Development of An Effective Job Attitude Solution for the Disaster Management Sector
Abstract
The issue of employee job attitude is extremely important in the disaster management sector, where the nature of the job turns unique every now and then and almost always requires wholehearted commitment from its employees to rise over the petty calculations of self-gain and act for the cause. This study aims to create an effective package of employee job attitude solutions through its investigation on the drivers of job attitudes, before presenting its recommendation for the organizations in DMS, and indicating at the future promises of this research problem.
Chapter 1 Introduction to the Study
Overview
Attracting and retaining the right employees are critical to the growth of any company, and they clearly point to the significance of managing human capital toward creating a committed and knowledgeable workforce that would earn sustainable growth and competitive advantage for the companies. The study of organizational behavior over the decades has been approached from various conceptual perspectives (Steel Rentsch, 1997 Taber, 1991). Job attitude remains a topic of interest in the field, and conceptual distinctions have been made historically (Brooke, Russell, Price, 1988).
The volume of research in this area has demonstrated the importance of employees job attitudes to organizations in terms of identifying satisfaction, estimating loyalty, and reducing turnover (Knoop, 1995 Porter, Steers, Modway, 1974). The value of examining performance in terms of manufacturing or assembly has been an important area of research however, employee output also entails direct service delivery to consumers (Anderson Mohr, 2003 Bettencourt, Gwinner, Meuter, 2001). One such area involves treatment services to the victims of natural disasters. At the time of this research, no studies are known to have been conducted on the job attitudes of employees providing disaster relief services.
This study intends to explore the possibility of enhancing the state of employee engagement and retention in the disaster management sector (DMS), which commands a wholehearted commitment from the employees to deal successfully with one of the noble professions in the world. This study also intends to explore the ways and means to attract quality employees to the DMS.
Background of the Problem
The importance of employee involvement and interaction is reflected in the treatment of disaster victims (Beck Franke, 1996). The victims of this form of crisis are immediately confronted with emotions that include fear as well as a profound sense of loss and anxiety (Albano, Causey, Carter, 2001). The victims also can face injury and death resulting from natural disasters These issues can be life altering and leave an imprint on a victims mind (Becke Franke, 1996). The traumatic event of experiencing a natural disaster may result in extreme stress-related disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD Miller Kraus, 1994). The aforementioned consequences of disasters clearly show the gravity of the jobs associated with disaster relief, and they hint at the challenge of attracting and retaining talented and committed employees in the DMS. Higher remuneration cannot be the sole driver of engaging, attracting, or retaining quality employees in this sector prospective employees with qualifications can easily choose risk-free jobs instead. Thus, the DMS needs to strike the right chord in employees to ignite the missionary approach in them.
A brief explanation of the activities of the American Red Cross (ARC, 2006) corroborates the fact that this segment truly needs committed and motivated workers more than anything else. The ARCs disaster relief employees are charged with providing assistance and meeting victims immediate emergency disaster-caused needs, where they must support the ARCs mission and extend every available courtesy. In response to these natural disasters, the ARC deploys volunteers to provide emergency services to victims. Each year, the ARC responds immediately to more than 70,000 disasters, including house or apartment fires, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hazardous materials spills, transportation accidents, explosions, and other natural and manmade disasters (ARC, 2006).
The magnitude of the devastation at times can leave the workers wondering where to start. During the 2005 hurricane season, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast of the United States. Hurricane Katrina flooded neighborhoods and literally destroyed part of the state of Louisiana, particularly New Orleans, by killing over 1,193 people and smashing most of the humanmade structures (Hine, 2005). Hurricane Rita trailed Katrina weeks later, further damaging what was left in that region and precipitating more power outages and evacuations. These examples highlight the gravity of disaster management and show the levels of dedication and commitment required for braving such onslaughts of nature.
Therefore, researching the attitudes of employees in disaster relief work may provide valuable information to first responders. The groundbreaking work by Steers and and Porter (1979) underscored the importance of work and motivation. Bettencourt et al. (2001) also supported this premise. According to Steers and Porter, The concept of the organization has long symbolized the efficient, effective and rational allocation of resources for task accomplishment (p. 555).
According to Beck and Franke (1996), the victims of natural disasters can experience extreme stress. The significant symptomatology of the victims of natural disasters can include the following components
Defense Specific signs.
Shock Confusion and psychological numbing.
Fear and Anxiety Sleep disturbance (e.g. nightmares, insomnia).
Anxiety Substance abuse, uncontrollable and distressing images of event increased absenteeism at work, loss of ability for intimacy
Loss of interest in interpersonal relations Hyperalertness, scanning,
hypervigilance, ticks, desire not to be left alone, Hyperreeactivity to particular cues (e.g., storms), Physical changes increased blood pressure, arthritis, ulcers, chest pains, headaches. Problems in performance at school, home, or work loss of sense of security.
Denial Containment of feelings, Unwillingness to talk about event cheerful or audacious reaction to trauma.
Mourning and Depression Frequent and endless gravesite visits.
Depression Crying at the reminder of loved ones, social isolation
Loss of energy, hopelessness, suicidal ideation, memory or concentration problems.
Guilt and shame Depressed moods, extreme guilty preoccupation.
Retaliation Lawsuits and other acting out episodes, temper tantrums or argumentative style.
The above-mentioned possible outcomes of a natural disaster point not only to the gravity of job responsibilities of the relief workers, but also to the sensitive ambience they face. Employees assigned to relief work offer their support and assistance in what may seem to the victims to be a chaotic and hopeless situation. Disaster relief employees are instrumental in assisting the victims to deal with and move through the crisis as well as improve functioning. Employees are expected to provide emergency services in an efficient, friendly, and calm manner. According to a survey conducted by War for Talent (2004), the difference between high-performing organizations and average ones is that the top companies recognize the importance of the talent and actions of their employees and they seriously care about strengthening their talent pool. Without such a clear approach, the purpose of recruitment and retention can result in the poor performance by the company and can become a roadblock to achieve the desired outcome.
All companies sometimes have difficulty recruiting the right people, especially top talent, for one reason or another, but all of them want to get the best talent. No company wants to see the negative outcomes of poor recruitment choices, such as losing money or reputation because of employees who are poor or average performers. Such a state of affairs can affect the rate of employee turnover, which may include talented and poor performers. Hiring marginal performers comes at a high cost, not the least of which is turnover cost.
Several studies have suggested that high-involvement work practices can attract and retain employees (Huselid, 1995). The aforementioned factors have crucial relevance to the functioning of the DMS because the nature of the job is unique and encompasses all possible human virtues courage, dedication, presence of mind, attitude to sacrifice, and more. This sector thus needs an effective action plan to periodically motivate its workers to sustain and develop such virtues, and to contribute to the process of enhancing employee involvement in this sector.
Statement of the Problem
The incidence and severity of natural disasters have been rising steadily over the last 10 years. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita amplified t the importance of disaster relief services to recover or save victims and establishments. The DMS demands the highest level of employee commitment, so the issue of job attitude is extremely important. The organizations in the DMS have several primary tasks, such as recruiting talented employees, making them wholeheartedly involved by imbuing in them the required spirit of service, creating an engaging atmosphere, and building a solid reputation to attract more talented employees. To effectively manage these tasks, the organizations in the DMS need to have a comprehensive action plan that not only underpins the key drivers of employee engagement, retention, and attraction but also provides a framework to achieve them. This mandate clearly necessitates a thorough investigation of the job attitudes of the employees that evolve from the cumulative influences of job satisfaction, job involvement, organizational commitment, and turnover intention.
Disaster relief service is a high-risk and tedious job. The workers are entrusted with the immediate care of disaster victims, and their performance is responsible for fulfilling the mission of the organization. To maintain these valuable workers and protect the integrity and mission of the service agency, an exploration of employee job satisfaction, job involvement, and job commitment is warranted. At the time of this research, no previous studies were found that had specifically addressed the needs of the DMS regarding employee engagement, retention, or attraction. Although this study has taken up that task, further research on the job attitudes of disaster relief workers may have direct implications to the assistance received by the victims of natural disasters.
Nature of the Study
The general goal of companies is effective output and achievement by its employees. Disaster relief work is focused on the victims of disaster and desires effective outcomes because the results of this kind of work can mean the difference between life and death for the victims. It is paramount that disaster relief workers be highly motivated, engaged to complete their tasks, and experienced in this field. In a concerted effort to recruit and retain employees, it is important for companies to consider factors related to the employees job attitudes. Exploring such factors can provide projective data toward training programs and capitalize on maximum employee productivity. Understanding employees attitudes can provide valuable insight into planning and training strategies for the workforce.
Research Questions
Aligning with the objective of the study, the primary research question asks, What can be the ideal solution for deserving job attitude in DMS
This is followed by the secondary question What are the key drivers to attain the desired employee job attitudes in the DMS
The above question serves a pointer to the following areas as the possible sources of answers company philosophy, leadership behavior, motivation and reward system, and cultural and demographic influences. Thus in turn, generates the subsets of secondary question like below
What kind of company philosophy in the DMS can build better a bond with its employees
What kind of leadership can be instrumental in achieving the desired outcome for the companies in this sector
What kind of reward system can motivate the DMS employees the most
What kind of workplace culture can influence them to stay
Answers to the above research questions will be explored through the review of appropriate literature and surveys conducted with human resource management (HRM) professionals and employees belonging to the DMS. The sample population will consist of HRM personnel and relief workers from the ARC or similar organizations. The independent variables in this study stand as job satisfaction, job involvement, and job commitment, while the dependent variable is employee intent to leave.
Formulation of the hypotheses of study was further influenced by the assumption that the psyche of the DMS employees has to be changed from the core, and for that matter they require to be intrinsically motivated. Therefore, the hypotheses of this study stand like below
Hypotheses
H0 There cannot be any ideal solution for deserving job attitude in DMS.
Ha Successful inculcation of intrinsic motivation will be the key driver towards achieving the desired job attitude in employees of DMS.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of HR practices in the DMS to engage, attract, and retain qualified employees through a comprehensive action plan. The entire process of research or its final outcome carries a single focus and that is, to provide an effective job attitude solution to DMS. Accordingly, this study will be an exploration of the relationship between the components of the DMS employees job attitude, namely, job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment, and their intent to leave. Therefore, the independent variables in this study are job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment. The dependent variable is intent to leave.
Conceptual Framework
Employers may perceive that their employees are pleased or at least content with their jobs based on performance (Wright Cropanzano, 2001) compliance with the rules of power sources that may reflect what employees are experiencing (Koslowsky et al., 2001) and low turnover rates (Spillane, 1973). Employees also may formulate perceptions of their organizations based on employers concern about, commitment to, and appreciation of their employees (Brief Weiss, 2002 Hershberger, Lichtenstein, Knox, 1994 McAllister Bigley, 2002) and consumers (Anderson Mohr, 2003 Bettencourt et al., 2001).
A characteristic of company loyalty and organizational citizenship behavior is reflected in the employees representation of their organizations to consumers. Bettencourt et al. (2001) found that contact employee participation in organizational citizenship behaviorstaking individual initiative, especially in communications, to improve service delivery by the organization, coworkers, and oneselfare fundamental to the firms ability to meet the changing needs of its customers (p. 30). Job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment are components of the attitudes descriptive of ones workplace environment. These attitudes affect job behavior and can be instrumental in the level of output from employees.
Job attitude is actually an outcome of the collective influence of several factors like company philosophy, leadership behavior, motivation and reward system, and cultural and demographic influences. These factors are spread in all three spheres of the workplace, namely, company dimensions, job dimensions, and payment or compensation system (see Figure 1). This makes it clear that a comprehensive review of all elements within the said three spheres is necessary for gathering clues to the possible answers of the questions of this research.
Figure 1. Three dimensions of workplace (Created from the concepts of Chapman, 2005 Porter, 1985, 1998).
The company dimensions, job dimensions, and compensation system outline the areas those need to be reviewed
Philosophy and culture of the company.
Leadership behavior.
Motivation and reward system.
Social, cultural, and demographic influences.
Role of HRM and its application tool, the HPWS.
Guided by the above outline, the study prepares a roadmap of the roadmap of the literature review from the perspective of human resource management (HRM), since HRM is directly responsible to manage human resources with its applications tools, and thus it systematically covers the possible areas that can provide appropriate information on the key drivers of employee attraction, engagement and retention (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. HRM its Application Tool (created from the concepts of Entrekin and Court, 2001 Guest, 1997 Rennie, 2003)
Definitions of Terms
Keywords used throughout this study include
DMS Disaster Management Sector.
ARC American Red Cross Society.
Servant Leadership An improvised version of transformational leadership style that aims to change from core, promoted by Greenleaf (1977)
OCE (Opportunity Creation and Exploitation) A business philosophy promoted by Dudik (2000).
SCA (Sustainable Competitive Advantage) A business philosophy promoted by Porter (1980)
SHRM (Strategic Human Resource Management) Company-specific HRM practice
HPWS (High-Performance Work System) An application tool of SHRM.
Limitations of this Study
The limitations of this study lie in the extremely limited literature to support the topic. To date, no prior studies directly related to job attitudes and DMS are available. It is an assumption that this study will lead to more positive outcomes and effectiveness for the DMS and will provide a framework for extended study. Limitations also include the researchers firsthand experience in serving as a disaster relief worker who provided mental health services to the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in New Orleans, Louisiana in September and October of 2005. Thus it is the field experience and not any cultivated knowledge base that has inspired the researcher to investigate the subject matter.
The boundaries of this study are accounted for in the small number of participants and the limited location. Expansion to additional DMSs as well as counties and states may yield more substantial data to support the hypotheses.
Significance of the Study
There is no viable management literature specifically addressing the extraordinary need of the DMS regarding job attitude. From that perspective, this investigation can be considered as unique to the management literature. The recommendation of this study also stands to be unique in the sense that it would be the first customized solution package for DMS. Apart from that, this study stands to be the first of its kind that would underpin the specific HRM practice to enhance the productivity of the organizations within DMS.
The findings also will contribute to the development of recruitment and retaining programs in the DMS as it is going to highlight the significance of creating desired job attitude among the employees of this sector. This study may encourage future researchers to seriously consider several important facts associated with the sustenance and development of DMS, such as loss of key talent means loss of invaluable human capital, critical skills and institutional memory (Entrekin 2001), or the fact that the process of retention starts with hiring people with strong skills befitting the need of the company.
This study may serve several ideas to the employees and HR professionals at DMS, such as companies in this sector suffer in many ways when it loses an able employee, ranging from productivity to the loss of knowledge bank. Such facts and ideas have been corroborated by other researchers who have observed that talented employees retain more information on the industry they are in, and develop deep insight on its competitive strengths and weaknesses of the products, customers and processes, and so on. Thus, such a knowledge bank becomes a significant part of corporate equity (Gutherie, 2001 Huselid, 1995).
This study may contribute to the development of qualified employees, which will enhance the organizations competitiveness and performance (Prahalad Hamel, 1990). It may do so by influencing its readers to focus more on one of the most vital drivers of business, that is, employee management, which is becoming an increasingly important source of competitive advantage. This change is happening because traditional sources (i.e., product and process technology, protected or regulated markets, access to financial resources, and economies of scale) are now less powerful than they once were (Lawler, 1996 Pfeffer, 1994). Last but not the least, this study is poised to create more dedicated and committed workers in the DMS through its recommendations for achieving desired job attitude in this sector, which, in other words, would be a serious contribution towards promoting positive social change.
Summary
Beginning with the overview of the research agenda, this chapter included an explanation of the background of the problem and highlighted the significance of shaping the job attitudes of the employees in the DMS. The purpose of this study described the necessity of having a comprehensive action plan toward achieving the goal of providing an effective job attitude solution for the employees in the DMS. The research questions and hypotheses were presented, before mentioning the uniqueness and significance of this study, its organization, the researchers motivation, and the way in which the study may contribute to the literature on HRM and disaster management.
Chapter 2 reviews peer-reviewed and scholarly literature concerning HRM issues that have a direct or an indirect bearing on shaping job attitudes, for example, the elements that prove instrumental in transforming the human psyche from the core, or how leadership or company philosophy affect it. The chapter also highlights the significance of effectively managing human capital to achieve desired outcomes. Such topics as company culture, team communication, leadership behavior, the human motivation reward system, the role of SHRM, are explored in this section. How about chapter 3
Chapter 2 Literature Review
Introduction
The review of the literature includes scholarly theory and concepts of shaping job attitudes. The essence of the review includes Significance of employee retention and engagement in company performance The demands of the current business environment The role of company philosophy and company culture in creating an engaging workplace environment Role of business philosophies under the context The role of cultural competency in fostering team communication How leadership could be an ideal vehicle of the company philosophy and how it could lead by example The role of motivation and the characteristics of its types, etc. Therefore the theoretical framework of this study (see Figure - 3) maintains a top-down order, where it starts from current business environment and ends up by reviewing the issues associated with leadership, motivation, rewards and HRM.
Figure 3. Theoretical framework of literature review.
Theoretical Perspective of Job Attitude
Organizations generally value employee loyalty and dedication (ODriscoll Randall, 1999). Organizational behavior research over the past 15 years has provided empirical studies involving job- and work-related attitudes (Steel Rentsch, 1997 Taber, 1991). Specific focus has been applied to employee job satisfaction (Hart, 1999) job involvement (Brown, 1996) and job commitment (Shore Tetrick, 1991).
Bettencourt, Gwinner, and Meuter (2001) reported that job attitudes such as satisfaction and perceived organizational support are key predictors of organizational loyalty. Job involvement often has been referred to as job commitment and has been associated with the level of organizational support (ODriscoll Randall, 1999). The constructs of job attitudes and job involvement have been paired in studies of research stability (Steel Rentsch, 1997) commitment and support (ODriscoll Randall, 1999) and organizational citizenship behaviors (Bettencourt et al., 2001 Moorman, 1991 Organ Konovsky, 1989).
Job-related attitudes, similar to attitudes in general, are derived from individual perceptions. Individuals can formulate perceptions according to their thought processes or outside influences (Elbert, Seale, McMahon, 2001). Employers may perceive that employees are pleased or at least content with their jobs based on performance (Wright Cropanzano, 2001) compliance with the rules of power sources (Koslowsky, Schwarzwald, Ashuri, 2001) and low turnover rates (Spillane, 1973). Employees may also formulate perceptions of their organizations based upon their employers concern about, commitment to, and appreciation of the employees (Brief Weiss, 2002 Hershberger et al., 1994 McAllister Bigley, 2002) and consumers (Anderson Mohr, 2003 Bettencourt et al., 2001).
A characteristic of company loyalty and organizational citizenship behavior is reflected in the employees representation of the organizations to consumers (Bettencourt et al., 2001). Thus research on attitudes is important because it contributes to job behavior. ODriscoll and Randall (1999) provided an example of the importance of understanding the inception of job attitudes and the ways in which they affect job behavior. The job-related attitudes like job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment are general representations of distinct constructs (Brooke, Russell, Price, 1988).
Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction continues to be a major dependent variable in industrial, organizational, and social psychology (Ironson, Brannick, Smith, Gibson, Paul, 1989, p. 193). Features of job satisfaction can include pay, security, working conditions, need for autonomy responsibility, or accomplishment (Andrew, Faubion, Palmer, 2002). Bingham, Valenstein, Blow and Alexander (2002) state
Provider job satisfaction is influenced by various workplace characteristics, including size, type, and location (i.e., medical center, inpatient or outpatient clinic), and administrative organization. The health care workplace also is shaped by the collection of symptoms, needs, and conditions of the patients receiving care. Collectively, patients health attributes influence the array of health care procedures employed limit the range of expectable patient outcomes contribute to the type, quantity, and quality of interaction between patients and providers and impact rewards and difficulties encountered in providing health care.
Wright, Cropanzano, Denney, and Moline (2002) described job satisfaction as a reflection of how desirable or attractive an employee considers their job to be (p. 146). A generally positive attitude about ones job is associated with satisfaction with ones job. Andrew, Faubion, and Palmer (2002) commented, The reinforcing characteristics of the workplace that correspond with the workers needs lead to satisfaction (p. 223). These needs are individualized and include the personality style of the employee.
The overall job satisfaction of employees warrants periodic review by employers in their efforts to maintain a valuable workforce. Employees can anonymously submit information regarding their needs and desires through surveys, which can provide an unobstructed view of employees needs and collect information without fear of retaliation from employers.
Job Involvement
Job involvement describes interest in specific job duties (ODriscoll Randall, 1999 Rhoades Eisenberger, 2002). Employees who relate to their job tasks and value the importance of those tasks are generally concerned about their work. Healthy self-esteem, self-worth, and positive work ethic can be considered antecedents to job involvement (Steel Rentsch, 1997). Lodahl and Kejner (1965) posited that job involvement is rooted in individual values according to job involvement theory. According to Brown
Job involvement is an important factor in the lives of most people. Work activities consume a large portion of time and constitute a fundamentally important aspect of life for most people. People may be stimulated by and drawn deeply into their work or alienated from it mentally and emotionally.
Brown (1996) and Kanungo (1979) described complete engagement in ones work as a state of involvement and alienation as a separation from ones work. Employee involvement versus alienation of the workforce would be preferable to employers. The consequences can be extremely costly to employers if the workers in disaster response agencies were to neglect specific duties pertinent to the care to victims. In regard to a helping relationship, Zirkle et al. (2002) stated, Minor clients are believed to be particularly vulnerable to harm because of the power difference between the helper and client, which is more pronounced than is the case when clients are adults.
Organizational Commitment
Organizational commitment has been defined as the relative strength of an individuals identification with and involvement in a particular organization (Brooke et. al., 1988, p. 139). Meyer and Allen (1991) noted that commitment reflects the three general themes of affective attachment to the organization, perceived costs associated with leaving the organization, and obligation to remain with the organization (pp. 63-64). These attitudes are present in any organization. Research has distinguished between two types of commitment to an organization affective and continuance. ODriscoll et al (1999) stated that affective commitment reflects an attitude that centers on emotional identification with the values and goals of the organization. Continuance commitment is based either on the material benefits (Meyer Allen, 1984) to be gained from remaining with that particular company or the anticipated costs and drawbacks of leaving. The level of commitment of disaster relief workers, as with other members of the workforce, can provide valuable information to service agencies in terms of the employees desire to remain (Andrew et al., 2002 Rhoades Eisenberger, 2002).
Job Factors and Job Attitudes of Employees
Job factors generally are divided into two parts intrinsic factors and extrinsic factors. Intrinsic factors include recognition and achievement, and refer to the work itself, whereas extrinsic factors include working conditions, coworkers, and compensation, and they relate to the environment in which the work in done (Spillane, 1973). Each employee holds opinions on both groups of factors and can rate their significance or importance, that is, one set of factors may hold more significance to one employee versus another (Spillane, 1973). Studies have been conducted aligning job attitudes with job factors. For example, some studies have reviewed the relationship between organizational commitment and turnover (Blau Boal, 1987 Porter, Steers, Mowday, 1974). These studies have reported distinctions in predicting turnover using the construct of organizational commitment.
Present Situation
The global recession has served almost as a notice of reorientation to all companies, which are now busy reorganizing their workforce and reshaping their employees attitudes to cope with the recession (Duff, 2009). Companies also are required to produce more for less, and they have to bank on human capital more than ever. Thus the issue of employee engagement and retention has become more intense because most of the companies now cannot afford to pay more to attract or retain quality employees, nor can they afford to lose talented employees with experience.
From the employees perspective, it is really difficult to work more for less, especially with the fear of losing their jobs or the downgraded state of the market. Yet the competition, which is actually a struggle for existence in disguise, has become intense. The entire global trade circuit is suffering from confusion trying to identify the right moves to rejuvenate employees, the market, and the business. Market analysts also are in quandary to offer any bold prescriptions, which becomes evident from their views.
According to the prescription of Brown (2008), the director of HR services at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, companies now need to review and rectify four areas. Considering a pay increase for the performers, Brown stated, The main question is how to link reward with performance, and not whether to link it (p. 22). As for the issue of equal pay, Brown suggested, It is essential to ensure that pay differences are justifiable and non-discriminatory (p. 22), thereby identifying the need to eliminate pay disparities.
Brown too favored the proposition that employee engagement is critical to corporate performance, and accordingly mentioned about Searss research (Haskett et al., 1994) outcome, which corroborates the same. As for effectiveness, Brown asserted that it could be an important tool to reduce the cost and increase the productivity.
Browns (2008) prescription looks confusing because is doubtful whether the companies are in a position to reward the top performers or to maintain a policy of equal pay, which may result in more spending. Now if the companies are not in a position to cover the first two issues, then naturally they would not be able to enhance the effectiveness of the employees, going by the common concept that money plays a central role in enhancing the effectiveness of the employees. Otherwise, Brown would have surely suggested different ways to enhance the same.
Observers such as Wellins (2008) have commented that it should be the responsibility of the employees to become more engaged amid this crisis (downturn) and that their leaders should support them. These are almost directionless suggestions because the desired job attitudes of the employees mostly are a reflection of the collective performance of the management, leadership, and the HR department. Therefore, such equivocal prescriptions and comments lead to one conclusion The issue of getting more from employees at less cost requires more insight than previously thought. Therefore, to fathom the significance of employee engagement and retention, this study reviewed some literature that was relevant to the topic.
Why Job Attitude Is Important
Kahn (1990) asserted that employees experience more happiness when they find
themselves voluntarily engaged in their work and that mental state actually contributes to the profit of an organization in more than one way. For example, in that mental frame, the employees develop more creative thinking or seldom give a miss to their working hours. Wagner and Harter (2006) added another vital dimension to the aforementioned state. They noted that there are fewer occurrences of job-related injuries when the employees work with a happy frame of mind. Thus, from this perspective, job attitude adds to the benefit of the companies. According to Wildermuth and Cris (2008), the executive partners of a consulting firm specializing in employee engagement, their clients often admit the significance of job attitude by saying, Engagement is part of our values and training curriculum. We want to make sure our employees, leaders, and customers are engaged (p. 51).
10 Ms to Shape Job Attitude
The consultant duo, Wildermuth and Cris (2008) also presented a 10-point solution to job attitude, naming it the 10 Ms of engagement. They presented an important note before describing their solution that 9 of the 10 points operate in three dimensions, such as organization culture, job, and personal issues, all of which are connected to one another in one or the other way. They also contended that the final factor (the match factor) occupies the spaces among culture, job, and personal issues. They commented, Engagement is built on time, commitment, and consistent monitoring and ultimately engagement requires that all employees operate from their own strengths and passions (p. 51).
Following is a brief description of their 10 point
Model This M speaks about integrity and quality commitment to the ethical part of business that contains rewards and punishment for ethical violations.
Metropolis This M refers to a package of positive social interactions that bring acceptance and safety to the workplace and are vital for an engaging workplace environment. It contains such elements as camaraderie, support, and respect.
Magnate This M refers to the magnetism of acknowledgement and appreciation from the management side that usually is reflected in the celebrations for achievements hosted by the company for its employees. It is through such occasions that the employees are formally recognized for their performances and which convince the employees that management value their contributions.
Moderation This M highlights the need to keep the locus of control intact, such as checking over enthusiasm to save the energy of the employees and instead focusing on a steady, controlled progress interspersed with energy renewal phases to maintain a consistent level of engagement.
Manager This M speaks about the role of employee empowerment in shaping their job attitudes because it ensures their roles in the decision-making process and influences employee engagement, retention, or even attraction.
Moon This M refers to the power of learning to raise the confidence of the employees, driven by the belief that learning provides the sense of accomplishment, which in turn influences employee job attitude.
Mirror The M refers to the creation of a healthy self-esteem of the employees, that is, conscientiousness about what they are doing and pride about their achievements can be a great tool to shape job attitude.
Malleability This M underpins such factors as resilience and flexibility as contributing factors to job attitude, and it insists that the creation of such attitudes among employees can be a great help in binding the employees to the organization.
Microphone This M speaks about the positive effect of encouraging the employees to freely identify the areas where they need help for improving their own capacities as well as the future of the company future. This practice can generate a sense of belonging to the company among the employees can help to shape their job attitudes.
Match This M points to the need to recognize each employees personality traits and individual talents, which would help to identify the specific factors that can be influential in shaping the job attitude of a particular employee. For example, if an employee shows more skills in desk jobs than outdoor jobs or shows written skills of communication, a matching job profile would make that employee happy and willing to contribute more to the companys success.
Rise of Human Capital
The rise of human capital has now been graphed by the recent research. The Conference Board of Canada (2005) provided tangible evidence of the significance of job attitude through the proposition that with the expansion of the knowledge economy, the value of intangible assets grows rapidly. In the process, the study found that the percentage of intangible assets from the total value of the company rose from 38 in 1982 to 85 in 2000, along with the following startling facts
The cost of losing a talented person in 2002-2003 was between 200,000 and 250,000.
The end result of a bad recruitment was at least 300,000.
The operating cost of without a key player (i.e., a technical person) even at a low level stood around 500,000 per annum.
These figures can provide an idea of the cost involved in not planning to retain valuable employees. The issue of job attitude also cast its glance from there because employee engagement, retention, and attraction are directly dependent on the job attitudes of the employees. Alongside, the facts also highlight the importance of effectively managing such an important capital of business, besides justifying the rise of HR from the concept of personnel management to HRM and subsequently to SHRM. Even a 5 rise in desired job attitude can generate a 3 hike in customer commitment, which can raise 0.25 in shareholder value, as found by Ulrich (1997), which clearly shows the close link between the key drivers of business such as employee commitment and customer commitment to bottom line performance. Many multinational companies have recognized it as a model of employee value chain, besides recognizing the deep links among quality HR practice, employee commitment, and financial performance (Guest, 1997). Ulrich and Guests findings also matches with the suggestions of earlier researchers like Allen and Meyer (1990), who suggested about the deep connection between affective commitment of the employees and organizational performance and their types as affective, continuous, and normative.
Although the above-mentioned studies pack the elements of employee engagement, commitment, retention, and attraction under the concept of job attitude, there was an earlier argument that employee engagement and employee commitment are the same, until McBain (2006) put that debate to rest by stating that employee commitment is an outcome of employee engagement. That argument perfectly suited this studys explanation of job attitude because issues like employee engagement, employee commitment, employee reaction to retention or their intention to seek better opportunities, all can be considered as attitude.
The above studies show that the researchers underpinned employee engagement as the prime driver of company benefit. Accordingly, Towers Perrin (2004, 2005) underpinned the significance of employee engagement by two studies with the following outcomes (a) Organizations with high level of employee engagement enjoy 70 percent more chance of achieving their targets(b) such organizations also achieve higher operating margins, where a 5 increase in employee engagement can generate a 0.7 rise in operating margins(c) the talent-retention rate is also high in such organizations because their employees are found to be twice as eager to remain with their employers and (d) such organizations outperform industry sector growth by 6. These findings provide organizations with direct information about the results of effective employee engagement.
Key Drivers of Employee Engagement
According to Shuck and Albornoz (2007), four factors are instrumental in employee engagement
Environment of the workplace, which should comprise the elements of physical and emotional characteristics of the workspace, relationships among colleagues, and typical job functions. These elements together can provide the feeling about the climatic conditions of workplace that affect the employees level of engagement (Brown Leigh, 1996).
Role of leadership, which is a serious factor because it is directly responsible for engaging or retaining employees. According to Gopal (2003), poor management is the root cause of employee disengagement.
Characteristics of the employees, which Shuck and Albornoz placed in two categories, namely, the need for challenge and an entrepreneurial spirit. They suggested that the first one sparks the esteem need (Maslow, 1970), and the second one imbibes industriousness in employees.
Scope for learning is another strong factor in attracting, engaging, or retaining employees because learning brings a change in behavior, cognition, or affect that occurs as a result of ones interaction with the environment (Werner DeSimone, 2006, p. 33), and it is associated with any or all human needs.
These factors are key in exploring the necessity for employee engagement. The organization seeking engaged employees will pay particularly close attention to the incorporation of these factors in building effective training programs.
Lavigna (2007) concluded that employees can be happy, even in demanding situations. This study also pointed out that high levels of employee satisfaction do not serve as pointers to the fact that work is not demanding or employees are always happy. On the contrary, Lavigna found from her surveys that demanding workplace environments can have some of the most committed and productive employees. Lavigna identified three factors as the most influential catalysts of desired job attitude, namely, leadership, alignment between employee skills and the mission of the company, and Work-life balance. The importance of recognizing the multifaceted employee was highlighted by Lavigna. A happy worker is not always associated with a light workload or confused with a stress-free environment. The parallel between demanding work and satisfied workers is important to include in a thorough engagement of the employees.
While explaining Kahns (1990) theory of employee engagement and disengagement, Shuck and Albornoz (2007) also suggested that the choice to express or withdraw ones authentic self is the emotional, social, and physical act of employee engagement. Such suggestion matches with the views of other researchers too (Hertzberg, 1968 Latham Ernst, 2006), who speak about the important roles of autonomy and meaningful understanding towards increasing the employees intrinsic willingness to engage in work, which in turn highlight the significance of the intrinsic factors in shaping employee job attitude and justify the need to inspect them from close quarter. Thus this review commands further investigation on the elements like company philosophyvision, employee motivation, reward system, company culture, and leadership.
All of the aforementioned issues are dynamic, so they need to be managed continuously. For example, the issue of aligning employees skills with the company mission points to the need to run a continuous process of knowledge creation and its maintenance through training as well as information exchange among employees so that not only the employees but also the leaders can internalize the company vision. From this perspective, all of the human capital in a company needs to be driven in a specific direction.
To find such a common thread that would shape the job attitudes of all members of any organization, the organization itself needs to be organized in certain areas and eventually create that common thread. Therefore, the areas that need to be reviewed next are company visionphilosophy company culture appropriate leadership style appropriate SHRM tool to arrange for the appropriate selection, recruitment, and training of employees reward structure and monitoring of the entire process of human capital management. All of these areas have a bearing on the job attitudes of the members of any organization.
For example, organizations should apply an appropriate type of business philosophy that can influence job attitude, leadership should work in tandem with the vision of the management, besides applying its unique qualities that can affect the job attitude of the employees motivation and reward system should be improvised with enhanced knowledge regarding the mechanism of motivation towards achieving desired employee job attitude. In this process an improved company culture and appropriate SHRM will contribute significantly to develop multiculturalism and team communication to bring out the best from its employees.
SHRM It should be able to carry the company vision and mission in its actions.
Understandably, all of the above should be aligned with the present business environment to maintain a balanced approach towards achieving the desired outcome. Therefore, this study now reviews the relevant literature on the above areas to gather a fair idea about how that much-needed, thread can be created with the elements from these areas.
Company Philosophy
The business philosophy of a company reflects in its strategy of goal setting, besides its ethical stance. It also considerably influences the job attitudes of the employees. For example, if a company adopts a philosophy of sustainable competitive advantage (Porter, 1985), it would also adopt Porters five forces model (Chapman, 2005) or generic strategy (Porter, 1998) to gather clues about which strategy would suit it.
Companies need to adopt their own philosophies to create their own roadmaps accordingly, the elements of these roadmaps are bound to influence the employees job attitudes because any philosophy requires a set of favorable job attitudes to become a reality. The point of concern is to determine which philosophy under the context of the postdownturn business environment of the DMS would be the most effective in eliciting the desired job attitudes from the employees of the DMS. It would be pertinent to recall one of the most important preconditions of the desired solution, which is to elicit the said job attitude without spending money, that is, where the job attitude would provide more for less. This precondition, however, works as a clue toward discarding one of the more popular models of business philosophy, namely, sustainable competitive advantage, since it was followed by most of the companies that are now either extinct or gaping for survival due to the onslaught of downturn.
The failure of popular business philosophies like sustainable competitive advantage and the lack of business opportunities in the postdownturn business environment has illustrated that companies now need to adopt philosophies that focus on creating opportunities. It is here that a business philosophystrategy like opportunity creation and exploitation (OCE Dudik, 2000) is useful because it suggests a flexible approach to meet the volatile state of the market, where even an apparently nonbusiness endeavor can bridge to a greater business. For example, a cheap printer can fetch large businesses involving ink and paper, and a free modem can ensure steady earnings through broadband service. From the perspective of the DMS, which needs unique solutions for unique situations, this philosophy looks ideal because the OCE strategy does not follow any fixed pattern of action instead, it wants to break free from the practice of confining employees within a prefixed set of work and motivating them extrinsically to get the job done (Dudik, 2000).
Accordingly, the OCE strategy breaks down its operations into four phases to match dynamic situations with dynamic strategies while taking care of all possible business environments deterministic, moderately variable, severely variable, and indeterminate (Dudik, 2000). It also accommodates the facts such as environments like above heavily influences the outcomes of business, or all businesses have a lifespan divided into four phases. Such an approach helps the OCE strategy to adjusts its actions, including opportunity creation and discovery opportunity recognition, breakthrough, and exploitation opportunity consolidation and opportunity dismantling and recycling. This action plan invites the employees to exercise their creativity and presence of mind, which may seem a challenge and a way to earn recognition. Therefore, considering the nature of the jobs in the DMS, the OCE strategy looks an appropriate company philosophy to practice. However, one should not forget that company culture also is dependent on company philosophy therefore, this study will review literature on company culture to know what kind of company culture could be suitable to for OCE.
Company Culture Multiculturalism and Cultural Competency
The impact of globalization are now heavily felt by the organizations in the shape of multiculturalism, and the organizations need to review them from time to time for the sake of their future line of actions. For example, modern organizations are well aware that the world has become a global village business zones extend beyond communities and the business process now depends heavily on the cultural attitudes of humans and now includes people from all races, religions, and regions. In keeping with this inclusive view of the world, it is important to consider a multiculturalism perspective.
Companies also have moved from monoculturalism to multiculturalism in the workplace because their workforces now comprise people from diverse countries and cultures. They need to review this issue on a regular basis because culture is highly influenced by such elements like religion, belief, or region, and culture can provoke humans to create tacit agreement among people of one particular culture to shape their job attitudes. This is, however, a normal tendency, as this is what drove the humans to form organizations at its initial stage (Eleison, 2008).
There are three broad categories organizations (a) organizations formed to maintain group sentiments, which confine their actions towards fulfilling the aim of their respective groups (b) organizations formed to serve the humanity irrespective of any prejudice and (c) organizations that evolve with business aims and want to expand across the globe. The first one is an instance of a monocultural organization, and the others carry examples of multicultural organization with different aims. Monocultural organizations can,range from religious groups to racial groups, and they can carry open and hidden agendas. For example, organizations like Ku Klux Klan openly declare that they want to safeguard the interest of their group, wheras terrorist or religious groups may not want to disclose what they are planning. Such groups exercise their influence over working people, and it is here that companies may face trouble if such groups influence any segment of their employees, which would clearly affect the desired job attitudes of the employees.
The members of monocultural organizations usually are driven by loyalty factors that nurture their respective group aims and objectives, irrespective of their alignment with ethics or other social implications (dErrico, 1990 see Figure 4). Organizations belonging to the DMS also can be the victim of such circumstances, so they have to focus on developing the cultural competency of their employees at the outset. They need to make their employees aware of the nature of organizations and the evolution of a business organization in a global context.
Figure 4. Journey of multicultural organizations. (Created from the concepts of dErrico, 1990)
Because the influence of regional cultures includes the languages, social customs, and unique lifestyles of various regions, humans can be intolerant of other cultures due to many reasons like different views on social customs, world-view, and so on. Thus this trait can highly damage the company proceedings. This is where the issue of gaining cultural competency becomes relevant. There are many training models of cultural competency, and the companies in the DMS can adopt any one of them. One example is Kwongs model (2008), which has three distinctive sections of practice and application.
Kwongs Model
Kwong (2008) prepared this model for acquiring multicultural skills that can help employees to develop a multicultural workplace ambience. This model has three sections
A fundamental framework This module develops cultural sensitivity and awareness in learners, besides emphasizing on attitudinal and cultural development of them. It utilizes instances of bicultural experiences and the application of communication theories.
Essential components This part initiates cultural competency practice.
Assessment and reorientation This part evaluates the progress of the learners.
Kwongs model provides a guide to obtaining multicultural skills in the workplace. A framed version of three levels of the model can be viewed in Figure 5.
Figure 5. Kwongs multicultural skill levels. (Adapted from Kwong 2008)
The OCE strategy can be an appropriate company philosophy for the organizations in the DMS and to apply the OCE strategy, the organizations should adhere to the principles of multiculturalism by making their employees culturally competent. These issues are integrated and equally influential in shaping employees job attitudes. In the absence of a smooth flow of communication, neither the OCE strategy nor cultural competency can be implemented. Therefore, the researcher decided to review the role of team communication in applying the OCE strategy and cultural competency, as well as adding more thrust in shaping job attitude.
Team Communication
Communication bridges all individual activities of any project (Sheryl, 2009, p.). Team communication also can be considered one of the major components of organizational culture, which helps to align employees perception about the companys vision, mission, and goal, and generate their motivation to achieve that goal by collective effort. Team communication can be of two types, namely, interteam communication, which works at the macrolevel, and tntrateam communication, which works at the microlevel. In the case of interteam communication, various teams operate in tandem in different capacities with the sole aim of achieving the companys goal (see Figure 6).
Figure 6. Interteam communication. (Inspired by concepts of Sookman 2008)
In the case of intrateam communication (see Figure 7), the members have the same goal (see the background green color of each member) that is governed by the companys goal or vision (the background color (green) of the advisory team which is similar with all of the other such teams). This process would enhance the companys performance and create better interpersonal relationships and greater understanding about the company, which could greatly influence job attitude.
Figure 7. Intrateam communication. (Inspired by concepts of Sookman 2008)
The issue of team communication is no less important in the process of shaping the job attitudes of the employees in the DMS (see Table 1).
Table 1
General Benefits of Team Communication
Each member is aware of the role of any member that helps to perform hisher own task in less timeEach taking less time to do tasks increases productivity and to spare time for creative thinkingEnhances motivation among members to achieve the targetJob satisfaction risesLevel of mutual trust and support increasesBetter action plans take placeEach member is aware of company objectiveDiverse coworkers get along well to performOverall success attained
Team communication has become an extremely important issue because the human capital has now firmly positioned as the axis of business and new concepts have come up to meet the complexities of the modern times. For example, Fishbeins expectancy value theory that speaks about how people can mould themselves to the world by aligning their expectationsbelief and evaluations can prove handy to organizations. This theory suggests that behavior or behavioral intentions or attitudes are the outcomes of expectancy and evaluation, where the expectancy is an idea about a situation or object and evaluation is ones estimation about the impact of that idea, situation, or object on any plane. Therefore, failure in information exchange occurs due to the ignorance about what others need or due to the wrong assumption regarding the outcome of information exchange.
To shape the job attitudes of the employees, management need to ensure that the employees not work on assumptions, confirm their understanding on anything associated with company development, and recognize and appreciate their colleagues contributions at every level of the operation. These ideas align with Sookmans (2008) concept of creating and maintaining a team structure that would bring great achievements for a team. The members of a successful team seldom want to leave the team, which points to the efficacy of the companys vision and culture, and highlights the significance of establishing an appropriate company culture to create the desired job attitudes among employees. It is here that the question of guiding light arrives, that is, the need for able leadership. Following is a review of the leadership behavior, another important tool for companies to shape the job attitudes of the employees.
Leadership Behavior
The leadership of any company is primarily responsible for carrying the concept of its management, so in a way, the leadership of a company can be considered as highly responsible in shaping the desired job attitudes of the employees. The leaders are expected to possess the right qualities to effectively meet their responsibility in this regard (Covey, 1992). Accordingly, the desired qualities of the leadership in the chosen business segment, that is, the DMS, can be divided into the two categories of basic qualities and special qualities.
Basic Elements of Leadership
The basic elements of leadership are (Covey, 1992 Northouse, 1997)
Effective communication The leaders should be able to influence and direct people toward the chosen direction through effective communication.
Vision The leaders should be able to envision the near future, besides having a full grasp of the current situation.
Application The leaders should be able to find the shortest possible routes to the desired outcome and should be able to convince their followers about the efficacy of their plans.
According to Covey (1992), factors such as direction and goal should be the leaders top priority. Maxwell (as cited in Das, 2004) opined that they also are learnable.
Special Elements of Leadership
Under the given context, the leaders of the companies in the DMS definitely require special qualities to help them to shape the desired job attitudes of their employees, that is, to be more involved and produce more at less, thereby going against the traditional concept of producing more based on financial incentive. To achieve this outcome, the employees perception about reward system needs to be transformed, which is another precondition that demands the implementation of transformational leadership (Bass, 1998). Following is a review of the special elements of transformational leadership and its improvised version, servant leadership.
Houston and Sokolow (2006) prepared a guideline toward qualifying for servant leadership that lists the following elements
Intention The leaders must convey and convince their followers about their intentions.
Attention They must be attentive to all issues that are associated with the development of their team members and the organization.
Unique Gifts and Talent Leaders should possess any special quality and should exploit such talents and skills for the benefit of the their followers.
Gratitude Respect should be their way to enter the hearts of their followers and to boost their morale.
Exploiting real-life examples They should know how to exploit real-life stories to interpret a situation or its possible outcome, which could be a source of knowledge and wisdom to their followers.
Holistic Perspective Leaders should take holistic path to develop the spirit of the followers.
Openness Leaders should be open to ideas and opinions of the followers and should to utilize such ideas for the development of the organization.
Trust Leaders must establish trust between them and the followers.
According to this guideline, these factors are necessary to promote change from within the organization.
There may be argument why this researcher did not consider transactional leadership, the other popular form of leadership, under the context. To defend the choice, this study presents two views of researchers. The first one describes transactional leadership style as one that takes the route of the give-and-take principle and looks to maintain stability rather than promote change within the organization (Lussier Achua, 2004). The other view is that transactional leaders use reward and punishment as their tools to promote performance, which eventually converts the leader-follower relationship into an economic exchange transaction (Gellis, 2001 Jung Avolio, 1999).
These views of transactional leadership are enough to show that this style would not be applicable in the DMS because the first precondition of a desired solution is to achieve quality employee attitude by not spending any money. On the other hand, transformational leadership, especially its improvised version of servant leadership makes 247 selfless service its ground rule (Greenleaf, 1977), which clearly fits the demand of the situation in the DMS. This leadership style itself sets the example of providing more at less cost before the employees right from the beginning.
A Brief Review of Servant Leadership
Northhouse (1997) pointed out that even though servant leadership follows high ethical standards and provides long-term solutions for a company, its mentor, Greenleaf (1977), issued a cautionary note to aspiring servant leaders by noting that leaders should be servants first. He identified a set of 11 traits that may look like below
Calling Servant leaders should possess an intrinsic desire to serve, and in this regard, their actions should speak louder than words.
Listening They should be excellent listeners, besides possessing the ability to honestly process the views of their followers.
Empathy They should possess a natural ability to empathize and earn confidence from their followers.
Healing They should be the ones to whom the followers would turn to find solace or solution, to give vent to their pent-up feelings, or to collect valuable guidance.
Awareness They should be well informed about the events taking place all around to prevent any possibility of getting misled by wrong information.
Persuasion They should possess strong persuasion skills and exploit that to get things done, instead of issuing orders.
Conceptualization They should be a good reader and observer of situations, besides having a knack to guess the future.
Foresight This more or less emphasizes the ability to look outside the box by envisioning the future with the help of logic and wisdom.
Stewardship They should aim to create servant leaders out of every followers inspiring, guiding and grooming them with all possible virtues of servant leadership.
Growth They should be driven by an innate desire to see the followers growing to the best of their potential.
Building community They should be able to create a homely and bonhomie ambience in the workplace.
Greenleaf considered these traits necessary in promoting a lasting bond between the leadership and workers.
According to Stone et al. (2004), servant leaders are Type S leaders under a framework where servant leadership is considered Theory S, which is distinctly different from three other theories, X, Y, and Z, as framed by McGregor (1967). The briefest description of them is as follows
Theory X Considers workers as lazy and suggests that they need to be monitored and governed.
Theory Y Considers workers self-motivated and responsible individuals who have a deep interest in their work.
Theory Z Applies both the ideas like monitoring leaving the motivation issue on the workers.
Theory S Takes care of leadership motivation and creates a bridge of trust between the leader and the workers, where the workers feel convinced that the leader is trying to empower them. From this perspective, Theory S is the most desirable in creating the continuity of communication and bonding.
From the perspective of the review, servant leadership appears to be a selfless catalyst for change and wants to exploit all spiritual knowledge and sense of ethical axioms, which easily traverses beyond the material transaction of the world. These elements are needed to transform the employees from the core, so there is no doubt that this style of leadership is ideal for the DMS under the present context. This study attempts to list the elements this leadership style with the following words, which are actually coined by the researchers when they described servant leadership (see Figure 8)
Moral Love Serves as the fountainhead of this leadership (Winston, 2004).
Humility This is the top degree of modesty (Hare, 1996).
Altruism The way to achieve others well-being (Patterson, 2003).
Self-awareness It is the ability to recognize a particular feeling and determining the cause working behind it (Baron, 2004, p. 15).
Authenticity A power to know and understand ones values (Kouzes Posner, 2002). A broad dimension containing sub-dimensions like humility, security, integrity, vulnerability, and accountability (Sendjaya and Sarros, 2002, p. 57).
Integrity The ability to align the thoughts of doing good for the world with actions (Wright, 2004).
Trust The power to build trust that is consistent with values (Kouzes and Posner, 2003).
Empowerment Unique approach that wants to create leaders among followers (Stanley and Clinton, 1992).
Service An easily identifiable trait of a true servant leader (Greenleaf, 1977).
Figure 8. Elements of servant leadership. (From the concept of Greenleaf, 1977)
The review has dealt with the OCE strategy, multiculturalism, cultural competency, effective team communication, and servant leadership. All of them appear to be connected with one another in the formulation of a plan to achieve the desired job attitudes from the employees of the DMS, namely, high commitment to and a strong bond with the company, as well as a desire among prospective employees to join the companies in this sector. Current and prospective employees need to be strongly motivated, and all arrangements should be made to motivate them. Following is a review of the mechanism of motivation to understand how it works and what should be done to generate the desired level of motivation of the DMS employees.
Motivation
Motivation is the driver of all human actions that is fueled by needs that evolve with life situations. The organizations in the DMS cannot deal with the process of shaping job attitude without knowing the need structure of humans, and for that matter they have handy basic theories on human needs, like Maslows (1943) hierarchy of human needs or Alderfers ERG Theory (Existence-Relatedness-Growth) theory (ERG, 2007).
Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow (1943) divided human needs into five broad categories and their components
Physiological needs air, water, nourishment and sleep.
Safety needs safety and security in the living space and the workplace.
Social needs associated with group activities, socialization, or enhanced interpersonal communication, through which humans form a bond with the society.
Esteem needs the desire to achieve recognition and social status.
Self-actualization at the end of life, one becomes inclined to discover ones true self.
Maslows theory is fundamental in describing human needs. However, Maslow suggested that such needs have their stages to appear in human life like one qualifies for seeking safety needs only after fulfilling basic needs, and then goes for social needs after fulfilling safety needs and so on. However, this cannot happen always in real life. For example a painter can do a wonderful painting while living under abject poverty, where his unfilled basic needs does net deter him to exploit his self esteem.
ERG Theory
To address such gaps in Maslows theory, Clayton Alderfer (ERG, 2007) presented ERG theory that added more flexibility to Maslows model by recognizing individual needs of humans by redistributing the elements from Maslows model into three sections (a). existence (E), which involves physiological and safety needs (b) relatedness (R), which contains social and external esteem needs and (c) growth (G), which involves self-actualization and internal esteem needs (ERG, 2007). This model accommodates the fact that anyone can be driven by any of the needs irrespective of the state of fulfillment of hisher other needs. With such concept, this ERG model also provides a frustration-regression principle, which enables humans to placate their minds regarding a certain unfulfilled need by fulfilling the need next in the priority order. For example, an employee may become aggrieved if the company fails to provide a decent flat, but the employee can placate hisher mind by availing the perks provided for comfortable transportation. Thus, this model allows companies to identify any of the E, R, or G needs of each employee and to address them.
This model promotes the frustration-regression principle, which is applicable to situations in which individuals fulfill one need after failing to meet another higher need, such as when the company fails to fulfill the safety need of an employee but supplants it by recognizing their performance on the job through incentives. This process can be instrumental in engaging or retaining the employees because it reflects the positive intention of management towards the welfare and development of the employees (ERG, 2007). The mechanism of motivation can determine the type of motivation that may be instrumental in employee engagement or retention.
Mechanism of Human Mind
The core of motivation contains three elements like consciousness, inverted qualia, and absent qualia, which causes various mental states, and where the consciousness has six major identifiable states
State of awareness When one becomes conscious of ones own presence (Rosenthal, 1986).
Qualitative states When one senses a special feeling out of something like enjoying a meal or experiencing a pain. These are referred to as qualia, which are regarded as intrinsic, and inexplicable features of experience (Dennet, 1990).
Phenomenal states They involve more than sensory qualia. They cover the spatial, temporal, and conceptual organization of experience regarding the world and ones own view about it.
What-it-is-like states These states occur when a human associates a sense of experience with another, like a picture of rose on the bottle of a perfume.
Access consciousness This state occurs when a human deals with intramental relations, such as seeing a thing, ideating something, and then deciding on something.
Narrative consciousness This state occurs when a person experiences an ongoing series of thoughts emanating from real life or from within (Dennett, 1991).
It is from this core of motivation list that the correlations among intrinsic motivation, business philosophy, multiculturalism, cultural competency, and servant leadership become clear. Business philosophy creates a clear picture of the journey of the organizations in the DMS, which are multicultural in nature. Cultural competency is the tool to achieve team communication and align the companys philosophy with the goals of the employees. Servant leadership is a catalyst of change at every level of the operation that can intrinsically motivate the employees to adopt the desired job attitudes (see Figure 9).
Figure 9. Mechanism of motivation. (Inspired by comments of Dennett, 1990, 1991 and Rosenthal, 1986)
The issue of effectively exploiting intrinsic motivation of humans and the journey of motivation (see Figure 10) must be examined because the other type of motivation, extrinsic motivation, can divert the focus of the employees because it is object oriented. The reward system and other motivating tools also need to be reviewed.
Figure 10. Journey of motivation. (Inspired by Steers an Porter, 1979)
Reward System and Other Motivating Tools
Every behavior comes out of pain and gain principle (Khera, 2004, p. 110),
a statement that explains the impact of rewards or recognition. This principle is no less true in the business world, where reward systems can highly influence human beings and direct their future course of action. In general, rewards are tangible (e.g., money, vacations, or gifts) or intangible (recognition, appreciation, sense of achievement, growth, responsibility, sense of fulfillment, self-worth, etc.). Both types of rewards can feature different reward systems
Retention Considered as critical to the long-term health and success of the company (Heathfield, 2008), this type of reward can be interpreted as intrinsic or extrinsic by employees and management.
Morale Praise, love, faith, compassion, and so on, belong to the category of intrinsic reward.
Job enrichment The scope of in-house learning can groom employees to become experts in their related fields. This reward may be intrinsic or extrinsic for employees and employers.
Reinforcement This tool can control employee behavior (Positive, 2000) and arguably binds the company activities together.
As mentioned earlier, such factors as job satisfaction or goal-setting and performance appraisals can help to motivate employees because they can boost self-belief, and belief is a thought that can exploit the power of subconscious in all phases of life (Murphy, 2001).
The reward structure of a company can be instrumental in raising employee motivation, which can then increase employee cooperation, effort, and overall satisfaction among all members of the company (Cacioppe, 1999). Other researchers have supported this view (Hackman, 1997 Shea Guzzo 1987) and have suggested aligning rewards with group activities. The basic criterion for setting up a reward structure should be governed by common logic, such as raising the productivity of the entire workforce, even if the rewards are not for all employees (Caudron, 1994).
The significance of the reward system requires a clinical explanation of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards to ascertain the degree of efficacy in each of them. According to Deci (1975), intrinsic rewards generate a sense of personal causation, which is an innate mechanism of human mind that eventually serves as a guiding engine for the action. Its elements are usually intangible, and they play on human perception. Extrinsic rewards generate perception of external causation (Deci, 1975), where the reward is mostly tangible, including money, promotion to a higher position, or material gain.
However, Guzzo (1979) counters Decis (1975) suggestions by arguing against the existence of any division in the reward system. In his view, a reward is a single, usable tool to influence the frequency of the desired attitude responses of the employees. His assertion had supporters in Hull (1943) and Skinner (1953), both of whom preferred to simplify the extrinsic reward system as a direct link between stimulus and response. This view included punishment as a stimulus.
The aforementioned views were challenged by the critics of extrinsic motivation, who noted cost involvement or the employers intention to control the will of the employees as potential roadblocks for companies. Deci and Ryan (1985) suggested that human beings constantly reassess the reasons for their behaviors, and from this point of view, extrinsic reward can generate sensitive issues like hatred, jealousy or a taken-for granted situation where employees would not be motivated with extrinsic rewards, but will get de-motivated in the absence of it. Even 12 years before that, Lepper et al. (1973) suggested that reinforcement could generate two outcomes for management, namely, gain control over employees activities and productivity, and feel the backlash effect in the absence of reinforcement. For example, a group or an individual gets a reward of x amount of money for a period y, where
x y m, with m being the increased rate of production. Before that, the situation was y z, where production was z. In the absence of reinforcement and with the influence of attribution theory, the situation would stand like y - x n, where n z (Lepper et al., 1973).
The proponents of the extrinsic reward system faced another finding that showed the existence of intrinsic motivation and pointed out that it is more powerful in generating employee motivation (Tucker et al., 2005). They cite the results of a survey that only 43 percent of the organizations in the study considered their performance-related reward schemes (i.e., extrinsic reward schemes) successful. Consequently, the strategic reward development process, or the total reward strategy, has been gaining ground (Brown, 2006) because it is a balanced mix of both types of rewards (see Figure 11).
Figure 11. Total reward strategy. (Inspired by comments of Brown, 2006)
However, Robertson, the director of workplaces survey consultancy JRA, brought in the role of leadership over and above the employer of choice because leadership happens to be the immediate face of the employer (as cited in Ruth, 2008). Robertson identified six key drivers of job attitude a sense of personal achievement, knowledge and skills that are appropriately utilized in work bonhomie workplace atmosphere, smooth flow of open and honest communication assurance of support and camaraderie, and scope for career and personal development. However this study now attempts to frame an ideal reward system (see Figure 12)
Figure 12. Ideal reward structure. (Adapted from Hackman, 1973)
The review of the literature on the reward system confirmed that intrinsic motivation is more forceful than extrinsic motivation and that contrary to popular belief, extrinsic rewards can be harmful to organizations. It is pertinent to mention again that both the OCE strategy and servant leadership need the support of intrinsic motivation. Before presenting a framed version of the correlations among OCE, servant leadership and intrinsic motivation can be established (see Figure 13). The diagram depicts a possible mechanism of OCE and servant leadership, where servant leadership works through the all spheres of employees lives to inculcate the spirit of work and make them consciously chasing the goal, which is backed by the OCE philosophy. The diagram also highlights the limited scope of transactional leadership, as well as extrinsic motivation, because transaction leadership remains confined within the working sphere and extrinsic rewards at best can work at intervals. Therefore, it is the constant flow of intrinsic motivation generated from a concerted approach of OCE and servant leadership that looks ideal for shaping the attitude of DMS employees.
Figure 13. Correlations among OCE, servant leadership, and intrinsic motivation. (Inspired by concepts of Greenleaf, 1977 Deci, 1975 Dudik, 2000)
The study reviews the literature on HRM, which is entrusted to activate the ideas and concepts of the leadership and management to realize the goal of the organization.
HRM
As mentioned earlier, the rise of human capital brought HRM to the forefront of business organizations. It currently plays an extremely important role in organizations because the key to their economic success is the effective management of its human resources (Huselid, 1995). According to Kontoghiorghes (2003), Competitiveness will ultimately depend on their capability to configure people and design a system for optimal execution of strategy (p. 28).
HRM values the intangible elements that have a huge bearing on organizational performance. Researchers such as Carmeli and Tishler (2004) have examined these intangible sources of competitive advantage, including management capabilities, human and organizational resources and skills, and the external reputation of the organization. In 1992, Wright and McMahan suggested that human resources could provide a unique source of competitive advantage that is difficult for competitors to imitate that and human capital can add to the organizational competitive advantage when basic requirements are met employees adding value to the company by virtue of their performance, unique skills of the employees benefiting the company, and making employee skills and knowledge company specific and inimitable.
To fulfill such requirements companies need to have a system that consistently looks after them. It is here that HRM steps in by managing the human capital and meeting the demands of the organizations that stress that employees enhance their basic skills and knowledge requirements (Hatch Dyer, 2004). This need has expanded the horizon of HRM with newer sets of activities (see Figure 14). The diagram depicts the modern structure of HRM in organizations. The responsibilities that are displayed have made the HRM an integral part of the organizations, which too is expected to align its activities with the vision and mission of the organization.
Figure 14. Evolved state of the HRM. (Inspired by concepts of Hatch and Dryer, 2004)
Desired Approach of HRM
The desired roles of HRM consists of the following elements
Containing global workforces with growing state of skills all around Matching the high speed of modern-day operation
Networking to explore business opportunities Accommodating knowledge-based economy, where intellectual capital can drive the value of products
Accommodating democratized state of power, were an individual is empowered by the virtual Information Bank and ones own network
Aligning with the trend of recognizing free minds, free markets and free trade
Accepting the fact that business success is no more dependent on financial capital
Recognizing the newfound scope for an individual to create and sell any product all by ones own, and to a high degree. This feature was a radical shift in the attitude of HRM from the core business concept of pre-Information Age, where the economy would bank on collective human endeavors like mass production, mass marketing and mass media (Isaacson, 1997 see Figure 15).
Figure 15 Current face of modern HRM (Inspired by
concepts of Isaacson, 1997)
According to Welch (2003), a company can garner competitive advantage if it is able to learn and quickly translate that learning into action. This in fact points at the efficacy of the HRM of a company too, as HRM is now responsible to make employees eager to learn and apply that knowledge in their actions in other words, HRM is assigned to increase institutional intelligence, or Corporate IQ (Rennie, 2003) in its newfound avatar of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM).
Application of SHRM Tool
From the perspective of the DMS business environment, the need for applying
the SHRM application tool is evident. The companies in the DMS would do well to exploit the potential of an SHRM application tool like the HPWS, which is a specific combination of HR practices, work structures, and processes meant to maximize employees knowledge, skill, commitment, and flexibility (Bohlander, 2004). The HPWS has many interrelated parts, complementing one another to achieve the cherished goal for the organization. Simply put, the system design has three parts workflow, HRM practices, and support technology. The HPWS assesses the above parts with strategy and principles of high involvement before implementing its process and observing the outcomes in organizational and employee levels. In brief, the HPWS strives to create a workplace environment in which the employees can readily apply themselves with a satisfied frame of mind (Brown, 2006).
The HPWS was born out of the crunch period of the U.S. manufacturing industry in the late 20th century (Barnes, 2001), when it faced fierce global competition and saw the need to reform the manufacturing process. Accordingly, the HPWS emerged with practical ideas to reform the workplace behaviors of employees. It started with involvement, training, and incentives before adding support technology to become a full- fledged system.
Involvement aims to provide more scopes for the employees to participate in decision-making process (Barnes, 2001) and ensure free flow of information exchange among the members of the company. Training aims to develop the employees knowledge and skill base by implementing a culture of on-site training. It also encourages the employees to supply and apply new ideas to develop the companys activity. It aims to maintain a constant flow of learning among the employees. Rewards aims to align the goals of individual employee with the companys goals by providing an open and fair reward structure that is governed by the objective of making both parties benefit.
Technology aims to exploits the advantage of modern technology to make the system more effective. The HPWS aims to create an egalitarian workplace environment in which collaboration and teamwork replace status and power differences (see Figure 16).
Figure 16. Basic HPWS framework. (Inspired by concepts of Barnes, 2001)
The HPWS works on the internal and external layers of the organization, thereby ensuring internal fit and external fit. Internal fit deals with the internal elements of the work system so that they complement and reinforce one another. External fit works toward creating a state where the work system effectively supports the organizations goals and strategies (see Figures 17 18).
Figure 17. Internal and external situations. (Inspired by concepts of Barnes, 2001)
Figure 18. The HPWS. (From the concepts of Barnes, 2001)
The review of the literature showed that the HPWS takes all affairs of the organization into consideration and applies its strategy on the three factors like competitive challenges, company values, and employees concerns. In the process, it gathers inputs from the evaluation of its internal and external conditions to underpin its problems and to rectify them. Thus, it works on the elements of leadership behavior, technologies, workflow design, and HR practices, before determining and recommending specific fits for a particular organization.
Summary
This chapter opened up with the theoretical perspective of job attitude, followed by the conceptual framework and the identification of the relevant areas for review spread among the three dimensions of the organizations in the DMS. The chapter included an examination of several important issues related to the research problem, including of the current business environment, the importance of employees job attitudes and the companys vision and philosophy, company culture, appropriate leadership style, and appropriate SHRM tools. Also included in the chapter was a discussion of the mechanism of motivation to gather a clear understanding about it, besides underpinning the right type of motivation for DMS.
Chapter 3 explains the research method and explains the nature of surveys conducted among HR managers and personnel from the DMS, covering the dependent and independent variables step by step, where Step 1 involves interviews with HR managers and Step 2 involves questionnaire feedback from qualified employees from the DMS. The theoretical interpretation of the method is included in this chapter, along with a reiteration of the research questions and hypotheses.
Chapter 3 Research Method
Overview
The focus of this qualitative, descriptive study is to explore the motivational needs of the DMS employees toward forming the desired job attitudes. The chapter explains the chosen theoretical premise of research, the basic framework of qualitative descriptive study, and the research questions and hypothesis to ascertain the appropriateness of the method. The chapter also provides a description of the instrumentation, data collection and processing, methodological limitations, and ethical assurances.
Theoretical Background
This study will utilize the theories of induction (Reichenbach, 1938 Inductivism, 2008) and falsification (Popper, 1959), to analyze its data gathered from literature review, interview and survey, where it will apply induction method to analyze the data from interview and literature review, while falsification method will be applied to analyze the data gathered from opinion survey of the employees. The study will examine decision-making process of the employees in DMS with help of Herzbergs (1968) two-factor model and Maslows (1943) needs model. The responses to the survey questions are expected to answer the studys research questions pertaining to job satisfaction and motivational factors working behind them.
This study will attempt to follow Trochims (2001) suggestion that researchers must adhere to four criteria when building a sound qualitative research methodology
Credibility The researchers findings must be credible from the perspective of the participants, where the method, means, and conclusions of the study would be believable.
Transferability Others should be able to generalize or utilize the research under different context, such as different projects.
Dependability The researcher should be accountable for the dynamic context of research and should be able to describe and explain the impact of such changes on the research processes.
Confirmability The research should confirm its results through adequate and convincing proof and should earn others confirmation in one or the other way. (p. 142)
The researcher will take every care to ensure that the credibility and transferability are maintained in the investigation and accordingly will seek feedback from the participants, besides thoroughly explaining the research context and the assumptions that remained at the core of the research. For instance, the researcher will seek feedback from the two groups that will comprise the sample the HRM professionals and the employees with various levels of experience in the DMS. The input gathered from the groups will be crosschecked to ascertain the efficacy of the survey instrument.
The collected input of this research and the results will serve as valuable sources of information in general as well as in the context of the DMS, for which there is no literature on the job attitudes of the employees.
The study also will attempt to ensure that the findings are dependable by observing and annotating the changes affecting the research in the dissertation report, besides earning confirmability by conducting data audit, where it will examine the gathered data through reliable computation software program. Apart from that the researcher will guard the study from any bias or partial judgment (Trochim, 2001).
The study will adhere to McMillan and Schumachers (2001) suggestion to follow these criteria in judging the adequacy of descriptive research
Provide a clear and identifiable research problem.
Clearly describe the chosen population and procedures.
Maintain the accurate representation of the results.
Align the summary of the findings and recommendations with the results.
In the process, the researcher will attempt to follow the advice of Key (1997) to maintain the validity of qualitative research becoming an intent listener recording accurately initiating writing from an early stage of the research, including the primary data in the report and all data in the final report maintaining a candid approach seeking honest feedback remaining alert to maintain overall balance of presentation and writing precisely and accurately.
Research Design
The qualitative descriptive study will be framed between Survey 1 and Survey 2. The former will contain interviews with HRM managers of 10 organizations in the DMS, and the later will contain a questionnaire survey of 50 employees from the DMS who have various degrees of experience. Thus a researcher-designed survey instrument will be used with other appropriate procedures to select the participants and the data collection and analysis.
Justification of Research Approach
The research design of a study determines the order of execution of the research elements. There are many such designs, out of which this study has chosen a combination of the inductive (Inductivism, 2008) and falsification (Popper, 1959) methods. The chosen design requires an exploration of all of the available variables and an in-depth explanation of the motivational and management needs of the employees in the DMS through a qualitative and descriptive approach. The researcher felt encouraged by finding support from Trochim (2001), who asserted that descriptive studies could provide a one-time snapshot or description of a target population or a phenomenon at a given point in time.
Materials and Instruments
Sample
According to Sandelowski (1995), the right size of the sample in qualitative research eventually becomes a matter of judgment. He also observed that a sample of 30 can be a viable starting point in qualitative research. In this study, the researcher will approach 24 HRM professionals and 60 qualified employees in the DMS through electronic and snail mail with prepaid envelope. While selecting the sample, the researcher will consider the following factors The organizations strictly belong to the DMS, the organizations have a record of at least 5 years of experience in the sector, and the HRM professionals have at least 2 years of experience in the DMS. The employees have various levels of job experience (see Table 2).
Table 2
Distribution of Sample
Disaster management sectorHRM managersEmployees10 years of experience255-8 years of experience4122-4 years of experience4231 year of experience20Total1050
The researcher will prepare two questionnaires to analyze the situation from the perspectives of the HRM professionals and the employees. The questionnaires will contain opinion-based questions with options or descriptive answers. The questions will be placed in table form to facilitate the responses on a 5-point Likert scale with a ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree Likert, 2009).
The researcher will try to ensure that the questions placed in the interview or the survey cover both dependent and independent variables pertaining to research. After that, the study will use qualitative, summary statistics to analyze the entire feedback with the help of a Likert rating scale that measures the strength of agreement with a clear statement, administered in the form of a questionnaire to gauge attitudes or reactions (Likert, 2009).
The results from the answers collected in the above manner will be obtained through simple tables that will serve as determinants of the workplace motivation of the employees of DMS, besides underpinning the drivers affecting their job attitude.
Research Problem, Questions and Hypothesis
Restatement of the Problem and Purpose
There is no available literature that underpinned the issue of job attitude in DMS or addressed it in any manner, and such state of affairs highlights the fact that DMSs need to underpin the key drivers of desired job attitude still remains unattended, which in turn affecting its performance where poor performance may have serious implications on sustenance and development of human and natural wealth. Therefore this study aims to investigate the role of HR practices in the DMS to engage, attract, and retain qualified employees through a comprehensive action plan.
Research Questions and Hypothesis
The primary research question of this study is, What can be the ideal solution for deserving job attitude in DMS
The secondary question asks, What are the key drivers to attain the desired employee job attitudes in the DMS
The secondary question carries a subset of question like below
What kind of company philosophy in the DMS can build better a bond with its employees
What kind of leadership can be instrumental in achieving the desired outcome for the companies in this sector
What kind of reward system can motivate the DMS employees the most
What kind of workplace culture can influence them to stay
The hypotheses of this study
H0 There cannot be any ideal solution for deserving job attitude in DMS.
Ha Successful inculcation of intrinsic motivation will be the key driver towards achieving the desired job attitude in employees of DMS.
Towards finding the answers to the above questions, the researcher aims to conduct an extensive study of relevant literature and two surveys among HR professionals and employees belonging to DMS, where the sample population will comprise of experienced HR personnel and relief-workers from ARC or similar organizations. The independent variables of this study are, job satisfaction, job involvement and organizational commitment. The dependent variable is employee intent to leave.
Accordingly, the entire research started grouping up to see whether the above final hypothesis can be substantiated. In the process it used Inductive (Reichenbach, 1938) and Falsification (Popper, 1959) methods.
Procedures
The results of this research are expected to be descriptive because the research is based on the feedback of the survey that will be conducted among 10 HRM professionals and 50 employees of DMS. This process will require a series of steps logically arranged to identify the key drivers of the desired job attitudes among employees in DMS.
Therefore, the researcher will use two theories on human needs and motivation, namely, Maslows (1943) hierarchy of needs and Herzbergs (1968) two-factor theory while preparing Survey questionnaire.
The questionnaires will be administered through e-mail and snail mail with prepaid return envelope to the HRM professionals and employees under DMS, along with a detailed explanation of the purpose and significance of this study. The researcher will also issue a signed declaration that the privacy of each participant or company would be strictly guarded.
Instrumentation
Instruments will be provided in appendices. Opinions from the HRM professionals on issues pertaining to the HR practice will be collected through interviews, where the researcher will align the questions with the the concept of Maslows (1943) hierarchy of needs. Opinions from employees will be collected through questionnaire surveys, where the researcher will align the questions with the concept of the 16-hygienemotivator factors of Herzbergs (1968) two-factor theory of motivation.
Data Collection
According to Trochim (2001), descriptive statistics simply describes what the data show. Therefore, the researcher will review the responses of the participants with the help of computation software program that will facilitate data storage, compilation, and analysis. Summary statistics will be used during the study to include frequency counts and measures of central tendency (i.e., mean, median, and mode). Simple tables and graphs will be used to summarize the findings.
Data Analysis
The data will be analyzed using WISCO, downloadable software that provides an analysis of the entered parameters. The data from completed surveys will be entered into the software for computation and will be reported in chapter 4.
Methodological Limitations
Though the researcher considers that the responses to the survey items will be true and honest reflections of the respondents, it is impossible ascertain that each respondent will provide the same. Another limitation is the timeframe, which compels the researcher to abstain from applying compare and contrast method with more data gathered from the DMS through another survey. There may be argument about the nature of the questionnaires too, which will be self-designed and could be considered a methodological limitation.
Ethical Assurances
The qualitative, descriptive study will attempt to follow all ethical guidelines for survey administration and data analysis. The researcher will use two theories to guide the preparation of the surveys and will take every care to check that no question contains any kind of bias or anything that can emotionally hurt the respondent. Through a letter of introduction, the researcher will state the purpose and objective of this study, and will explain how the participants voluntary contribution would contribute to the research and development of social science. Each questionnaire will carry a consent letter, which the respondents will be asked to sign as a token declaration of their voluntary will to participate in the process of this research.
The researcher will provide a signed letter that will clearly assure the participants that any identifying information, including the names of their organizations, would not be disclosed under any circumstances. The researcher will also explain to the participants about the procedure of providing the feedback and the significance of honest responses. The respondents will be informed about the approximate time involved to complete the survey (15 minutes). Upon receiving the completed feedback duly signed by the respondents, the researcher will record all of the data and analyze them at the summary level while maintaining the anonymity of the participants..
The researcher will assure the participants that there is no physical, social, economic, or psychological risk associated with their participation in this survey. Because their participation is voluntary, no persuasive or overbearing strategy will be used to influence them. The researcher will explain to them how this study can benefit the DMS.
The researcher will be in complete control of all researched data, and the completed surveys will be maintained at the researchers private database. All completed questionnaires will be scored accurately and consistently.
Summary
This chapter provided an explanation of the theoretical background of the chosen methodology of this study, followed by a detailed description of the research design and the research questions and hypotheses. Also included in the chapter was information on the procedures and ethical assurances that will be maintained during the study.
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