The Importance of Performance Related Pay in Motivating Employees: A Study of Frontline Employees at Hilton Hotel Management Research Proposal
My dissertation topic is "The Importance of Performance Related Pay in Motivating Employees: A Study of Frontline Employees at Hilton Hotel"
Textbooks:
The core textbook for the module is Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2016),
Research Methods for Business Students (7th edition), Harlow: Pearson.
The following texts could be useful for the writing of the dissertation proposal.
Anderson V. (2009) Research Methods in Human Resource Management. 2nd ed. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel Development.
Bell, E. and Bryman, A. (2010), Business Research Methods, Oxford University Press. (3rd edition)
Easterby-Smith M., Thorpe R. and Jackson P. (2012) Management Research London: Sage Publication.
Whitfield, K. and Strauss, G. (Eds.) (1998) Researching the World of Work: Strategies and Methods in Studying Industrial Relations. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Researching Work, Employment and Employee Relations
Final Assessment: Writing a research proposal
Introduction
This assignment aims to prepare you for your dissertation by having you write a 2,000 words dissertation research proposal based on your chosen dissertation topic and research approach.
Task
Using the research proposal outline presented in Henn et al. (2009) as a guide (see below), your assignment involves writing a research proposal which includes:
Theme:
1) Research problem to investigate
a. Purpose of your research
b. Deductive or inductive approach
c. Research questions, aims and objectives
d. Definition of key terms and concepts
2) Review of the academic literature
3) Methodology to be used
a. Research design
b. Sample
c. Procedures and data collection
d. Contribution: generalisability, validity, replication and reliability
4) Ethical considerations
Marking criteria
This assignment counts for 50% of your overall course mark. The marking criteria will be as follows:
* Contextualisation of your research including relevant literature (40%);
* Justification of your research design (5%);
* Data collection and methods and sample (35%);
* Consideration of ethical issues (5%);
* Presentation and clarity of your research proposal including quality of the English writing and appropriate referencing (15%)
Deadline: 23rd April 2019 by noon.
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES
Find below and in the second document an extract from Henn et al . 2009 about how to write a research proposal. An additional reference on key concepts to be included in the research proposal is:
Mark Saunders, Adrian Thornhill and Philip Lewis, Research Methods for Business Students, Pearson Publishers. The 8th (2018), 7th (2015) or 6th (2012) edition would be insightful.
OUTLINE OF A RESEARCH PROPOSAL (Extract from Henn et al. 2009)
1) RESEARCH PROBLEM TO BE INVESTIGATED
There are usually four areas to be addressed in this section of the research proposal: the purpose of the proposed study, a justification for the project, the specific research questions that you intend to explore, and a definition of any key terms and concepts that you will examine. However, you will only write one section including the four aspects.
Purpose of the study
You will need to state succinctly what the research proposes to investigate. The purpose should be a concise statement, providing a framework to which details are added later. Generally speaking, any study should seek to clarify some aspect of the field of interest that is considered important, thereby contributing both to the overall knowledge in the field and to current practice.
Justification for the study (inductive or deductive)
The researcher must make clear why this particular study is important to investigate. You must present an argument for the work of the study. This will usually form a substantial section of your research proposal and will require you to provide evidence that you have conducted a detailed literature review in the area, in order to:
* Demonstrate to the reader that you have studied the field with insight and are therefore well qualified to undertake the research;
* Identify what is already known, and by implication what is as yet unknown – and therefore worthy of empirical study.
The research questions or aims and objectives
The particular research questions that you intend to examine should be stated next. These are usually, but not always, a more specific form of the problem in question form. For quantitative researchers, research hypotheses will be set out at this stage for reasons of clarity and as a research strategy. For qualitative researchers, especially those adopting an emergent research design, the actual research questions and hypotheses will not become clear until the research has begun. In the case of tightly structured qualitative study, researchers can proceed along similar lines to the quantitative proposal. The research questions are often drafted as aims and objectives. These are the means by which what is to be attempted and what is to be accomplished are specified.
Aim(s)
The aim is a statement of intent. It indicates the overall purpose and thrust of the research. It is also a statement of the main associations and relationships that you seek to discover or establish. In any proposed project, the aims should be small in number – setting yourself too many aims indicates that you probably embarking on more than one project. The aims bill be ‘answered’ by accumulating and integrating answers to a series of objectives that you set.
Objectives
The objectives are specific actions statements. They can be perceived as ‘stepping stones’ that eventually direct the study towards the more comprehensively stated aims. They express in detail and in a more technical way than the aim(s) what the research is intended to achieve.
Definitions of key terms and concepts
All key terms should be defined, although you should be selective in those that you consider ‘key’, and you should be succinct with your definition of each that you decide to include. In a quantitative hypothesis-testing study, these are primarily the terms that describe the key variables of your study. In an emergent qualitative-based research study, however, the key concepts that you intend to engage with in your research will not all be clear to you at the outset of the research. Where this is so, you should state this clearly within your proposal.
2) LITERATURE REVIEW
It was noted earlier (in the section headed ‘Justification for the study’) that in order to gain support for a proposed project, the researcher will need to conduct a review of the literature. In a research proposal, the literature review is a partial summary of previous work related to the focus of the study. You will need to demonstrate to the reader that you are familiar with the major trends in the previous research as well as opinions on the topic and that you understand their relevance to your planned study.
3) METHODOLOGY TO BE USED FOR CONDUCTING THE RESEARCH
The section should include a discussion of your intended research design, the sample you will examine, the instruments to be used to conduct the investigation, procedural details for collecting your empirical evidence and the data analysis techniques to be used. This section should be carefully justified by linking it to the aims and objectives of the proposed study.
Research design
Representative sample, what can be your sample.
Fit your dissertation aims/purpose.
The particular research design to be used should be identified as well as how it applies to the present study. Typically, the basic design is fairly clear-cut and fits one of the following models:
* Experimental design
* Cross-sectional design
* Longitudinal design
* Case study design
Sample
In your proposal, you should indicate in considerable details how you will include participants – the sample – for investigation in your study. You should indicate the size of the sample, how members will be selected, and what claims you may legitimately make about representativeness of your sample.
Procedure and data collection
Outline your proposed method(s) of research. This should be presented in sufficient detail for the reader to know that the project is realistic, feasible and worthwhile. You will need to describe how you intend to access your target group and contact your research participants. It is important to make your data collection procedure clear so that if another researcher wants to repeat your study in exactly the same way as the original, they are able to replicate your procedures.
Contribution
The contribution of the article should be assessed in terms of four criteria: generalisability, validity, replication and reliability. Could your results be generalizable? Do you want them to be generalizable? What about issues of internal and external validity? Would someone else be able to replicate your study? If not, is this an issue? Are the proposed research methods reliable?
4) ETHICAL CONSIDERATION
At some point in the proposal, it is necessary to indicate clearly what you regard as the major ethical issues of the project, and to state clearly how these will be handled. You will need to demonstrate that you have taken the appropriate steps to ensure that both yourself and others associated with your intended project are protected from harm.
Research Proposal
By (Name)
Institution
Instructor
Date
Research Proposal
Proposed Topic: The Importance of Performance Related Pay in Motivating Employees: A Study of Frontline Employees at Hilton Hotel
1) Research problem to investigate
a. Purpose of the Research
The purpose of the study will be to investigate the impact of rewards on the performance of frontline employees in the hospitality industry.
b. Deductive or inductive approach
A research can utilize either a deductive or an inductive approach. The deductive approach seeks to test data and usually begins with a hypothesis. On the other hand, the inductive approach uses the data to generate a new theory. The approach uses the research questions to narrow the scope of the investigation. In the research, the inductive approach will be utilized given that the findings will be obtained from the data generated.
c. Research questions, aims and objectives
i) Research Questions
The following questions will guide the study:
1 Does employee empowerment influence their performance in the workplace?
2 What is the relationship between employee empowerment and performance in the workplace?
3 To what extend does rewards influence the performance of workers?
ii) Aims and Objectives
1 To investigate the link between the empowerment of workers and their performance in the workplace.
2 To assess the relationship between the motivation of employees on their performance.
3 To determine the extent to which rewards influence the performance of employees.
d. Definition of key terms and concepts
i) Performance Related Pay (PRP)
PRP involves linking salary progression to an assessment of the performance of workers by measuring it against pre-agreed objectives (Kato and Kodama, 2015).
ii) Employee Motivation
The willingness of a worker to expend energy towards achieving the goals of an organization (Dobre, 2013). In other words, it is the inner drive to put the required effort towards work-related activities.
iii) Performance Evaluation
The procedures followed to measure the work and results of employees based on their job requirements (Capko, 2003).
iv) Frontline Employees
These are workers who deal directly with clients (Baig, Riaz and Kashif, 2015).
2) Review of the academic literature
The Importance of Employees
Employees remain the most important assets for any organization. When these individuals are unmotivated and unhappy, they feel isolated from the overall function of the company. As a result, the organization becomes vulnerable to low productivity, low morale and high employee turnover. In the hospitality industry and especially in the hotel business, it is critical for businesses to remain focused on the performance of the workers and identify ways to enhance it (Marshall’ Mottier and Lewis, 2015). In the hospitality industry, employees are critical because the industry is by nature labor intensive.
The Importance of Motivating Employees
A majority of the workers’ activity in the hospitality industry revolves around making direct contact with guests (Crick and Spencer, 2011). In such cases, a majority of organizations have taken steps towards improving the effectiveness of the workers and hence their productivity. Employers want to have employees who are dedicated, loyal, committed and hard working. The job performance is due to the motivation of the individual workers. Employees who are satisfied are more likely to be productive and committed to achieve the objectives of an organization (Shahid and Azhar, 2013).
Performance Related Pay (PRP)
In the recent years, a growing number of hotel executives have gone ahead to implement talent management strategies. The move has been facilitated by the need to create an organizational-wide commitment to the provision of high-quality services. Talent management entails attracting, developing and managing workers. As part of the overall talent management strategy, PRP offers a powerful tool for hotels to motivate and reward workers for high performance.
Advantages of PRP
PRP can motivate and retain key talent in an organization. Having rewards tied to attaining certain goals can motivate workers to work harder (Eshun, 2011). This is because they perceive that their performance reflects on their payment. Additionally, when workers want more income, they work harder which improves their performance. The move enables them to attain the set objectives of an organization. Furthermore, PRP is a motivator for workers to improve their knowledge and skills in their area of socialization. When workers feel that an organization values their knowledge and skills, they are likely to become motivated towards self-development (Dobre, 2013). Lastly, a PRP reduces on employee turnover. When high-performing employees feel that an organization values their contribution, they are less likely to look for opportunities elsewhere.
Disadvantages of PRP
PRP focuses more on the work of an individual worker. As a result, it causes employees to focus solely on their goals (Solmon and Podgursky, 2000). Such employees may fail to corporate with other workers in an organization. Additionally, PRP can cause mistrust and lack of collaboration in a company. The individual employees work more towards achieving their objectives to earn more as opposed to doing what is on the best interests of the company. When employees do not cooperate, it becomes difficult to attain the objectives of an organization. Moreover, PRP may reduce the production process as workers focus more on their reward as opposed to the quality of the process (Suff et al., 2007). When employees seek compensation, they may end up doing their work quickly without considering the quality of the process. Lastly, PRP may disadvantage employees who are unable to operate at a lower speed. For instance, employees who fall sick may be unable to earn more which may demotivate them. PRP may also disadvantage older employees who may not operate at the same speed as the younger employees. PRP may eventually reduce the performance of the whole organization.
PRP & Employee Motivation
Motivating workers is a major challenge for a majority of managers. Employee motivation is critical for the overall effectiveness of a company. According to Waddell et al. (2007), motivation refers to the psychological forces that determine the direction of an individual’s behavior and their level of effort in an organization. The authors believe the direction of behavior and effort as major components towards motivating workers. In the case of PRP, workers will work harder if they value the monetary rewards and believe that the rewards will result from their increased efforts (Boachie-Mensah and Dogbe, 2011).
Motivational Theories
An understanding of motivation requires an examination of some of the major motivational theories. These are
* Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory
Maslow introduced the theory in 1954. In the theory, Maslow classifies the desires of humans into psychological, safety, belongingness, esteem and self-actualization needs (Maslow, 1954). He asserts the need to satisfy the needs at the bottom of the pyramid like psychological and safety have to be met before attempting to satisfy the higher level needs. When employees have the opportunity to satisfy the final need, which is self-actualization, then such workers are motivated to attain the objectives of the organization (Jerome, 2013).
* Theory X and Theory Y
Victor Vroom proposed the Expectancy Theory in 1964. Vroom believed that employees behave in a certain manner based on the idea that the action...
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