational consent has been taken from the hospital authority. A consent from signed from the university has been submitted to the organization. Questionnaire has not been distributed by hand because it would have been taken a lot of time.

It has been identified that qualitative data, in general refers to non-numeric information such interview transcripts, audio recording and text documents (Dang & Pheng, 2015). Data analysis technique can be divided into several categories but the study has followed content analysis and grounded theory method to analyse the data. Hence, content analysis method has been used because the technique helped to categorize verbal as well as behavioural data to classify, summarize and represent them in tabular form. On the other side, grounded theory method helped to analyse single case to formulate a theory and moreover, there is scope for additional cases to be analysed.

Issues of reliability and validity should be addressed to enhance relevancy and significance of the outcome.

Reliability

The study ensures a reasonable extent to which the same outcome can be derived with the help of same instrument such as open-ended questionnaire more than a single time. It has been ensured that future scholar would be able to generate the same outcome as derived from the present study using qualitative data collection method. For example, the interview method for collecting primary data would help the scholars to learn how organizations in the hospitality sector are dealing with performance barriers and employee engagement through organizational culture.

Validity

The study has effectively followed the scientific research methods such as suitable positivism research philosophy to judge and analyse the data, descriptive research design method to test the hypothesis and suitable data collection method such as qualitative data to delve into the fact and explore the unprecedented in organizational culture. In addition to this, the study also uses appropriate time scale which further helps to guide and finish the study within the given time-frame.

There is no doubt that ethical consideration is mostly specified as one of the most significant part of study. Specially, when preparing an academic or business study, not to mention the barriers of collecting primary information, unethical activities often occur. Thus, to avoid the ethical challenges, particularly at the time of collecting primary data, a consent form has been submitted to organization’s authority and the consent of organizational member has also been taken before engaging them into the process. It has been ensured that no data respondent has been forced to take part in data collection and all respondents hold the right to withdraw their participation at any moment.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be mentioned that research methods selected and applied to the study are effective enough and thereby, it helped to generate the desired outcome. Selection of positivism research philosophy helped to analyse and segregate quantifiable outcome. Non-probability sampling method helped to select members and engage them accordingly towards the research goals.

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