Discuss about the Business Research Method Research Proposal for Value and Beliefs.
Organizations have their own distinct cultures. They have their values, beliefs and assumptions, which influence the people within the organization. According to Martín Alcázar et al (2013), it is the manager’s responsibility to take decisions of how to retain the culture and motivate the employees to behave according to the organizational culture. Lauring (2013) opined that however, cultural diversity and various employee behaviors often lead to disruptions in the workplace. The leaders, therefore, should find out the solutions. In this research, the leader’s role in maintaining cultural diversity in the organization’s culture and motivating the employees will be analyzed.
According to Canas & Sondak (2013), the dominant culture of the organization refers to the business structure and the environment in which the organization operates. It includes the objectives of the organization, the belief system of the stakeholders, and the management style of the organization. Employees of different cultures need to work according to the structure that the management has set and this often creates the problem. They added that Cultural aspects influence the way the people interact with the other employees within the organization. It influences how one conducts his work, use his language, and solve various matters, takes up challenges and create relationships. The differences in these give birth to conflicts within the organization. Wrench (2016) discussed that an organization that has its base in a country and nurtures specific sets of values, should design their business culture considering the cultural diversity present among the employees. Often, they fail to understand what the employers want as a part of that organization. As he pointed out, the lack of understanding from their part creates misunderstanding, damages the workflow and demotivates the employees. The employees encounter dissatisfaction from the organization in which they serve. With the expansion of market, it becomes a serious problem, which can ruin the organizational set up. According to Patrick & Kumar (2012), however, it is important to make the employees realize the core values of the organization. Situations such as limited efforts by the employees to develop their workflow, less information and knowledge sharing within the organizational structure, dejections, and not taking the responsibilities are the primary issues that create big problems. Here, the leaders should come up with the solutions. As discussed by Kulik (2014), for the improved employee satisfaction, the leaders should recognize multiple dimensions present in the structure and its impact on the employees. Kirton & Greene (2015) outlined that researchers over the ages, focused on a two-dimensional model of leadership underlining the relation between employee and production. During 1970s, impact of employee behavior in organizational development and change gained value to the leaders. They started considering that leadership is not about exerting power, rather to structure the framework of the organization’s operations and maintain a healthy workplace environment. Through this research, the prevalent issues will be discussed and probable recommendations will be outlined.
The aim of the study is to understand the problems that evolve within the organizational culture because of the cultural diversity. The research will focus on the leader’s role in solving the problems and motivate the employees to work cooperatively.
The objectives of the study include the following:
The research questions are the following:
Nowadays, cultural diversity of the employees is one of the primary issues. The leaders can manage the situation by restructuring the framework of business culture.
Various authors have discussed the impact of cultural diversity on organizational culture. In this literature review section, some books and articles based on the impact of cultural diversity on business culture and the leader’s role in managing the situations will be discussed.
The article by Shahzad et al (2012) discusses the negative impacts of cultural diversity in the workplace environment. Cultural diversity, which means the difference in race, language, nationality, ethnicity, gender orientation, distinguished the belief systems and the mindsets of the people. Inside an organization, the differences can develop conflicts among the employees. However, most of the recent literatures and journals have focused on how the cultural diversity has been instrumental in enhancing the creativity of the employees. This may be true in some instances, yet the researchers cannot ignore the negative impacts of cultural diversity in the workplace. Miscommunication, dysfunctional behaviors, creation of barriers is some of the negative impacts of cultural diversity that obstructs smooth flow of work.
According to Bock et al (2012), the article has mentioned that the organizational personnel often turn argumentative with one another due to differences in mindset. It is a prevalent problem because the workers carry with them different opinions, norms and traditions. Bock et al (2012) stated that generally, they try to impose their own beliefs by ignoring the sentiments of others. This article has described the aspect of cultural diversity by comparing it with an iceberg. The visible portions of the icebergs are compared to the various dimensions of cultural diversities including race, age, and gender.
Hogan & Coote (2014) discussed that one can find the three levels of organizational culture as found in this article. The levels are the following:
All the levels are interrelated as they operate together to get the desired outcomes.
As discussed by Büschgens et al (2013), this article brings out that the without mutual effort no organization can work effectively. Therefore, cultural diversity is a serious issue if the organization is full of diverse people. It is because of this reason; many organizations avoid employing culturally diverse people. They opined that the conflicts found in the workplace might not be work related. Some employees can indulge into conflicts out of personal reasons. For example, a South African employee and an Indian employee might hurl on each other over a cricket match in which India was defeated by South Africa. In another instance, workers may fight over any historical or regional issues. For example, an American employee and a Japanese employee could argue over Battle of Pearl Harbor. By underlining the examples, the article argued that conflicts might develop out of any trivial and critical issues. The obvious result of this conflict is a low productivity and spoiled relationship among the workers. It affects the organizational environment apart from lowering the organization’s overall productivity.
According to Goetsch & Davis (2014), this article also brings to the focus how the individual values try to retain itself within a group. Most of the times people try to adapt to the core values of the group yet, it seems to happen sometimes that they do not cooperate. They said that the adaptation of the group’s core values suggests that they shed some of their individual beliefs, customs, and opinions for a community’s sake. The workplace is such a community or group with core values.
As Richard et al (2013) discussed, it might happen that the organizations try to avoid the conflicts that are found in a culturally diverse workplace by not employing people from different cultures. It may decrease the number of customers because most of them prefer doing transactions with people belonging to their own communities. Therefore, the more the organizations have employees from different communities, more they get customers for the benefit of their business.
According to Barak (2013), the main problem is that not every individual within the organization emphasizes on growing together. Teamwork is the key word for success in a business and it is the responsibility of the managers to incorporate the sense of togetherness into the employees’ psyche. Managers should be able to tackle the cross-cultural issues within the organizational structure to achieve the common organizational goal.
One can find in this article the ways to solve various problems regarding the impact of cultural diversity on business culture. According to Sabharwal (2014), the problems related to external adaptation consists of mission of the organization and also the process of implementing those plans into actions. However, the problems regarding internal integration are based on the group roles and limit of the authority. It involves methods of interaction within the organization. He opined that this article focused on these issues and defined the manager’s role to solve the problems. He is on the driver’s seat with responsibilities of bridging the communication gap and internalizing the culturally diverse employees into the structural framework of the organization.
According to Janssens & Zanoni (2014), this article elaborated the responsibilities of the leaders. Focusing mainly on how the leaders could effectively manage the staffs and motivate them to develop individual and group performances despite having cultural differences, this article has explained in detail the definition of a good leader. They opined that the article demonstrates the leader’s role to be goal-oriented. The strategy that he constructs to set the specific organizational culture should comply with the organization’s objectives. In this process, he should raise the employee’s awareness about the significance of the proposed outcomes. Secondly, he should encourage them to prioritize organizational interests over self-interests. It is called “transformational leadership”.
Podsiadlowski et al (2013) added that diversity could be managed by maintaining the following things:
The research methodology includes the process through which the research work on the subject is conducted. According to Madera (2013), it will give a clear idea about the approach of the study, which suggests the considerations kept in mind while doing the research. The data collection process will also be discussed along with the sample size of the data.
Research approach means the approach towards the research. In this study, various articles and books have been analyzed to get the theoretical perspectives. According to Pieterse et al (2013), it helps in developing the basic ideas about how the cultural diversity in workplace affects the overall organizational culture. They added that as the leaders or managers hold the position of decision-makers within the organization, their role in the diversity management is also studied. Research works done by various authors and their perspective about the leader’s role is what this study focuses on. Another aspect is the recommendations of the discussed problems. Apart from describing the problems detected in a workplace, the recommendations to solve them will also be analyzed in this study. The theoretical perspectives will be supported by practical approaches to reach the desired objective of the study. It includes the collection of primary and secondary data.
Before starting the data collection process, it is important to predict the outcome of the data analysis. Therefore, it is important to have a research design. The research design is based on the objectives of the study. Here, in this research work, the objective is to analyze the leader’s responsibility in solving cultural diversity related problems in an organization. This study aims at finding the prevalent issues and recommending the solution for an improved business culture. To achieve the desired objectives, therefore, the study will follow the method of explanatory research design. Such a process helps in finding out the reasons behind the problem that is being addressed. As the study will proceed, various literatures related to the topic will be analyzed to understand the reasons of disruptions in workplace due to cultural diversity. The practical examples will also be cited. In an age of globalization, cultural diversity in the workplace cannot be avoided although it often damages the overall business culture of the organization. According to Hentschel et al (2013), recognition of the problems will make the process of problem solving easier. The study will also follow the descriptive research design to be able to relate the research objectives with research outcomes. They opined that data analysis is the main process that follows the descriptive research design model. By linking the data analysis with the research objectives, the study can gauge the level of consistency present in the desired objectives and research methodology. The study will focus on collecting data concerning the various problems that exists in a workplace due to cultural diversity of the employees. It will help to understand the manager’s approach towards the culturally diverse employees.
As discussed by Van Knippenberg et al (2013), data collection method is a practical approach to a research work. It helps in finding out the prevalent and current situation associated with the subject concerned. Keeping in mind the objective of this research, which is the impact of cultural diversity on the business culture of the organization, the data collection process will try to identify the key factors that are operating as barriers in the development of business. Here, it is important to collect data from multiple employees of different organizations. Different organizations will be considered while collecting data for a better understanding of the prevalent situation. Data will be collected from multiple employees belonging to diverse cultures so the study can find out the most encountered problems. Data will be collected from the managers of the organizations to understand their perspective. The study will focus on how the managers take responsibilities to solve the problems related cultural diversity. While collecting the data, this will also be considered as an important parameter. According to Guillaume et al (2014), cultural diversity is a multidimensional issue. They added that various cultures are imbibed with various belief systems, rituals and values. People speak in different languages, eat different foods, and think differently. Therefore, to enlist some of the problems will not help. This research work needs as many numbers of data as possible to find out the real situation.
Primary data collection involves the direct communication with the employees and managers to know from them what they face. It is a useful method to understand the real situation, which is sometimes difficult to know from the theories. For the purpose of this research work, two sets of questionnaires will be prepared. One set will be given to the employees of the organizations and the other set will be given to the managers. The one set of questionnaire prepared for the employees will include questions related to what problems do they face as an individual employee within a culturally diverse business culture. The manager’s initiatives or his approach towards the employees will also be questioned through the questionnaire. It is helpful in assessing the perspective of the employees. Another set of questionnaire given to the managers will question about how the business culture is affected due to employees’ cultural diversity. It will also include questions related to how he tackles the problems for an uninterrupted workflow within the organization. Thus, the perspective of the managers can be analyzed. It is a fact that cultural diversity is a multidimensional issue. It involves a large section of people with varied perspectives. Therefore, it is mandatory to understand the situation from both the manager and employee’s perspectives.
Secondary data collection involves the review of various theories and analysis already given by the renowned authors. Books, articles and journals that have dealt with the cultural diversity management theories will be discussed. Data will be collected from the opinions of the authors about the managers’ responsibility to solve he cultural diversity related issues.
Sampling method is the technique that will be followed while gathering the data. In this study, collection of the primary data is a major task. According to Rhode & Packel (2014), the entire research work depends on the sample size. Gong et al (2013) discussed that if the researcher fails to determine the necessary sample size for the prefect outcome of the research objectives, the research will not be effective. As there will be two different sets of questionnaire, the sampling them properly is a huge responsibility. Otherwise, there will be high chances of misunderstanding during the assessment of the collected data. As pointed out by Vaccaro et al (2012), sampling method is the selection process of the objects on which the research will be conducted. In this study, the data will be collected from two the employees of two multinational business organizations of Australia. Two business organizations of Australia named CSR Limited, and Rio Tinto Group will be focused. According to Rhode & Packel (2014), these are Australia’s two renowned business organizations where people from different cultural backgrounds work as employees. Kissi et al (2013) pointed out that, here, the managers are quite successful in maintaining a healthy work environment. Questionnaires will be given to the employees and managers of these two organizations. According to Gong et al (2013), two basic sampling methods can be found. These are the following:
For this study, the non-probabilistic sampling method will be most useful. The objective of the study is to carry out the research only on culturally diverse employees and managers of multinational organizations. The research, therefore, requires specific samples from whom the necessary data will be collected. Non-probabilistic method of data collection will be suitable for this purpose.
Ng & Sears (2012) discussed that determining the sample size is one of the crucial aspects of data collection method. It refers to the specific number of people on whom the research will be conducted. The study will focus on collecting data from the already mentioned two Australian companies. As the number of employees in these two companies is huge in quantity, it may be problematic to reach to each employee. According to Bratton & Gold (2012), the more the people are incorporated within the structure of business culture, the more it makes the situation complex. Keeping this in mind, data will not be collected form a huge number of people. The research will be based on 1200 employees who belong to different cultural communities. The number of managers will not be much in size. The General Managers, Managing Directors and Executive General Managers of the companies will be considered. It will be six in total number.
Ethical consideration is an important part of any research work. The researchers should give consider the ethical issues related to the subject on which they want to conduct the study. It is a method to validate the research work. The primary data collection, which involves the people, should be done keeping the ethical issues in mind. The researchers must conduct in research giving full respect to these people. According to Bratton & Gold (2012), during the research, every individual should be considered as an autonomous entity. In this study, the employees and the managers are the subjects of the research. They hold their respective positions in the organizations for which they work. Therefore, the questionnaire that will be set for them will try to extract information from them without hurting anyone. It may happen that while conducting the research, the managers of the organizations might not be comfortable in revealing the business culture related problems within their organization. They might feel that it could damage the company’s reputation. Thus, they will be informed in detail the procedure of conducting the research. Their privacy will be ensured by through non-declaration of either the company’s or the manager’s names. The main research work will only mention the cultural diversity issues without outlining the names of the companies. The employees might also feel the same. They could feel insecure in revealing any secret issues that they face. The insecurity is from the leaders of the organization. Therefore, the process of research will ensure them that their privacy will be maintained.
As the subject of the study is the culturally diverse people, they might be hurt if they are asked questions related to their cultural specificity. These people might feel the risk to express their cultural orientations. Any controversial questions might hurt their sentiments. Therefore, the research will try not to ask any such questions that hurt them. Another point is that, the employees and managers will not be asked any personal questions. Most of the questions will be limited to their workplace conditions, business culture, and relations with one another. Questions related to employee relations with the managers will also be included in the questionnaire, although no question will highlight on their personal relationship with the managers. The workplace related issues are the focus of this study.
The research work must not forget that the subjects are first humans and then they are people with different cultural identities. Throughout the study, this humanitarian factor will be maintained. Apart from the employees and the managers, no other third party intervention will be entertained while collecting the data. This study will collect information only from them and not from the family members of the managers or the employees. If anyone tries to intervene willingly, it will be completely rejected. Again, the employees and the managers will not be forced to give answers. They will be informed all the benefits and risks associated to the study and their willful cooperation will be accepted as a n ethical process.
References
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