EFFECTS OF THE EMPLOYEES PARTICIPATION IN THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES
By
Student name
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO DEPARTMENT OF …… SHEFFIELD UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT
Date submitted
TABLE OF CONTENT
Table of Contents
1.4.1 General research question. 6
1.4.2 Specific research questions. 6
1.6 Significance of the topic. 6
2.2.1 Theories of employee participation. 9
2.2.2 Model of employee participation. 12
2.3 Decision making processes. 16
2.5 Critique of the existing literature and research gap. 18
2.6 Research gap and summary. 19
3.4 Data sources and collection. 24
3.4.2 Data collection techniques. 26
3.7 Ethical issues and the measures you would have undertaken to address them.. 27
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 background
Businesses continue to sprout across the world. In many small to medium-sized enterprises the labors or the in other employees are needed to ensure sustainability of the organization. This run across all he level regardless of the structure of management adopted. Many scholar articles supports that all employees form the prime part of the organization’s success in its objective. In search of the best way to improve the workers motivation n participation in decision making seem to be the primary foundation of forming bridges between the managerial level and other employees.
Employee participation encompasses the act of employee involvement either directly or by representative in decision making process in the company or any structure organization towards reaching the best way to achieve the goals of the firm. In most organization then decisions making is critical phase where the decision passed often change or influence behaviour of every member of the firm. If this decision making is driven by self-interest of the manager to the owners of the business then conflicts arose that may cripple the company’s activities. Industrial riots or boycotts occur because of poor management that is driven by the fact that the management may not acknowledge the voice of its workers. This participation may be defined as the form of delegation of duties so as to motivate the workers through smooth communication between all levels of management.
1.2 Problem statement
A lot of research has been carried out regarding the utmost impact of employee participation as knowledge sharing platform for most organization but not few research has ben done on the actual bridge between the participation and decision making process. The literature considers the participation has a boosts on the job attitude but put the managers role as he primary decision makers in the channel. Despite the fact that the employee are called upon while making critical decision there view are actually put forward as of greatest importance. The formality has proven costly. In this study the key impact of participation would revolve around the decision making process.
The labor unions and activists go to street every day fighting for the employee motivation such salary increase but the problem does not seem to be in favor in most organizations. The government and the private institutional are fighting with the implications of the poor economic condition especially at this time of pandemic. Many workers have been retrenched and others receiving half of their usual remunerations. This article takes on the perspective of fighting these issues from the inside of the organization. This would mean the employees have say before nay of exploiting action are passed by the managers so as to assess the effect on every member and acknowledge the adverse effect of the decisions hence having an advantage of cushioning any disagreement that may arise thereafter.
Even though employee participation has been major call by government and unions, it is coupled up several factors such trust and control or similarities in demographic features. According to the Studies positive correlation between the employee performance and participation has been noticed. The increase in performance was attributed to factors such as satisfaction and commitment amongst the employees. The other study also carried out evidence of the employee satisfaction in Indonesian companies. The results were incredible evidence of the huge participation of employees in decision making in most organization. The major challenges facing these articles concerns the limited sample in order to make credible conclusions
This study seeks to unravel the actual implication of employee’s participation in critical decision making of the organization. The research shades light through digging the evidence data and fill in the gaps of the scholarly articles through extensive sampling.
1.3 Research objectives
1.3.1 General objective
- To investigate the effect of employee participation on decision making processes
1.3.2 Specific objective
- To investigate the effects of employee participation on organizations decision making process
- To investigate way to effectively implement employee participation
- To investigate the challenges arising from the employee participation implementation
1.4 Research questions
1.4.1 General research question
- How does employee participation affect decision making processes
1.4.2 Specific research questions
- How does employee participation influence organization’s decision making process?
- What is the best way to implement employee participation in decisions making?
- Are there any challenges in implementing employee participation in decision making processes?
1.5 HYPOTHESIS
H0 the employee participation has no significant impact on decision making process
H1 the employee participation has significant impact on decision making process
1.6 Significance of the topic
Despite the many firms being driven by profits, these profits need to be morally pursued. Moral profits would mean putting into consideration all spillover effects of its actions such as over working of the workers or the pollution effects if the firm is working on potential health hazards such chemicals. Employee participation is of major significance since it is a driver of profitable and hence the performance of the company.
If the workers are exploited or are denied freedom of airing their views concerning their work life then the management may be facing poor performance or worse implications that result from poor labor productivity. This theme serves as an eye opener to the managerial positions on the reason why employees should be included in making key decisions in the organization. The conclusion would show influence the structure or organization through deriving best ways to implement employee participation in decision making process. In academic context this study would add to the existing body of knowledge regarding the significance of the employee as part and parcel of organizations primary activities hence involvement in decision making process as absolutely critical.
1.7 Limitation and scope
This study will fulfill the investigation of the effect of the employee participation on the decision making processes of small to medium sized enterprises on global perspective in line with its advantages to all the stakeholders.
2. CRITICAL LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
The concepts of employee participation are recently becoming more popular has more and more organization adopts this culture into its structure. The prominent of the participation was inspired by the benefits that come along it. It is common to see businesses placing decisions making as the critical in its product management and human resources management departments. This chapter therefore seeks to extensively review the factors that determine implementation of employee participation.
2.2 Theoretical framework
The culture of participating in decision making would mean the practice of owners or the managers of a business allowing the employees to be actively involved during making decision concerning the goals and objectives of the organization. In this platform the workers can air or give opinions regarding challenges facing the organization so as to draft the best method to achieve target goals in predetermined timeline. Most researchers have agreed that this form of decisions making build solid relationship between the levels of managers and its employees. If the workers are actively call upon when important meeting are carried out then a sense of team work and trusts is experienced by the workers. With its success in few organization who have actually experience this act. It is quite evident is beneficial. Dictator ship kind of business relate in conflict that takes up most time which could be converts into huge wealth and good relationship with societies.
Reputation of an organization is highly beneficial if the organization inculcates good culture of considering everyone important and creating the best working environment regardless of race, culture or religion. However, this new structure comes with methods and special ways of implementation inn the organizational original culture and norms so as avoid interfering with the performance of the organizations. This is because the adoption of new ways may call upon changes of goals and objectives of the organization to minimize conflict of interest.
As evident by scholars, the participative decision making quite risk to the organizations, the article suggest that participation of the employee in the critical decisions making process ad to the time wastage and inefficiency. The article claim that due to inexperience the worker may lead to rowdy decisions making process and incompetence that often cause more harm than good to the organization. The inefficiency may be seen when the decisions need to be made in a short and involve fact respect to certain changes in the market conditions for profit organizations.
Those in favor of the participative decisions making, have proved the importance of it through in-depth analysis on the job satisfaction, commitment and absenteeism. Participative decisions making has been found to increase in the job. The employees feel more committed since the organizations works under their views and opinions. The trust factor comes along between the managerial and workers. The peaceful working environment evident; leads to profitability since the workers would feel part of the organization hence improves their work attitudes. In terms of absenteeism, the work commitment to their worker reduces absenteeism at any given day. Together, these factors add up to the outstanding performance of the organization.
2.2.1 Theories of employee participation
Some theories have been developed by economists such classical to explain the correlation between the two variable sunder study employee participation and decisions making process. The theories however involve some factors underlying participation such as behaviour in the workers and the labor productivity. They include; theory of motivation and theory of employee risks triangle.
Theory of motivation
This theory postulates the fact that participating can serve as tool of motivation. It is widely applied in the context of reviewing organizational structure through involving the employees in decision making processes. This theory was supported by Maslow and other classical theorists. This theory explains that employees vie participation as form of respect or recognition which is psychological characteristic that enhances productivity of the individual. McGregor support this theory by explaining further by claim that the management often uses this tool as mean and way of achieve high welfare needs of the employee. Empirical evidence shows that motivation is primary factor behind employee involvement in decisions making. Many companies are implementing this theory towards achieving high motivation amongst the employees. Motivation has been linked by other form of productivity measure such as behavior. According to the Adenike who researched on the link between job satisfaction and the climate in the organization in Nigeria, motivation creates good organizational climate which translates to job satisfaction.
Theory of risk triangle
This theory posit that the behavioral component as part of employee participation. The theory states several means that define to probability of the employees turn against the company property or other forces that may hinder productivity. Many researchers have studied the job attitude in relation to the performance. The finding were that there is significant job defiance in case the economic conditions worsen the workers began to steal from the company in order to increasing the financial status.
This theory proceeds to back up the evidence by explaining the forces behind this unbecoming behavior. Changes in behaviour can be attributed to the needs and opportunity or attitude to the job. It outlines the rise in the unethical behaviour in relation to employee participation in decision making processes. The two variables are directly related.
Theory of compensating differences
The theory of compensating differences states that the working conditions determined the amount of wages that the worker receives. In other terms, this means those with good condition receive better pay but versa is also true. The theory purports that the organizations finds other means of compensating low wages in event of poor economic condition. Employee participation is one such of improving welfare and still ensures the workers are not worse off and motivation is still maintained. With employee involvement in decision making processes, agreement may be reached by having consensus with the stakeholders through representatives or direct participations.
Theory of efficient wages
Workers productivity is of most importance to firm. The productivity adds up to the overall performance of the firm. The theory of efficient theory states that the higher the wages of a workers increase the commitment and hence effort input in the work. The loyalty is necessary since the organization will experience very low turnover hence reducing the costs of recruitment. The platform of participation may be useful to spearhead the solution to problems. According to Akerlof theory the contractual agreement in between the organization and the laborers need to involvement transparency in the laying down and wage laws, and any other working related issues.
Theories of conflict
This theory emphasizes on the limitation of the level of involvement of the employees. The theory posits that high level participation adds up to the bargaining power of the employees. In this case, the worker gains power through relaxing the pressure of the unions. The participation is regarded to the mode of micro managing the workers. Workers may easily tamper with the production processes of the firm due to being active in decision making process. The amount of conflict may increase or decrease depending on the culture of the organization. This theory shows that involvement may be management objective to reduce workers bargaining power or influence. They loss the possibility of receiving fair treatment in their work places for example increment of the work loads and low wages.
The theory is supported by empirical evidence from the scholarly articles. The owners or employers usually prefer high participation by the workers to increasing the wages. Evidence show this happens during economy downturns where the employees are given more responsibilities but wages are cut. This posits that the wages are reducing relative to the high participation level.
2.2.2 Model of employee participation
The participation encompasses the involvement in an activity either passively or actively in such a way it causes influence or effect in any way. The action of participation as an employee’s would mean the worker is involved in the process of making decisions in the organization one works. This concept can categorize into various levels depending on the degree of involvement. The participation can be high, moderate or low in level. Employee participation has a model that encompasses the follows factors that determined the degree of involvement: the needs, taking advantage of opportunities and job attitudes. This theory outlines the behaviour of the worse that involve the defiance during economic crisis. The workers may resort to steal from the company when the economic condition becomes worse. It brings to the surface the relevance of behaviour and workers involvement. The empirical evidence shows that there is great significance between the employee participation and counterproductive work behavior.
Structure of decision making
Organizations have different structures of decisions many that may vary depending on the culture or any rules adopted by the management that are deemed to be in favor of the performance of the organization. The decisions structure can be programmed or non-programmed. Programmed structure requires very minimal participation by the employees. They are form from the experience of the past occurrence. The outcome is already determined by the managers. The problems that are solved through this structure are not complex and repetitive in nature hence the technology can be utilized to execute the preset instruction. The other structure in non-programmed which ,means the problem are new and the decisions need to made with expertise and needs participation of the stakeholders so as to arrive at best way to approach the issue. This structure requires more employee involvement. It is quite evident that the level of employee participation is determined by the structure of the decision making of the organization
Conflict risks
Conflict arises in case of disagreements. Employers and employees are likely to agree if the decision making criteria is not accepted by either parties. The culture is a primary factor that ensures the organization operates in absolute harmony. The risks of conflict come in as determining factor of the level of employee engagement in decision making process in instances where the goals and norms go hand in hand. If the culture and goals are likely to lead to conflicts then level of involvement will be low. Conflicts of interest arise when those in management tend to be authoritative. In such occasions then the level of employee participation may vary from time to time.
Knowledge base
Consideration of the channel of communication, the workers are more close to the clients or customer than the managers. This is one reason why the employers should consider calling upon the employees to give opinions regarding decisions that concern the customer. They are the people with more knowledge or the working of the implemented strategies. High level of employee participation is further required if the managers lack enough knowledge about the company and the needs of various department. This evidently shows the employee participation is very significant.
Commitment to strategies
According to the researchers evident absolute trusts and commitment is built through employee’s participation. Execution of the passed strategies may be difficult especially in the structures where the workers are not happy about the decision. Employee Involvement while implementing such strategies or decision enhances smooth implementation and execution. A high the level of participation raises the commitment to the goals and objectives.
Employee participation characteristics
Employee participation characterizes encouraging the employees to take responsibility of the outcome. If the employees were actively consulted before the strategies were implemented, it will be easy for them to work towards accepting any negative repercussions that arise from the outcome. Some research agrees that employee participation also involve motivation of the employees who are challenged to give maximum input towards relaxation of the objectives. The motivation cuts across all aspect of the individual life. The most important is mental and emotional support offed by the organization enhances commitment and job that are main drivers behind the general objectives of the firms. It is well evident that muscular involvement does not beat the emotional or mental participation in decisions making process ass it bore more fruits
Goals of workers participation
The trend of shifting towards more employee participation is quite evident in most business or companies. According to research employers are redefine their objectives towards majoring on the welfare of the employee in place of the profit making. Those in managerial positions are in favor of the fact that the employees are considered part of the organization since they are dedicated to the activities through investing of life and not money. They are the major investor in the organization. Increment of the participation builds good relationship which motivates them. With this, they work with determination to improve performance because they treat the firm as home or as personal objective, the productively of the firm eventually increases.
The participation has more objectives which include; improving the harmony between the labor unions and companies. Most workers normally join unions whose mania is to channel claims and grievances concerning the work life. Better working consideration and collective bargain agreement are the main goals of such unions. The workers normally join hands when need to air their views. The unions normally causes interruptions and they have strong leverage compared to the individuals. If the organizations have good structure of employee participation such hiccups would minimized because only the leaders would invited and the agreements are set on the table.
Another objective is to ensure the collaboration between all the levels of the organizational structure. Through involvement in decision making the workers would feel more motivated through trusts and transparency. Employee participation also has a goal of improving performance of the organization. This is achieved through improving the employee’s welfare and betterment of the channels of communication in the organization
2.3 Decision making processes
Decisions making process is critical process to very small to medium enterprise. This process encompasses the process of gathering data, analysis and deriving valid conclusion that are driven towards solving current problems. The process may vary from organization to organization but there following are common step followed.
Steps of decision making
The fists step involved identification of decision. In this step, the managers decide the need of certain strategy and what decision could be the best in order to reach desirable outcome. The second step involve gathering of relevant data. The data mostly come from the company databases which are collected overtime. This serves as the starting point for the managers. After this step the alternative to the solutions are identified so to make the process. At this point the participative decision making may be implemented so as to update the available data. The employees are closer to the clients or customers hence provide the primary data before analysis is carried out. It is very critical stage because this is where bets guide to reaching is arrived at.
The next step would involve the analysis. In this stage the managers together with other stakeholders try to weigh the available alternatives. The weighing of the alternatives sold informed by oats experience to avoid adverse implications if the decision is undertaken. After agreeing on the final decision the next step would implementation and execution of the strategies. The implementation may take time depending in the company’s method adopted to fit in the decision with the current structure. After the implementation follow up would be best move for the company. Some decisions often have limitations that need checked and mitigated. Experts are involved in this phase to ensure no worse scenarios are experienced by the company. If the consequences can be cushioned then more alternatives may be tried by the firm.
2.4 The Conceptual Framework
Having analyzed the theories and empirical literature behind the two variables employee participation and the decision making processes, the conceptual framework may be constructed such that the decisions making processes makes up the independent variables. This include the various levels of the participation in the decisions making that include high , medium, and low levels. In this context the decision making processes will be considered as the dependent variable
Independent variables dependent variable
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2.5 Critique of the existing literature and research gap
In this section the article seeks to unravel various articles that tried doing in-depth research regarding the issue of employee participation and the missing gaps or limitations. According to Irawanto et al. (2015) employee participation has been quite evident in Indonesian enterprises. Together with his team of research they decided to carry out this objective in order to establish the changing trend in the society. For past ten years, the authoritarian form of management in the management of the companies is fading out and the managers are implementing the democratic form of governance. The employees are allowed to air their views and opinions in the decision making processes. The article finds out that there is significant relationship between the organization structure and employee motivations. However, the research is only based in the stare owned corporations which limits the conclusion.
Another article carried out to establish the employee participation implications on the decision making in relations to job commitment. The article majored on the private and public universities in an African country. The article used descriptive reach design and cross-sectional data across 16 universities. The findings roved the significance of employee participation in decision making processes and concluded that the involvement in management motivates the workers and enhances commitment to the job. This article based in findings on only 16 universities which shows clearly that the finding are not reliable if there is need to applied to the multinational companies. Further, the findings leave the gap on what exactly changes when the worker participates in decision making. The factors considered are so minimal such that the correlation of the two may be motivated by other exogenous variables.
According to Ismail et al. (2004) employee participation can be categorized into two; financial and mental participation. In his article he tried to unravel the correlation between employee participation and the behavioral attitude towards the job. The complements of the participation would include involvement, commitment and collaboration. The article used statistical models to arrive at conclusion regarding the relationship in the participation and the attitude. The findings were that the participation has more effects when the participation is centered on the decision making n process. This article based in British retail companies sows in the questionnaires that the employee participation is indeed a driver of growth through boosting the commitment and attitudes. However, the article misses to explain the actual causative agent whet he individual is allowed to participate in the discussion concerning the way forward of the company. The decision making process seem to be center core of the process but none of the article brings out clearly on what happens during the decision making process. This could include; time taken, the efficiency and the risks when the workers are given mandate to gives views before critical decisions are undertaken.
2.6 Research gap and summary
The literature reviewed above shows grate evidence of the employee participation in countries. The critical issue has been handled but not exhaustively. There are gap missing gaps due to certain limitations the conclusions were not much reliable concerning the changing trend of business and challenges occurring in every organizational structure. The past studies have mainly based in the outcome of the decision making but not bring out what happens during decision making. The discretionary effort by the managers is not stated. The neglect of other sectors deems the conclusion invalid. To fill this gap, this article will sample out the pats studies and integrate the knowledge to fit in the research gap in the foregoing literature.
3. RESEARCH METHODODLOGY
3.1 Introduction
This section outlines the research methods that will be applied in the analysis of the correlation between the variables under study. In this section the method research will stated inclusive of its philosophical justification and any consideration on its practicality. It also proceeds to review model or techniques of research that encompasses the hypotheses and questions concerning the topic. The article also aims at revealing the sources of data that the research will utilize and how the data will be collected from the sources. The form of data analysis will stated with evaluations of validity and reliability of the findings. Conclusively the execution will explore the ethical issues experience in event of implementing the data collection and in research execution.
3.2 Research philosophy
3.2.1 Research philosophy
In this study the method of research applied encompasses pragmatism which is referred to the practical approach to analysis of data. This method uses scientific techniques in discovering the limitations between the dependent and independent variable of the study towards answering the research questions and objectives. The pragmatism work towards achieving the best of the data analyzed through choosing of the valid methods of data collection, and data analysis packages for the gathered data.
3.2.2 Research Design
Research design can be stated as the series procedure that is used to collect data that is relevant tot eh data and analysis to achieved desired conclusions. Its can described as the master plan of research the design can be categorized into two; the descriptive and cross-sectional designs. Descriptive design is more in-depth has it comprises of the collection of data, analysis and extensive interpretation that brings distinguishing features of dependent and independent variables under study.
This design best suits situation where researchers aim at giving description of the gathered data. This clarifies more of the variable in the study. The correlation form of design enhances description of the relationship that exists between the dependent and independent variables. On this study the two designs are utilized but more appropriately the correlation coefficient is used to establish the main objective of the study that correlation between employee participation and the decision making processes.
3.3. Research techniques
3.3.1 Research method
Research methods can be classified into two: the quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative research encompasses the used advanced packages of analysis quantitative data that and carrying out mathematical comparisons to prove certain phenomena. The data being collected can be secondary or primary provided it is reliable. Primary data and secondary data is gathering from the articles or online survey in real time the sorted and using the statistical packages the software is fed with data under predetermined procedure then produce results. These results are used to prove occurring phenomena or serves as determinant of certain critical decision in the institution.
On the other hand, qualitative research does not include any computations but it is usually descriptive and used to analyze opinions or views in relation to other phenomenon. The sample sizes are usually small due to depth of the research being carried out. This research method quite unreliable compared to quantitative research. However, in this research the use of both methods will improve accuracy. Qualitative research will be used to provide description of the variables obtained but quantitative research will be used to analyze the correlation of the two or more variables.
3.3.2 Research instrument
Instrument means the tool that the research utilizes while collecting, analyzing or interpreting data from the source. The tools could be questionnaires if it is primary data but for secondary data sampling techniques are widely used. Since the primary data will not be utilized toss such as carrying out interviews or surveys will not be considered. Since sampling is the only popular method of obtaining data from the secondary sources then research will put it under consideration.
Target population
Target population acts as the guide to the instrument to be applied. For valid data, the sample size needed to be of considerate size. The more participants, the more reliable the data obtained. In this case, more than 100 participants will be put into consideration. The study is try to unravel the correlation between the participation in decision and the impacts on the decision making process. Thus, the public, private and government institution will be represented. Thus the data will balance the employees form the three categories. To make the data more valid and accurate, the balance of the industries will also be a factor to be put under consideration. Medicine, technical and law firms will be the most critical sectors that the research will be obtained data to improve reliability.
Sampling frame
Sampling frame encompasses the organized number of articles or elements that would be used to provide data to the research and have valid direction towards reaching objective of the study. This list guides the research under which the representative variables of the data are obtained. Samples obtained are the milestone to the random variables. In this case, the firm will consists of the number of employee representing gender and the scope of ta with the wages of particular cohorts of employees. The sources of data will the companies databases and government longitudinal data over a period of time say tee years. The job description, amount of wages and participation in decision making will be considered.
Sampling techniques
Sampling techniques involve the use of a portion of the actual population as representative of a whole. In this regard sampling is normally used to obtain the salient characteristics of a whole population. Sampling can be subdivided into two categories; the probability sampling and non-probability sampling. These two methods may be use together or one can be used in a particular research. In this research, both methods are utilized to boost the accuracy of the information. The distinguishing characteristic between non probability and probability sampling techniques is the chances given to the items being selected. On probability sampling does not considered the items being selected to have equal chances in the population but probability sampling considered the items in the selection lists to be having equal chances in the population.
Under non probability sampling the research ensure the use of purposive that encompasses the selection by judgment. The employees selected for research were chose under judgment of the researcher. Those quailed were chosen to represent the rest. The reason for the adoption of this method was because of the time saving attribute. Instead of sorting the items the research only chose from the lists those mostly likely to give accurate data. The other advantage of this method is effectiveness. The samples need f or the study was few and quite reliable to provide representative information. The method has high leverage in terms of the availability of reliability because the research question and objection maybe solved in real time through judgment.
3.4 Data sources and collection
3.4.1 Data sources
The sources are primary and secondary. The primary data mean the information that is gathered from the external sources such from the subjection or through investigation in select area. The primary sources give fist hand data. On the hand researchers often used secondary data to back the finding from the primary data. The primary data serves are as supporting information to the other.
Primary data
As noted in the foregoing literature primary data can only be collected through questionnaires’, interviews or observations in the area of investigation. Primary data is quite advantageous because of feature of accuracy compared to secondary data. The data collected is real tine and perfectly reflect the current conditions. In this scenario the evidence of employee participation and survey information will be conclusive.
Also, primary data can solve specified issues raised through real time surveys without going through irrelevant data in the published or unpublished records. This means the researcher has more control over his or her data. It also presents potential solution to the missing gaps in the literature compared to the secondary sources. Despite being expensive primary data is always recommendable however, this research will not utilize data from field due to the limitations of travels that have been brought by the pandemic that lead to lockdown across the country and beyond.
Secondary data
Secondary data is major sources of data that has been collected ad well stored in data base. Sources of secondary data can be magazines, peer reviewed article, newspapers, and other journals. The secondary data may have been analyzed or on other cases the data is raw and gives not information until data analysis procedures are applied to obtain valid information. This kind of data is normally economical since it is easy to access compared primary which is time consumption.
To obtain data from a journal, once need to just download and read. This information reliable since it often based of past occurrence that may reflect the current occurrence. The data may also be sampled out from deferent sources to increase reliability. The other advantages of secondary data are the comparative features. The sources gives longitudinal data compared to primary techniques of collection which one has to wait for many years hence saving time.
3.4.2 Data collection techniques
In this section, the collection procedures are normally guided by the purpose of the research regardless of the sources of data. Data from secondary sources are found in books or relevant articles. The sampling techniques indicated earlier will used to arrive at the relevant article from the government databases, public and private companies so as to increase the reliability of the data. During sampling the factors to put into consideration involve the time, methods used and the accuracy, this will boosts the reliability of the data collected by the researchers.
The consideration would be the nature of the previous research questions comprise of the number of articles that are giving relevant information regarding the nature and scope of the research carried out. Finally, the factor adequacy s also placed as a priority. These will guide objective of the study. In some sections the researcher would display the limitations of the study and the missing links so as to put into consideration the validity of the findings.
3.5 Form of analysis
After data has been collected and store safely, data analysis is carried out to answer the research questions. Data analysis can be defined as the process in which data collected in inspected, cleaned, and transformed or modeled into a form that can be utilized in derivation of valid information. Other scholars define data analysis the methods of defining the potential existing relationship between variables. Data analysis can be categorized into the several categories which include descriptive and content data analysis. Since the research utilized both quantitative and qualitative methods then descriptive was used to process the quantitative data while content analysis was used to analyze quantitative data.
Descriptive analysis would the use of statistical software or formulas to compute the mean, frequency and standard deviation. The data obtained would be understood better with these measures of statistics. The derived sample should not be far from the population means for accuracy. Content analysis was used to analyze the symbols or pictures hence revealing informative conclusions.
Validity
Data validity encompasses the process the accuracy of that data collected. The validity can be categorized into internal and external validity of the data. Internal validity is broadly concerned with the accuracy of the output of the experiment given the variables. This validity is quite independent from the effects of exogenous variables. On the other hand, the external validity concern the applicability of the findings from the research ton the real world life. The findings need to in line with the experience beyond the experiment environment.
Reliability
The reliability is driven by the validity of the data. The reliability comes in many forms the inter observers which is assessed through taking two observers to note down phenomenon simultaneously. The research may proceed to assess the reliability by repeated step of experiments, the resulting conclusion are ten compared. The consistency between two tests proofs reliability.
3.6 Data presentation
Data presentation is vital I the event of any research. The presentation comes in two forms statistical and graphical representation of the analysis. The data analyzed using quantitative techniques require presentation in form of statistical summary. However, the qualitative data can be presented using visual charts such as bar charts, pie charts or line graphs. Visuals should brief and well organized to pass vital information addressing the research objectives and questions.
3.7 Ethical issues and the measures you would have undertaken to address them
In the event of research, there are principles that govern safety of the researcher and confidentially of those participating in the researcher. The ethics regulate the actions of the research because to some extend the research may cause harm either mental of psychologically depending on the information being research on. The principles guide t person carrying out the research to avoid deceptive or harmful; information being displayed to the masses. The following are the principles:
Minimization of the risks of harming
Under this principle, the researcher is often required to limit exposure of the participant to the any form of harm be it mental or physical. the research paper often not objectify to haram the particular but the information shared may cause display of private information accidentally or cause distress or even depression because of the data presented to the public. The researcher is challenge to address this issue through the following measure. The first measure concerns the transparency about the research and explaining to the participants what could be the potential repercussion of sharing the information. Obtaining consent is powerful tool to ensure research fall under this principles. The participants should volunteering and not being forced to participate in the activity.
The second lead to minimizing the risks of harm is by sharing with the participant the need to protect his or her private information. This is the first thing the researcher needs to limit. The information about particular person’s life should be kept out of scope of the research. Personal information could mean geographical locations, vernacular or even personal names another measure is the avoidance of lying about the research. Openness on the actual goals and objectives of the research should be a guide to the researcher. Lastly, the other means of reducing risks will be giving the research liberty to withdraw from the research if one feels discomfort about it. The secondary data analysis often involves fetching data from online sources. He authors often have copy rights and the researcher may need to obtain permission to use data available.
This ethic also guides data collection and visualization techniques. The data collection needs to signify integrity so to prove the worth of the data presentation. The research named to considered ethical collection of by considering relevant articles. The privacy ethics play part in this section since the participant may to main confidentiality in the event of data being presentation and anonymous feature run across all the stages. To surpass all these issues then the research should be founded on ethical ground that are guided by integrity and responsibility
APPENDIX
Self-reflection
Description
I was given responsibility of undertaking dissertation project on international business management. The project was major to me having very little practical experience on actual planning and implementing the stages. I faced a lot of challenges on topic formulation. Reaching the point of having a topic easy to handle and worth adding more knowledge to the existing literature gave tough time. Obviously, I had more likes for the business related topics but the identification of the missing research was the part found its creating a lot of setbacks.
I narrowed down to the emerging issues in the real business world. I came to notice that across the world the trend of employee participation is becoming common and most scholar are trying to evaluate the relevant effects of the movement. Just the political government has seen democracy as the best form of government compared authoritative. This is where I came up with the effects of employee participation on decision making processes.
Feelings
The greater disappointment regards the failure to arrive the bets topic to carry my research on. At first I was stressed up because I had limited time to lay down my topic and draft the best plan to meet all requirements within a short time. The journey to identifying my topic was quite long because I had to relate to the hobbies and availability of the information to make it easy.
Evaluation
The diverger mode of learning came at hand. Being person with attribute implementing what I feel or watch on the real world to writing. I had to utilize the common happening I my everyday life and inculcate them in my writing to make easy. On top I created a visual environment of putting may self in the position of the employee in a particular company and base my writing on actual situations rather than over depending on the theoretical observations. Critical and creative thinking also came hand in hand as the dissertation need real effort terms of think beyond the literature and capitalizing the goals and objectives of the work.
Analysis
On completing my dissertation, i learned that time management and critical and creativity were major drivers behind my completing of the research. I really honed the skill patience the self believe. I never believe that I would handle such a task by myself. If given another chance I would dedicate my time in reducing the dependence on the literature but create more time with the research methods and perfect my skills to enhance timely completion of the dissertation.
REFERENCES
Irawanto, Dodi W. “Employee participation in decision-making: Evidence from a state-owned enterprise in Indonesia.” Management-Journal of Contemporary Management Issues 20.1 (2015): 159-172.
Singh, Sharan Kaur Garib. “A STUDY ON EMPLOYEE PARTICIPATION IN DECISION MAKING.” Unitar e-journal 5.1 (2009).
Faxén, Karl-Olof. “Disembodied technical progress: Does employee participation in decision making contribute to change and growth?.” The American Economic Review 68.2 (1978): 131-134.
Irawanto, Dodi W. “Employee participation in decision-making: Evidence from a state-owned enterprise in Indonesia.” Management-Journal of Contemporary Management Issues 20.1 (2015): 159-172.
Agwu, Mba Okechukwu, and Hilda Enoh Olele. “Perception survey of employees participation in decision making and organizational productivity in Julius Berger Nigeria PLC Bonny Island.” Journal of Economics, Management and Trade (2014): 620-637.
Zikmund, W. G., Babin, B. J., Carr, J. C., & Griffin, M. (2013). Business research methods. Boston, USA: Cengage Learning.
Mugenda, M., & Mugenda, A. (2003). Research methods in education: Quantitative and qualitative approach, Nairobi: Acts press.
Kothari, C. R. (2004). Research methodology: Methods and techniques. Nairobi: New Age International.
Kombo, D. K., & Tromp, D. L. A. (2006). Proposal and Thesis Writing – An Introduction. Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa.