ASSIGNMENT TWO May - 2011

MBA ADVANCED ENTRY

RESEARCH METHODS
DISSERTATION PROPOSAL
Proposed title

An investigation into the management practices for employee engagement a case study of Matalan Retail Ltd

(MODULE CODE: MBA404)

STUDENT ID: 10007810 SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 21th July2011 COURSEWORK OF 3500 WORDS

Table of Contents
1.0
1.1.1 1.2 Aim of the research

INTRODUCTION 4
4 5 6 6 7

Background and Purpose Research Question

1.2.1 1.3

Scope and Rationale Research objectives

1.3.1

2.0
2.1

LITERATURE REVIEW
Tools for Employee engagement

7
11

3.0
3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Model Research Approach Research Strategy Case study introduction: Matalan, Beckton Data collection and Analysis Ethics Limitation Conclusions Time Scale

12
12 13 14 14 15 16 16 16 17

List of figures
FIGURE 1: ANTICEDENTS AND EFFECTS OF FRONTLINE ENGAGEMENT (HOSPITALITY) FIGURE 2: DRIVERS OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT FIGURE 3: RESEARCH ONION 8 9 12

10Introduction
Studies indicate that engaging employees is the most important concern of an HR adopting appropriate management strategies (xxx). Similarly, CPID Annual Report (2007) emphasising on employer branding efforts categorically stated that employee engagement was the poorest and the lowest among the all other categories. This was the principal reason in proposing a research to be conducted on employee engagement a study of management practices. To empirically evaluated the results Matalan Retail Ltd has been chosen as case study.

Being an employee of Matalan retailing I have personally observed that the perception of the HRM and the employees with regard to productivity as well as the employee engagement differed in various aspects; which was also another principal reason behind choosing the area of study and the case study.

With the stated initial reason for submitting a proposal for the conduct of research the researcher aims to investigate in to employees attitude and behaviour in general and attempts to evaluate how effective management practices can contribute for employee engagement. This proposal further states its objectives as to identify the perception on employee engagement and empirically evaluate it. The proposal also identified that organisational culture can also impact employee engagement for which management practices can play a vital role in influencing employees perception towards engagement.

As the indicated area of research needs an appropriate structure to be followed an investigation in to the research methodology was also done where in it was identified that adoption of interpertivism philosophy and qualitative approach accommodating deductive method to further analyse the results using qualitative thematic analysis by deriving codes and themes. It was also appropriately indicated that apart from the secondary source the primary data would be collected through semi-structured in depth interview wherein the sampling would be based on non-probability judgemental sampling as the proposed research do not need any statistical analyses of the data. As the proposed research involves the study

of humans whose expression would interpreted and evaluated the researcher as such not only takes ethical approval but also states that the adopted methodology as its own limitations.

1.1 Background
Baptiste (2007 p. 292) in his studies firmly stated that:

People are an organisations most important asset and their effective development and deployment offers a distinctive and non-imitable competitive advantage through employer and employee engagement.

Similarly, CPID in its annual report (2007) categorically stated that employer branding efforts are mostly centred around recruitment of right employee (85%); recruiting their own personal image stating they are the prospective employer in the market (67%). However, the results also identified that improving employee engagement was very poor and the lowest among all the other categories standing at only 12%; similarly employee retention stands at 24% (table-1)

Table 1: Resourcing objectives various sectors

Source: CPID Annual Survey Report (Recruitment, Retention & Turnover)

From the above the researcher assumes that employee engagement is widely discussed in literature and that its importance being realized. However, the survey report of CPID is a clear indication that the management practices are up to the satisfactory level. This motivated the researcher to state the aim and conduct a research

1.1.1

Aim of the research

The proposed research aims to investigate into management practices of employee engagement in general and assess how any such practices can influence in building effective employee engagement strategies.

1.2 Scope of the study

Change is not about driving employees to work harder, but about providing the conditions under which they will work smarter and to offer their opinions, ideas and solutions to problems that they encounter - Leadership and Development Manager at Plastic Co. CIPD, 2008, p. 7

Purcell et al., (2003) rightly stated that there are numerous ways to improve the degree of employee engagement in an organisation. According to the scholar, there are many strategies that can increase the level of employee engagement; they are not only important but necessary if high performance is expected. However, within the literature there is an active debate that though most of the organisations are aware of these practices that increase the employee engagement level, most of them do not implement. In this context, Peccei (2004) opined that the organisations have not been able to follow the strategies consistently from the beginning; the employees also feel the same. The studies of Tehrani et al. (2007) threw light on the influence of factors such as job-commitment, job-satisfaction and work-life balance situation on employee engagement levels as well as on their performance and job-retention. The study recommended for a better working environment ensuring positive conditions for employee well-being and performance. Similarly Albrecht and Travaglione (2003) argue that positive relationship and trust between the management and the employees, ensures their commitment towards the organisation. Nevertheless, the support from the management together with the employee engagement is crucial to the organisation at its all levels of operation.

While some of the studies discussed that the salary aspect of an organization plays an important role in engaging an employee; however, the empirical studies of Clause (2007) dictate that money is a temporary solace to employees; it can retain their commitment temporarily and cannot always ensure their engagement. The scholar went to state that the employees expect better work-life balance and wish for flexibility in their engagement with

the organisation. Therefore, the organisations should make sure that they devise a flexible framework to manage employees with differing attitudes and expectations. Such a framework should put aside the traditional methods for controlling time and work of the employees and should focus more on the result generating factors such as the output, quality as well as the productivity.

Based on the stated discussion the researcher poises the following research question:

1.2.1

Research Question

How can organizations improve employees engagement through effective management practices?

1.3 Scope and Rationale

In the related literature, there are number of definitions for employee engagement and its constructs, Slatten and Mehmetoglu (2011, p. 90). As such, these definitions have been laid based on the two common constructs of organisational commitment and citizenship as identified by Robinson et al (2004) and job involvement and its flow identified by May et al (1994). Irrespective of its similarity to these constructs, employee engagement clearly deviates from them. Indications to these discussions are stated to be found in the studies of Saks, (2006).

Similarly adding some humour to the concept of employee engagement and the organizational commitment Drake International in its white paper suggests that an organisation should devise a sturdy career plan which according to the paper should treat the employees as individuals rather than just employees. Furthermore, the paper emphasised that organisational goals should be mingled with personal goals of the employee.

However, an initial investigation of the recent literature (e.g. Hallberg and Schaufeli, 2006) clarified that a clear distinction exists between employee engagement and the concepts of commitment and job-involvement both in theoretical and empirical terms.

1.3.1

Research objectives

On the basis of the above discussion, the researcher opines that it has always been the organizational commitment that has been questioned in terms of employee engagement. As such the following objectives are proposed:

To investigate into the theoretical and conceptual models of employee engagement. To evaluate how organizational culture can impact on employee engagement To investigate into the literary evidences and the perception of research concerning employee engagement.
To assess how management practices can influence employees engagement

10Literature Review
Clause (2007) argues that the new millennium employee is engaged in establishing more connections within an organisation as compared to the previous millennium. This is mainly because of the project-based team work and process management operations. The impact of globalization and the growth of communication channels have facilitated them to shift their loyalty to people, teams and projects. This has further pushed them away from company loyalty. Thus, the organizations must strive to establish an organisational culture and environment that facilitates integration of people, operations and the projects assigned to them, thus engaging each other. The degree of job-retention is more within the engaged set of employees compared to those who are not engaged.

Eminent academic works on employee engagement includes that of Kahn (1990) who based his work on the studies of Goffman (1961). Goffman emphasised that the concepts of attachment and detachment of employees from their responsibilities differ. Goffman used a theoretical metaphor to explain that people act out temporary attachments and detachments in exercising their responsibilities. Role embracement is observed in a situation where an employee does not differentiate between himself and his responsibility whereas role distance occurs in a situation where an employee tends to be uncomfortable and resists against fulfilling his duty. Based on the above difference, Kahn (1990) tried to explain how

employees fulfil their duties within their work environment in varied circumstances and the extent to which they are psychologically engaged in their work.

Kahn (1990, p. 700) explained that the self and the role exist in some dynamic, negotiable relation in which a person drives personal energies into role behaviours (self-employment) and displays the self within the role (self-expression).

Kahn sets these varying degrees of psychological conditions of overlap between the self and the role at work on a continuum from personal engagement on one end to personal disengagement on the other. The scholar defined personal engagement as the harnessing of organization members selves to their work roles.

Kahn went on to elaborate that when employees are engaged, people employ and express themselves psychically, cognitively and emotionally during role performances. Considering the general conditions of experience, Kahn listed three psychological conditions with respect to engagement and disengagement: 1) Meaningfulness; 2) Safety; and 3) Availability.

Therefore, in conditions that offer psychological safety to employees, they make themselves more committed to their tasks. In furtherance, May et al (1994) conducted a quantitative analysis on Kahns (1990) studies, the results of which revealed that the on the whole, the three psychological conditions exhibited positive relationships with engagement.

In furtherance to the discussion as stated above the empirical studies conducted by within the contest of frontline staff engaged in hospitality sector were based on three latent variables they included 1) Role benefit; 2) Strategic attention; and 3) Autonomy. Here the results stated that role benefit and autonomy is positively connected to engagement; on the other hand, the strategic attention was also co-related with the employees engagement (figure-1).

Figure 1: Anticedents and effects of frontline engagement (Hospitality)

Source: Slatten and Mehmetoglu (2011, p. 99)

Through the above conceptual framework, the scholars have empirically derived conclusions on the effect employee engagement has on innovation. Furthermore, Saks (2006) and Robinson et al (2004) established that the findings of their studies are in line with the service literature as they have underlined the importance of employee engagement in service organisations. In fact, the engagement in service organisations has been considered the conceptual basis for employee performance. As such the proposed research also attempts to test the stated strategic model (indicated in hospitality sector) in retail sector.

Wyman (2008) argue that for any organization formulating a strategy is not enough, rather its task is complete when the organisation engages its workforce towards the realisation of the strategy. Literary evidences reveal that the degree of employee engagement is either low or negligible in organisations.

Wyman further suggests six-point drivers for effective engagement of employees (figure-2)

Figure 2: Drivers of Employee Engagement

Source: Wyman (2008 p. 8)

Discussion on the role of engaging the employees Wyman further states that; there is significant damage done to engagement by factors such lazy employees neglecting their working when it is boring, and the worst among them discouraging others while doing work, etc. The scholar termed these as strategy blockers.

However, engaged employees are totally different and distinguished. They are ready to go to any level for the realisation of the organisations strategic goals. They exhibit high levels of commitment to their tasks and speak in a healthy manner to the customers. They explore new ways to achieve business objectives of the organisation. Here, the degree of engagement comes into play and is crucial for the realisation of business strategies. Ultimately, the realisation of a new strategy depends on how far employee engagement has crept into the organisation, especially in situation where the strategy requires employees to change the way they execute their roles, interact with customers and their colleagues. Realisation of strategy by putting it into practice is far more difficult than devising it and often engagement is missing here.

The proposed research intends to focus on the stated drivers stated and discussed as above.

1.1 Tools for Employee engagement

The empirical studies of Evans and Redfirn (2010) strategically state that, employee engagement is never an easy task. Nevertheless, the CIPD reports that there are ways to improve the level of engagement in firms. McBains (2007) studies on engagement suggest the method of action planning at team level and engagement surveys as effective tools of engagement. Here, Pritchard (2008) opined that an effective employment engagement survey should give an insight into the existing extent of engagement in an organisation. Moreover, in the current scenario business organisations are increasingly recognising the two-way communication technique as a key ingredient for effective employment engagement.

CIPD (2009) reports that apart from assessment which plays an important role in bringing out issues, soft skills and healthy environment promoting culture and mutual respect between the management and the workforce are some of the prerequisites for employee engagement. Churchard (2009) reported that the Co-operative Group sets an example in maintaining better levels of integrated employee engagement amongst its senior managerial staff. Furthermore, the management team in the organisations should notice and celebrate the success of every individual employee and the success of teams of employees to promote the engagement spirit. McBain (2007) added that the managerial staff should undergo leadership development programmes so that they can improve engagement levels. Furthermore, five steps to the engagement process have been identified by the Involvement and Participation Association (2007), they are:

1) Encouraging the employees to closely follow the strategic decisions made at the senior management level in an organisation. 2) Creating buy in to the strategic decision.
3) Resolving problems and questions regarding various issues like why? What? And

what else? 4) Ensuring and promoting employee satisfaction and building healthy relationships. 5) Promoting the rights of the employees and giving freedom to employees regarding their choice of work. CIPD (2009) viewed its report as the best thing thats happened to HR for years. However, there was enough criticism on it, especially from the senior management gurus who opined that it lacked practicality. According to the critics, the case for how has not

been given attention, however, the case for questions like what and why issues has been given attention. One among them, Sweetman (2009, p.1) remarked that it is time to focus on the how issue.

In response to the above Baker (2009) as indicated in the studies of Evans and Redfirn (2010) suggested that the CIPD could have focussed on constructing useful models for engagement and could have suggested assessment tools and checklists useful for both the employers and the HR team. Therefore, the research intends to conduct a full-fledged empirical study on employee engagement. Now, we move on to the proposed methodology for the study.

10Research Methodology
Eminent researcher, Saunders et al (2007) stated that a research philosophy guides the researcher the way in which they view their research work by adopting the appropriate strategies and approaches concerning various research paradigms. It is an agreed fact that there are two types philosophies 1) positivist 2) anti- positivist. The positivist philosophy views the research where in quantifiable observations is emphasized. This is mostly statistical in nature. Moreover, when the researcher attempts to make sense of the social world involving humans as subjects where in qualitative approach is adopted it is defined as antipositivist philosophy. Within this framework as the researcher interacts with the respondents for data collection and interprets them with his own findings this process is attributed as interprevitist philosophy Saunders, et al., (2010); which is adopted by the proposed research because of the involvement of humans as the samples and interprets their idea of expressions

1.1 Research Model

The researcher proposes to choose Saunders (2007) research onion model for conducting the current study; the model is illustrated in fig.3.

Figure 3: Research Onion

Saunders et al (2007, p.132)

The figure demonstrates Saunders model based on which the researcher introduces the research philosophy before anything else and then moves on to the approach such that an effective framework is designed for the dissertation that can further inquire into the aspects of data collection and analysis.

1.2 Research Approach

As discussed in the previous section the research intends to investigate in to the importance of evaluation of performance of employees where in it becomes imperative that employees in their natural setting are interviewed, which itself is identified as the philosophy of interpretivism that according to Chambers, (2002) needs to be approached with qualitative method qualitative research as discussed by Saunders et al., (2007) has been deployed for exploring and evaluating expressions of humans. The proposed research makes no attempt to evaluate data in terms of statistical methods as such the quantitative method is rejected. The methodological structure discussed by Fisher (2007) specifically indicated that the analytical tool, thematic analysis is to be applied to the data to reduce the content by deriving related codes and themes this process that is adopted by the research as suggested by Saunders et al., (2007), requires the deductive approach. However as opined by Kumar, (2005) the derivation of standards codes makes the inductive approach with these discussion the proposed research adopts inductive and deductive approaches.

1.3 Research Strategy

As discussed above the methodological structure of the proposed research would accommodate qualitative as well as inductive deductive methods that is furthered with a strategy of case study that being Matalan located in Beckton London. The samples would be collected from within the case study organisation numbering above 50. These samples include the staff of the organisation and the decision makers at the management level. As such principal focus will be laid on the HR, middle and lower level as well as the front line staff.

1.4 Case study introduction: Matalan, Beckton

Matalan is one of the leading British retailers trading shoes and clothing goods for the past 25 years. John Hargreaves was the founder of Matalan. Today, Matalan has 200 stores spread across UK. Its 200th store was inaugurated at Croydon in 2006. Alistair McGeorge and John Mills are the currently the CEO and chairman of Matalan respectively. The company made an announcement on 25th October, 2009, that some public parties expressed interest in buying Matalan, however, the company clarified that they have to wait till the beginning of 2010 before making such a deal.

Matalan maintains its average store area around 30,000 sq-ft. Most of the companys stores are situated in the outskirts of urban locations. In each store there is a separate chamber for each of the age groups, kids, Mens, womens along with a chamber selling home-ware. In its expansion programme, Matalan had launched Mobile phone stores in September, 2008. The mobile stores also has full-fledged website, its e-commerce wing and runs a call-centre at Manchester. Its business philosophy is to provide an optimum value for customers money. In addition, the company offers various seasonal business deals for selling low priced mobile phones along with money off vouchers and cash back deals.

It is found that at Matalan only 31% of the workforce is actively engaged in fulfilling their roles. This employee group is the cream of the company and remains strategically an invaluable asset to the organisation. They are very much committed to their duties and help in the steady progress of the company. Out of its workforce, 88 per cent expressed confidence in boosting the performance of the organisation by improving the quality of products sold. However, 38 per cent exhibited disengagement. Another report notified that 72 per cent were confident in delivering good customer care while 27 per cent felt otherwise.

While 68 per cent of the workforce was confident of controlling the expenses in their work environment, 19 per cent expressed otherwise. An engaged employee gets himself/herself attached to the organisation he/she works in through an emotional bond. Moreover, engaged employees express willingness to make the customers aware of the companys products and are committed to their tasks without any external push. These employees ensure the maximum utilisation of their time to realise organisational goals. Matalan could save an amount of 1,106,845 through its focus on employee engagement in safety costs (2002). Furthermore, there were enormous savings from the sales performance teams. For example, in the year 2005, disengaged teams fell behind the highly engaged teams with a difference in costs concerning the performance totalling 1353100.5

1.5 Data collection and Analysis

As indicated in the earlier section the primary data will be compiled from case-study samples, i.e. humans. The chosen procedure is the semi-structured in depth interview that accommodates both open ended and closed ended questions. Though the final set of the questions will be completed after completion of the second chapter i.e. the review of literature; as such, a few generalised questions were taken from the initial investigation of the literature in relation to aims objectives and the research questions (Annexure 1). The principal base of the proposed research even though dome empirically will be dependent upon the secondary sources of data (Saunders et al,2010) which will be gathered from the literary evidences periodicals as well as the web sources.

As opined by Hollaway and Trodes (2003); argues that among all the analytical tools mostly adopted for qualitative researches is the process of thematic analysis. Applying the thematic analysis analyse the collected data the proposed research will initially segment them and

further to categorise. This process is undertaken to summarise and reconstruct the collected data in words and small phrases those which are termed as codes and themes by (Miles and Huberman 1994). The idea is to indicate key issues and analyse the data focusing upon the principal aim of the proposed research such that the objectives are attain and the research questions are answered. During this process the research will also attempt to derive relational codes of the proposal discussing the primary data in/against contrast to the secondary data another attempt will also be made to construct emerging themes through which recommendation for the further studies are also made.

1.1 Ethics
As required by the academic studies involving human reactions to a particular area of study, the researcher in accordance takes the consent of the respondents who will be intimated of their rights about participation and collecting their consent (Annexure-I).

1.2 Limitation
As discussed in the proposal the prime limitations of the studies are 1) the samples that are from one single organisation (Matalan, Beckton London) and limited in number (35-50) and focused on a single category (frontline); 2) Qualitative approach that is a non-statistical method and the results cannot be generalised to similar subjects in different circumstances; 3) Thematic analysis, the analytical tool that analyses data deriving codes and themes; wherein the expression of authors or the respondents are based on a particular environmental setting that again cannot be generalised in other environments.

1.1 Conclusions
Will be written after feed back

1.2 Time Scale

Weeks 1 Tasks 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Topic

Aims & Objectives

Ethical Approval

Secondary Data (Literature )

Primary Data (Interview)

First three Chapters

Data Findings and Analysis

Conclusion

First Draft Copy

Final Dissertation

References
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Tehrani, N. Humpage, S. Willmott, B. and Haslam, I., 2007. Whats Happening with Well-being at Work? Change Agenda, Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, London. Wyman, D., 2008. From lagging to leading: Newfoundland and Saskatchewan dig into the resource boom. Canadian Economic Observer, May Issue. Statistics CanadaCatalogue 11-010. Accessed: September 3, Available online: http://www.statcan.ca

Further readings
Armstrong, M. and Baron, A., 2005. Managing Performance: Performance Management in Action, CIPD, London. Aryee, S. Budhwar, P. S. and Chen, Z. X., 2002. Trust as a mediator of the relationship between organizational justice and work outcomes: test of a social exchange model. Journal of Organisational Behaviour, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 267-85. Bacon, N. Blyton, P. and Dastmalchian, A., 2005. The significance of working time arrangements accompanying the introduction of team working: evidence from employees. British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 43, No. 4, pp. 681-701. Bakke, D. W., 2005. Joy at Work: A Revolutionary Approach to Fun on the Job, Penguin Group (USA) Inc., New York, NY. Blau, P. M., 2006. Exchange and Power in Social Life: New Introduction by the Author, 10th ed., London: Transaction Publisher. Boselie, P. and Dietz, G., 2003. Commonalities and contradictions in research on human resource management and performance, paper presented at the Academy of Management Meeting, Seattle, August. Bramley, P., 2003. Evaluating Training, Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, London. Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2003. Human Resource Management: Theory and Practice, 3rd ed., Basingstoke: Palgrave Publishers. Daniels, K., 2006. Employee Relations in an Organizational Context, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, London. Department for Work and Pensions., 2006. A New Deal for Welfare: Empowering People at Work, CM 6730, Stationery Office, London, Available at: www.dwp.gov.uk (accessed 19 July 2007). Department of Health., 2004. Choosing Health: Making Healthy Choices Easier, Cm 6374, Stationery Office, London, Available at: www.dh.gov.uk (accessed 19 July 2007). Dibben, P. and James, P., 2007. Introduction: is modern necessarily better?, in Dibbens, P., James, P., Roper, I. and Wood, G. ed., Modernising Work in Public Services: Redefining Roles and Relationships in Britains Changing Workplace, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, pp. 1-2. Dibbens, P. James, P. Roper, I. and Wood, G., 2007. Modernising Work in Public Services: Redefining Roles and Relationships in Britains Changing Workplace, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. Gould-Williams, J., 2004. The effects of high commitment HRM practices on employee attitude: the views of public sector workers, Public Administration, Vol. 82, No. 1, pp. 63-81. Guest, D. and Conway, N., 2004. Employee Well-being and the Psychological Contract The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, London.

Guest, D. Jonathan, M. Conway, N. and Sheehan, M., 2003. Human resource management and corporate performance in the UK. British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 41, No. 2, pp. 291-314 Kraybill, K., 2003. Creating and Maintaining a Healthy Work Environment: A Resource Guide for Staff Retreats, Available at: www.nhchc.org (accessed 19 July 2007). MacDonald, L. A. C., 2005. Wellness at Work: Protecting and Promoting Employee Well-being, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, London. Marchington, M. and Wilkinson, A., 2005. Human Resource Management at Work: People Management and Development, The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, London. Rousseau, D. M., 2003. Extending the psychology of the psychological contract: a reply to putting psychology back into psychological contracts. Journal of Management Inquiry, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp.229-38.