Quantitative Research In Education SPSS - Essay And Analysis.

Challenges and Objectives of Honda Motor Company

Discuss about the Quantitative Research in Education SPSS.

It’s the desire of every business to expand and grow to be among the leading businesses in the world. However, for businesses to reach the world-class level, they have to undergo many developments and improvements as many businesses start as small businesses which keep on growing and expanding till the time they come to be recognized as world-class businesses. These developments and improvements result from the efforts of the managers and the other employees who work in those businesses. Therefore, for any business to develop and improve, it needs to have qualified and hardworking managers and employees who should always be committed to delivering their best for the sake of the growth and the development of the business (Teng, Bhatia, and Anwar, 2011, pp.50-64). In this paper, we shall discuss the development and improvement of businesses in details where we shall give special consideration to Honda Motor Company, one of the major Japanese-based motor companies which supply its products across the whole world. The company is well-known for manufacturing and selling of different automobiles, aircraft, motorcycles, and other power equipment in Japan and many other countries across the whole world. The company has been the largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the whole world since 1959 up to today. The company was started as a small company but with hard work and serious commitment of the management team of the company and the employees, the company has kept on growing and improving and today the company is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of not only motorcycles but also automobiles, aircrafts, and may other power equipment.

As we know, Honda Motor Company is one of the best companies in the world which deals with the manufacturing and the selling of motorcycles, automobiles, aircraft, and other power equipment. Even if the company is one of the best companies in the world, the company has some challenges or flaws which it should address, and addressing these challenges and flaws will help to improve the performance even more and this will make the company expand more and may become the largest company in the whole world when it comes to the matters of manufacturing and selling of automobiles, aircrafts, and most power equipment. The main objective of this project is to analyze and discuss how the company can improve its performance to perform better than its current performance in the world market. Addressing its flaws and the challenges of the company is just one of the many measures which the company should take to improve its performance.

Key Aspects for Improving Business Performance

The scope of the project revolves around developing and improving the performance of businesses which can help the businesses to earn more profits and thus get enough capital which they can use to expand to reach the international levels. In the discussion, we have opted to study the development and improvement of businesses by taking the case study of Honda Motor Company which is one of the largest companies in the world but there is still much it can do to improve its performance to be ranked to be the best motor company in the whole world. So the project will mainly cover some of the major steps or measures which businesses should take to improve their performance to become the best businesses in their regions or even in the whole world.

From assignment 1, we learn that there are some key aspects of businesses which should be checked regularly and any attempt to ignore these aspects can make the businesses suffer great losses which may even lead to the closure of the businesses. Some of these keys include the market demand, the public reputation of the business, the employees’ performance, the productivity of the business among others. For the overall performance of Honda Motor Company to be improved, all these factors need to be addressed accordingly. To start with the market demand, there is much which Honda Motor Company should do to make sure it’s the best company in the world market whose products will ever be in high demands. Firstly, the company should be ready to compete with the other competitors (companies) which sell products similar to its products in the world market. For successful competition and for the company to win more customers and its products have higher demands than those of the competitors, the company needs to come up with the best strategies which will help it to build a very strong business relationship with the customers and offer the best quality of products which will help to attract many customers to the company (Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart, 2010, pp.195-215). For the company to manufacture high-quality products which meet the demands of the customers, the company needs to incorporate the best modern technology in most of its operations (Pollock, 2016, pp.55-69). Still, on the market demand and successful competition, the company needs to study and understand the strategies employed by the competitors for it to come up with better strategies which will help it to counter the competitors and thus perform better than the competitors (Walters, 2015, pp.66-77).

Improving Market Demand and Successful Competition

The company should also be very keen to build a good reputation to the external world outside there. For good reputation to be built, the company needs to develop and maintain a good relationship with the customers who play a great role in marketing the name of the company outside there. To create and maintain a good customers’ relationship, the business can utilize the social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, websites, blogs, among other platforms to communicate with the customers and understand their demands more and implement all the demands in its operations (Culnan, McHugh, and Zubillaga, 2010). The company can also come up with toll-free customer services where the customers can air all their views to the company with much ease. By doing all these, the company will improve its overall performance in a great way.

Another key aspect which the company should give special attention in order to improve its performance is the employees’ satisfaction. The employees play a vital role in the performance of any business as they are directly involved in the operation of the business, and therefore, businesses should always make sure their employees are happy and satisfied with their working conditions for them to deliver the best which will be of great benefit to the businesses.  Honda Motor Company should always motivate its employees by giving good pay, giving some incentives, giving some gifts, offering a good and a happy working environment, and many other factors or conditions which will make the employees happy and thus deliver their best which will help to improve the company in a big way (Anderfuhren-Biget et al., 2010, pp.213-246). The company should also make sure there is specialization and division of work in its operations for all the employees to work where they are most suited and qualified to work and thus work perfectly to deliver the best (Johns, Laubscher, and Malone, 2011, pp.7-8).

Productivity is another aspect which the company should give special attention to improve its performance. Productivity can be seen as the products produced by the company in a given period of time. The company should embrace the best and the modern and the latest technology which will help it to be highly efficient and effective in its production process and thus its productivity will be greatly improved. Improving the productivity of the company will help to improve the overall performance of the company (Kalpakjian and Schmid, 2014).

Building Good Reputation with Customers

To enhance its performance even more, the company should strive to strengthen its supply management which will see the company expand its market of various products and services. The company should establish a well-defined and an ambitious supply and management team which should be ready and very committed to extensively market the products offered by the company in and outside of Japan. By so doing, the company will sell much more products and thus make more profits which will eventually improve its overall performance (Christopher, 2016).

Lastly, the company should come up with a highly committed and ambitious human resource management team which will be ready to deliver the best services for the benefits of the company. The selected human resource management team should always monitor the working of all the employees to make sure they are working as required and those who are not willing to perform their assigned duties as required can be fired and new and more committed employees hired to replace them. Serious and highly committed human resource management teams help to improve the overall performance companies in a big way (Boxall, and Purcell, 2011).

There are some other business aspects which the company should consider and implement in its operation to improve its overall performance. Identifying and implementing these business aspects will help address the problem of stagnation of some sectors or departments which don’t grow in the company and open up new opportunities which will earn the company more profits and thus enhance its growth.

As already discussed, the objective of our research is to determine what can be done by the businesses for them to improve their overall performances. Therefore, our research questions will be related to the main objective of the research.

What measures can Honda Motor Company take to improve its overall performance?

This is the main question and it will help us to know what measures should Honda Motor Company and the other businesses in general take to improve their overall performance.

What are the major factors which limit the performance of businesses?

What specific factors affect the performance of Honda Motor Company?

For us to achieve good and satisfactory results from our research, we shall use both qualitative and quantitative research designs. Quantitative research design will be used when dealing with non-numerical data while quantitative research design will be used when dealing numerical data (Neuman, 2013).

For us to use qualitative research effectively, we’ll follow the following main steps:

Decide the main topic of research and formulate the objectives and the questions of the study.

Importance of Employee Satisfaction

Do a detailed literature review to understand the existing information about the topic of study.

Determine the best sampling technique and sample size to be used in the data collection process. Selecting an appropriate sampling technique and sample size helps to improve the accuracy of the research (Suresh and Chandrashekara, 2012, 7-9).

Collect the necessary data using appropriate data collection methods such as questionnaire method and interviews. To improve the reliability and the validity of the data to be collected, we shall use very effective data collection methods and be friendly to the respondents and encourage them to participate in the research (Noble and Smith, 2015).

Specify all the variables used and do a detailed analysis of the collected data and tabulate the results.

Prepare a report to summarize the whole research process and the results (Maxwell, 2012).

For our quantitative research to be effective, we shall use the following main steps:

Determine the main topic of research, formulate the research questions and the main objectives of the research.

Carry out a detailed literature review to understand the already existing systems.

Determine the best sampling technique and the sample size to use in the research.

Collecting the required data using the most appropriate data collection methods which in our case are questionnaires and interviews. We should use a reasonable sample size and use these data collection methods effectively to help as getting valid and more reliable data.

Analyzing the collected data and tabulating the statistical results.

Preparing a detailed report to summarize the whole research process (Muijs, 2010).

Research limitations

The main limitations which may face our research include:

Financial limitations where the available finances may not be enough to carry out the research perfectly.

Some uncooperative respondents who may give wrong information (responses) or even refuse to give any information, among other limitations (Humes, 2010, 12-13).

The time schedule (research plan)

The time schedule to be followed in our research is shown in the table below:

Proposed Dates	Expected Duration	Proposed Research Activity
27/05/2018 – 3/06/2018	1 week	Deciding on the research topic and formulating of the research questions and the objectives.
5/06/2018 – 12/06/2018	1 week	Doing a detailed literature review to understand the topic under research better
13/06/2018 – 30/06/2018	3 weeks	Determining the best sample size, the best sampling techniques, the best data collection methods, and collecting all the required data
2/07/2018 – 21/07/2018	3 weeks	Doing a detailed analysis of the collected data, analyzing the results, and preparing a comprehensive report to summarize the whole research

Conclusion

By following the proposed time schedule or the proposed time plan, we’ll be able to carry our research effectively and successfully which will help us to get the solutions of our proposed research questions. This information will be very helpful as it will help us to know how we can improve the performance of our businesses.

References

Anderfuhren-Biget, S., Varone, F., Giauque, D., & Ritz, A. (2010). Motivating employees of the public sector: does public service motivation matter?. International public management journal, 13(3), 213-246.

Boxall, P., & Purcell, J. (2011). Strategy and human resource management. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Casadesus-Masanell, R., & Ricart, J. E. (2010). From strategy to business models and onto tactics. Long range planning, 43(2-3), 195-215.

Christopher, M. (2016). Logistics & supply chain management. London: Pearson.

Culnan, M. J., McHugh, P. J., & Zubillaga, J. I. (2010). How large US companies can use Twitter and other social media to gain business value. MIS Quarterly Executive, 9(4).

Humes, W. (2010). The limitations of interviews: A lesson from literature. Research Intelligence, 110, 12-13.

Johns, T., Laubscher, R. J., & Malone, T. W. (2011). The age of hyper-specialization. Harvard Business Review, 89(7-8), 56.

Kalpakjian, S., & Schmid, S. R. (2014). Manufacturing engineering and technology (p. 913). Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA: Pearson.

Maxwell, J. A. (2012). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach (Vol. 41). California: Sage publications.

Muijs, D. (2010). Doing quantitative research in education with SPSS. California: Sage.

Neuman, W. L. (2013). Social research methods: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. London: Pearson education.

Noble, H., & Smith, J. (2015). Issues of validity and reliability in qualitative research. Evidence-Based Nursing.

Pollock, R. (2016). The six disciplines of breakthrough learning. How to turn training and development into business results, 3 (6), 55-69.

Siow Song Teng, H., Singh Bhatia, G., & Anwar, S. (2011). A success versus failure prediction model for small businesses in Singapore. American Journal of Business, 26(1), 50-64.

Suresh, K. P., & Chandrashekara, S. (2012). Sample size estimation and power analysis for clinical research studies. Journal of human reproductive sciences, 5(1), 7-9.

Walters, C. (2015). A practice-based action research self-study. How do I improve my practice as a bridal-gown designer in a highly-competitive market?, 34 (78), 66-77.