M136LON Business Research Methods Assignment Sample 2023
1. Introduction
Vodafone is considered to be one of the oldest companies that ensure in providing the best networking services. It is one of the largest companies in the telecom sector that operates in more than 30-40 countries in the current era (vodafone.co.uk, 2020).
Complexity, difficulty, and the adaptation of change are referred to as the eminent trend of the modern economy. However, it is required to prepare with adequate skills and knowledge to remain sustainable in this competitive economy. Thus, the employees are regarded as the most valuable assets for an organization in order to complete the desired work within the set time frame for meeting the desires of the customers.
The organization will result in bringing about several developments in the networking services for the customers. It also ensures in providing monthly plans at the lowest cost for the customers with 5G services (vodafone.co.uk, 2020). The relevance of the research is to provide justification for the topic which can be improved through proper learning in order to improve the performance.
The hiring of highly skilled labourers is considered to be more efficient for the increase in the performance of Vodafone. It can be ensured that professional learning skills are required among the different workers to achieve success at a higher level.
As a result, the overall effort is considered to be useful for bringing about developments for the entity. The importance of training in order to improve the learning of the employee in order to generate better results for the venture is considered to be the main value of the research.
As opined by Agrawal and Gangai (2016), the evaluation of training enhances in developing the reactions, learning skills, behaviour as well as results through increasing the effectiveness of the organization. Experience trainee ensures in having better training solutions that result in bringing better developments as compared to that of the inexperienced employees.
The research will be focused on facilitating the use of the approaches of the learning skills in order to develop the condition of the company. Effective training facilities are required to be provided to the trainees in order to bring change in them for ensuring the desired results.
2. Research question and Research objectives
Research question
- Are training and development are related to each other for the workforce quality of the employees?
- Do you think that organizational learning programs can improve the performance of Vodafone?
- Does Vodafone lack the conduction of the appropriate training program for the employees of the firm??
Interview questions
- Why do you think that organizational learning programs can improve the performance of Vodafone?
- What is the relationship between learning programs and the employee’s performance?
- What are the issues faced by the employees due to the lack of learning programs that reduce the performance of the organization?
- What are the main learning skills of the employees for the successful organisational performance?
Research objectives
The main objectives of the research include:
- To evaluate the use of the learning programs for bringing development in the organization
- To understand the issues that affect the performance of the organization
- To understand the relationship between the employees and the learning programs.
- To understand how is training and development related to each other that enhances in bringing development for the organization.
3. Literature Review
Organisational learning is important as this is necessary to manage the knowledge and the skill of the employees of an organisation. In this 20th century, due to the huge globalisation, the competitiveness between the organisations was increasing.
Therefore, Vodafone also needs to increase their competitive advantages against the closed competitors that in turn, are necessary to gain better compete against the competitors. In this regard, the firm must need to pay attention to the employee skills and knowledge for increasing performance quality. As mentioned by Mulyono (2018), this improved performance quality can be achieved by the firm by conducting regular employee training.
This can help the organisation to manage better finance as well as the competitive advantages against the closed competitors SUCH AS NTT, AT&T, Deutsche Telekomand so on.
The improved process of organisational learning can help Vodafone UK in the following perspectives.
Efficiency gains
Organisational learning can increase the experience of the employees and can lead to better efficiency of the employees for managing the organisational success.
Increased productivity
Organisational learning can increase the productivity of the managers and the workers by offering them helpful training. This, in turn, can increase the profit margin by improving the production and sales of Vodafone.
Increased profit
Organisational learning can improve the quality of the organisational performance, and this, in turn, can increase the aqueduct and service quality offered by the company. This, in turn, can increase the customer’s satisfaction, and the firm can increase the customer base. Therefore, increasing the customer base can improve the net profit made by the firm in each financial year.
In order to manage the learning process, the firm needs to follow the planned actions. These includes
Plan
At the first stage, the managers of Vodafone need to identify the business areas for conduction of the training program. The managers need to offer training on communication improvement, sales and marketing, production and technical innovation. As opined by Kraus (2020), this can increase the efficiencies of the firm to manage a better success to manage all the operations along with managing the net profit of the firm.
Execute
In this phase, the managers must pay attention to the execution of the training program with the help of the experienced business leaders. This also can help the business leaders to train the employees based on their specific training requirements.
Monitor
This stage includes the monitoring of the employees where the managers will be capable of identifying the success of the training program for improving the performance of the employees. Effective monitoring also can guide the employees to get motivated for participation in the training program for their better skills.
Debate as part of the literature review
The main debate involved with the literature is the impact of organisational learning over the employee performance of Vodafone. This can be told that the organisation must need to pay better focus on the regular conduction of the training program that, in turn, is essential to manage the experience and the knowledge of the employees.
Otherwise, the firm can face the issues of poor competitive advantages against the competitors. However, according to Bastas and Liyanage (2018), the firm needs to recruit only the potential employees who are capable of delivering the quality workforce to the firm.
However, Juliani and de Oliveira (2019), the experienced employees also need to be provided with helpful training that in turn, can make them up to date to the current business process of the firm.
Theoretical models
Taylor’s scientific management approach: this management theory, developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor, in the 1880s and 1890s in the US the Taylor’s scientific management approach is a theory that can be used by the organisational managers to improve the entire performance of the firm (Akhmetshin et al. 2017). According to this theory, the manager of the organisation needs to analyze the workflow of the company to improve economic efficiency.
The managers also need to analyse the workflow for increasing the productivity of the employees. The increased productivity can improve the organisational economy. Therefore the managers of Vodafone need to pay attention to improving the efficiency of task completion by using mathematical analysis of the workflow.
This, in turn, can help the firm to gain a better distribution of work as well as better productivity of the employees. According to the author, the organisations, such as Vodafone also needs to pay attention to the employees training and needs to pay the employees based on their performance.
Figure 1: Taylor’s scientific management approach
(Source: Gamad, 2019)
Link between previous work and current work of research interest
The previous work, as well as the current works, is interrelated as both of this has paid focus over the organisational learning (Gamad, 2019). This can be used by Vodafone for better management of the organisational performance and competitive advantages. The improved performances and the improved competitive advantages can help the firm to manage a better process of gaining better success and finance for the concerned firm.
Gap in literature
There were issues with the research resources such as the allocation of time and money. The researchers need to focus on these factors for better future research. Otherwise, the researchers cannot be successful in the research.
4. Method
The research questions and research objectives have paid focus on the importance of learning for the quality improved performance of the business organisations (Chorafas 2017). This, in turn, can help Vodafone for gaining a better and quality performance of the employees to support the organizational business process.
Research design –
In order to conduct the research, the researchers can use the explanatory, exploratory as well as the descriptive research approach. The researchers will use the descriptive research approach for identifying the hidden issues that are involved with the research, On the other hand, the researchers have avoided the exploratory and the explanatory research as these approaches do not focus on the research issues and only focuses on the research questions.
Research approach-
In order to develop the research problem, the researchers have paid attention to the research approach. As mentioned by Grant et al. (2017), in this regard, the researchers can use the deductive and the inductive research approach, and in this paper, the researchers will use the deductive approach. The deductive research approach can help the researchers to focus on the practical application of organisational learning rather than the inductive approach.
Research philosophy-
Understanding of the research topic is needed by the development of the research philosophy. This may be the positivist or the post-positivism types of research philosophy. In the current study, the researchers will use the positivist research philosophy as this does not need by the development of a thesis that is not possible for the researcher.
Data collection –
The data collection is necessary for supporting the literature and the findings of the research. In the current study, the researchers have used the primary and the second method for collecting the data. In the secondary method, the researchers have used different journals and books. The different theories also have been used by the researchers to increase their understanding of organisational learning. On the other hand, the primary data collection can help the researchers to collect the data from the practical sources for the graphical representation of the data.
Data source-
The researchers can use both the qualitative and qualitative method of data source (Slack and Brandon-Jones, 2018). In the qualitative data source, the researchers can collect brief information on the importance of organisational learning in an organisation. On the other hand, the use of the quantitative data source can help the researchers to support the research findings after conduction of practical field experiments. The use of the survey and the interview is necessary for gaining better support for the research topic.
5. Research Ethics
For the collection of information regarding the use of organizational learning programs for the improvement of the organizational performance, the researcher is required to collect information from both the employees as well as the managers. The confidentiality regarding the answers of the participants must be maintained through the conduction of the interview. The respondents must be provided with the permission of quitting in between the surveys. Apart from this, more accurate information is required to be gained from journals, newspapers, news, and magazines. Therefore, ethical issues such as accountability, safety concerns, and the health of the people are required to be kept in mind for the collection of the data.
The opportunities are ethics are determined by the size and the process of the data that must be collected in order to provide justification for the topic. As per the suggestion of Fiesler and Proferes (2018), the perception of the participants must be followed for reducing the issues related to research ethics. Consent must be taken from the different publishers of the news articles and the magazines for the gathering of information regarding the performance of the organization that can be improved by leading programs. Proper code of ethics, rules, and regulations of the information is required to be maintained by the researcher for the conduction of the research.
6. Timescales
| Activities | First Week | Second Week | Third Week | Fourth Week | Fifth Week | Sixth Week | Seventh Week |
| Selection of the topic | ü | ||||||
| Collection of data (secondary sources) | ü | ü | |||||
| Literature review | ü | ü | ü | ||||
| Research technique selection | ü | ü | |||||
| Collection of primary data | ü | ü | |||||
| Data analysis and interpretation | ü | ü | |||||
| Developing Conclusion | ü | ||||||
| Formation of draft | ü | ü | |||||
| Submission of final work | ü |
Table 1: Timescales
For the collection and the analysis of the data, two weeks are needed by the researchers. This time is needed by the researchers for the collection of information from the various sources to support the research with helpful findings.
7. Resources
The research is needed by the allocation of the direct cost and the indirect cost resources. In this regard, the direct cost such as financial support is needed by the researchers for the data collection method from the different sources. The indirect cost included the time resources that are needed by the researchers for the competition of the research successfully. If the researchers fail to allocate the resources, this can create failure issues for the researchers (Wang and Park, 2017).
8. Expected Findings
The study has made use of several data collection sources for understanding the impact of the organizational programs that enhances in improving the performance of Vodafone. The conduction of the interview has been done for understanding the exact perspective of the labourers as well as the mangers in order to improve the performance of the entity. The research ethics must be followed for the gathering of information regarding the topic. It can be said that the research will be successful in providing justification to the topic according to the information that has been collected in the entire research.
9. Conclusion
It can be concluded that Vodafone must ensure providing appropriate learning programs to the employees in order to improve the performance. A brief description of the main objectives and the research question has been facilitated by the study. The different methods that have been used by the researchers for the collection of the data are to be included in the study. During the conduction of the research, the limits and constraints that have been faced by the researcher are required to be provided in the study. A description regarding the background of the study is required to be provided at the end of the study.
Reference list
Agrawal, S. and Gangai, K.N., 2016. Effectiveness of Training Evaluation in Autoancillary Industry. Journal of Organization and Human Behaviour, 5(1).
Akhmetshin, E.M., Artemova, E.I., Vermennikova, L.V., Shichiyakh, R.A., Prodanova, N.A. and Kuchukova, N.M., 2017. Management of investment attractiveness of enterprises: Principles, methods, organization. International Journal of Applied Business and Economic Research, 15(23), pp.71-82.
Bastas, A. and Liyanage, K., 2018. ISO 9001 and supply chain integration principles based sustainable development: A Delphi study. Sustainability, 10(12), p.4569.
Chorafas, D.N., 2016. Business, Marketing, and Management Principles for IT and Engineering. CRC Press.
Fiesler, C. and Proferes, N., 2018. “Participant” perceptions of Twitter research ethics. Social Media+ Society, 4(1), p.2056305118763366.
Gamad, L.C., 2019. Governing company performance agility through strategic quality management principles and lean business practices: Evidences and challenges for the business industry in the Philippines. Review of Integrative Business and Economics Research, 8(4), p.17.
Grant, D.B., Wong, C.Y. and Trautrims, A., 2017. Sustainable logistics and supply chain management: principles and practices for sustainable operations and management. Kogan Page Publishers.
Juliani, F. and de Oliveira, O.J., 2019. Lean Six Sigma principles and practices under a management perspective. Production Planning & Control, pp.1-22.
Kraus, M., Feuerriegel, S. and Oztekin, A., 2020. Deep learning in business analytics and operations research: Models, applications and managerial implications. European Journal of Operational Research, 281(3), pp.628-641.
Mulyono, D., 2018. The Strategy Of Managers In Moving Business Learning Group Program In PKBM Srikandi Cimahi City. Journal of Educational Experts (JEE), 1(1), pp.37-44.
Slack, N. and Brandon-Jones, A., 2018. Operations and process management: principles and practice for strategic impact. Pearson UK.
vodafone.co.uk, (2020). VODAFONE. Business. Available at https://www.vodafone.co.uk/ [Accessed on 07.08.2020]
Wang, P. and Park, S.A., 2017. COMMUNICATION IN CYBERSECURITY: A PUBLIC COMMUNICATION MODEL FOR BUSINESS DATA BREACH INCIDENT HANDLING. Issues in Information Systems, 18(2).
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