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 INTRODUCTION4

1.1.1 Aim of the research 4

1.2 Background and Purpose 5

1.2.1 Research Question 6

1.3 Scope and Rationale 6

1.3.1 Research objectives 7

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Tools for Employee engagement 11

3.0 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 12

3.1 Research Model 12

3.2 Research Approach 13

3.3 Research Strategy 14

3.4 Case study introduction: Matalan, Beckton 14

3.5 Data collection and Analysis 15

3.6 Ethics 16

3.7 Limitation 16

3.8 Conclusions 16

3.9 Time Scale 17

List of figures

FIGURE 1: ANTICEDENTS AND EFFECTS OF FRONTLINE ENGAGEMENT (HOSPITALITY) 8

FIGURE 2: DRIVERS OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT 9

FIGURE 3: RESEARCH ONION 12

1.0 Introduction

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 employee’s 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 employee’s 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 organisation’s 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

2.0 Literature 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 Kahn’s (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 organisation’s 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.

2.1 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. McBain’s (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 that’s 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.

3.0 Research 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 anti-

positivist 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

3.1 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.

3.2 Research Approach

As discussed in the previous section the research intends to investigate in to the importance

of evaluation of performance of employee’s 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.

3.3 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.

3.4 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 200 th 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 company’s stores

are situated in the outskirts of urban locations. In each store there is a separate chamber for

each of the age groups, kids, Men’s, women’s 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 company’s 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

3.5 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.

3.6 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).

3.7 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.

3.8 Conclusions

Will be written after feed back

3.9 Time Scale

Weeks

Tasks1 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

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Further readings

Armstrong, M. and Baron, A., 2005. Managing Performance: Performance Management in Action, CIPD, London.

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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, 10 th 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, 3 rd 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 Britain’s 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 Britain’s 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

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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.