Research Methodology
Research Methodology
Research Methodology
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
employees accept HRM innovation only when they have a favourable attitude
towards it. Attitudinal acceptance is measured through the possession of
favourable reactions to the innovation. Acceptance of innovation can be measured
for individuals, groups, and organisations. An individual employee's attitude
toward an innovation can be easily measured. Acceptance of innovation also
can be differentiated by the general attitudes and behaviors of employees.
There has often been little concern with the quality of adoption and the
differential impact of adoption on organisational members (Kossek, 1987). By
studying HRM innovations adopted in IT firms, the study intends to study the
relationship between acceptance and its impact on employees. It is believed
that some HRM innovations have a more central impact on the quality of
employee working life than others. Some affects their day-to-day working
where as others do not. It is important to note that the consequences of
implementation of innovative HR practices are difficult to measure, because
their assessment is subjective and value-laden and is often confounded with
other effects. Hence outcomes may vary according to the characteristics of the
HRM innovations.
4.3 Objectives
Based on the conceptual focus highlighted in the previous chapter, the
study proceeds to inquire into the set of objectives and test the hypotheses
framed as under:
4.5 Definitions
4.5.1 Innovative Human Resource Practices (Theoretical Definition)
Innovative HR practices have been defined as “the intentional
introduction and application of any previously unused concept, practice,
process or system designed to influence or adapt the behaviour of employees
with the aim of achieving improved organisational performance, identified and
implemented by human resource practitioners of an organisation "(Mac Duffie,
1995).
Operationally
It is the perceived extent of the importance, introduction and satisfaction
of the innovative HR Practices as perceived by the employees of a Software
firm obtained by using the questionnaire by Tanuja Agarwala (2003).
Operationally
makes it less likely that the employee will voluntarily leave the organisation
(Allen and Mayer, 1996). Affective commitment is defined as the strength of a
person to continue working for an organisation because he or she agrees with
it and wants to do so (Meyer and Allen, 1991). Continuance commitment is
conceived as the strength of a person’s tendency or need to continue working
for an organisation because he or she cannot afford to do otherwise (Meyer
and Allen, 1991).The ‘net sum’ of a person’s commitment to the organisation,
therefore, reflects each of these separable psychological states.
Operationally
Operationally
The term ‘IT industry’ is used loosely in common parlance and has
different meanings in different contexts. Strictly speaking, ‘IT’ includes
hardware production as well as software, but in the Indian context the IT
industry is almost entirely devoted to software services, hence the terms
‘software industry’ and ‘IT industry’ are often used interchangeably.
Similarly, ‘IT’ is sometimes used to refer to ITES as well as software services.
While ITES is a very different kind of industry from software, for historical
School of Management Studies, CUSAT 199
Chapter -4
4.7.2 HR Outcomes
“strongly agree” with a midpoint labeled “neither agree nor disagree.” The
reliability cronbach’s alpha scores of the two dimensions of the organisational
commitment are affective commitment (0.81) and continuance commitment
(0.78) with a split half coefficient of 0.77 and 0.76 respectively.
OCB was measured using a 12-item Scale made by Paré, Tremblay, and
Lalonde, which was adopted from Podsakoff et al. (1990) and Williams and
Anderson (1991). Citizenship behaviors can be directed at the organisation
(OCBO) (e.g., carrying out role requirements well beyond minimum required
levels) and/or they may benefit specific individuals (OCBI) (e.g., helping a
specific other person with a relevant task).
The internal consistency reliability of the OCBI Scale was 0.88 and the
internal consistency reliability of the OCBO Scale was 0.75. Estimates of
internal consistency reliability of the OCBI Scale averaged 0.85 across the
studies conducted by Williams and Anderson (1991), Turnley et al. (2003),
and Randall et al. (1999), ranging from a low of 0.80 to a high of 0.88. The
internal consistency reliability estimates for OCBO in these studies averaged
0.76, ranging from a low of 0.70 to a high of 0.83.Overall the scale appears to
be highly reliable (Organ et al 2006).
“neither agree nor disagree.” There were three reverse coded items in OCBO
scale like take undeserved work breaks, great deal of time spent with phone
conversations and Complains about insignificant things at work.
the table, all the factors had the Cronbach’s alpha value above 0.70, which
testified the reliability of the entire set.
Data Sources
The very objective of the study has been to study the extent of
importance, introduction, implementation and satisfaction of innovative HR
practices in Software companies in Kerala and HR outcomes based on an
empirical analysis. Such an empirical study demands a rigorous research
methodology with a reliable and valid instrument. The extent of importance,
introduction, implementation and satisfaction of innovative HR practices in
Software companies is done by measuring the perceptions of members in the
organisation on innovative HR practices. The questionnaire survey has been
widely acknowledged as an efficient tool for measuring the perceptions of
individuals or organisations on a particular subject. The survey research
method is very useful to collect data from a large number of firms in a
relatively short period of time and with better-cost implications. Hence for the
current study, the questionnaire survey has been chosen for data collection.
4.12 Population
The population for the present study was specified through the
progressive sequence as follows:-
c) One project team with on-site and off shore project was selected
from each of the firm identified in step b) above.
208 School of Management Studies, CUSAT
Research Methodology
Exclusion criteria
Software firms with history of less than 3 years
of organisation
based on years
No. of experts
No. of experts
No. of experts
based on type
of experience
organisation
Managerial
managerial
hierarchy
hierarchy
based on
Type of
HR field
Sl No.
Years of
The panels of experts were personally met and the definition of IHRP
and a range of HR practices/ activities which form 14 cluster of HR practices
were shared and discussed. List of Software firms from Technopark and
Infopark was given after the exclusion criteria. There were altogether 47 firms.
For each firm, the frequency with which it was identified as having innovative
HR practices by experts was tabulated. The firm mentioned by at least 50 per
cent of the experts as having the reputation of being innovative in their HR
practices was shortlisted. Out of a total of 48 firms, 21 firms fulfilled the
criteria.
Table 4.6 above shows that the out of 11 experts identified 5 experts
represented private organisations and 3 each from consultancy and
academics .Out of these, 3 experts had experience of more than 30 years
and four were with experience varying between 21-30 years and another
four had 11- 20 years of experience. Based on the level of managerial
hierarchy there are 3 experts from middle level and 4 experts each from top
and senior level.
343 responses collected from 17 firms. Two firms did not agree to
participate in the study and the researcher could not collect data
from two other firms which had agreed to cooperate with the study.
The data was tested for the outliers through the process of Bootstrapping
and Bolline-shrine plot so as to increase the normality of the data. The
researcher found out that there were 8 outliners in the study and it was
removed using the bootstrapping method. There were about 13 questionnaires
which have not given the demographic variables so they were not selected for
the study and rejected as incomplete questionnaire.
4.17 Limitations
a) The study is not free from limitations; first the issue of common
method variance needs to be considered given the cross-sectional
design of the study based on self reports. Meta-analytic studies of
these constructs (Meyer et al. 2002; Organ & Ryan, 1995) suggest
that studies relying only on self-report may either inflate correlations
or, in a cross-sectional design, might introduce problems of
instability in correlations due to situational moderators. Harman’s
single-factor was conducted to address this concern and the results of
the test showed that common method bias was not present in study.