IntroductionEvery business organization’s primary goal is to perform well in the market and earn profits. Organizations need to take care of their customers’ requirements in order to expand the market share, this can be only be achieved when the customers are satisfied with the service that they are getting from the companies. If the customers are not satisfied , then customers tend to shift to other companies products or services. Employees of the company or organizations can either portray a positive or negative image to customers. Hence both the customers and employees play a important role in a organization. Employees play major role in determining whether a customer would enjoy the experience or contact their competitors for better solutions. Employee empowerment, motivation and delivery of service quality are some of the major factors encountered by most organizations in their daily business practice. Research AimThe main purpose of this research is to study the important factors which are needed to motivate and empower the employees in service delivery towards the improvement of customer satisfaction. In addition this research examines the extent to which the organizations should review practices employee motivation and empowerment in improving the service delivery so that the organization can generate more revenue for the operation of the business. It then becomes important for the study to further research in the effect of financial and non-monetary benefits provided by the organization for its employees. Philosophical Perspective and Research ParadigmResearch paradigm and philosophy is the most important part of research methodology in order to collect data in effective and right manner. According to Johnson and Christensen (2005), research paradigm is a perspective that is based on the set of shared assumptions, values, concepts and practices. In other world, paradigm can be defined as a function of how researcher thinks about the development of knowledge. Research paradigm is a combination of two ideas that are related to the nature of world and the function of researcher. It helps researcher to conduct the study in an effective manner (Williams, 2011). Research paradigm includes the research methods and research philosophies. This combination in research helps researcher to develop the understanding and knowledge about the topic of research. In research paradigm, there are various factors that affect the research to implement a method in an effective way such as time constraints, budget constraints, etc. Use of appropriate research paradigm and philosophies helps researcher to eliminate these factors from the research. Research paradigm has three different terminologies such as positivism, Interpretivism and realism research philosophies. These research philosophies are as follows: Positivism Philosophy: ” Positivism philosophy is based upon the highly structured methodology to enable generalization and quantifiable observations and evaluate the result with the help of statistical methods. Positivism philosophy is commonly used in natural science and it is a critical and objective base method. It is an approach that includes the various philosophy of natural science such as philosophy of unchanging, universal law and the view of everything that occurs in the nature” (Williams, 2011). Realism Philosophy: ” Realism philosophy is also an important philosophy that is based on the interdependency of human values and beliefs. This research philosophy focuses on the beliefs that really exist in the environment. This research philosophy believes in the existence of external and objective reality that influences people’s social interpretations and behaviour. It also believes that the human are not the objects for the study in the style of natural science. This research philosophy also define that how individual react towards a real world situation” (Williams, 2011). Interpretive Philosophy: The interpretive philosophy believes that the social world of management and business is too complex as to be formulated in theories and laws such as in the natural science. Interpretive philosophy represents the critical thinking about positivism philosophy. According to this philosophy, there are many truths and meaning of a simple fact and these are suitable for every situation and for every research problem (Williams, 2011). This research philosophy plays an important role in order to produce end result from the collected data. In this research philosophy, the researcher does not only interact with environment but also seek to make sense of it through their interpretation of events and the meaning that they draw from these. In this research philosophy, there are several factors such as individual have different living standards, difference in social and cultural environment, personality and family groups etc. affects the nature of individual (Williams, 2011). According to (Saunders et al., 2009), there are three methodological paradigms, which are as follows: Ontology: ” philosophy that studies the nature of reality or being” (Saunders et al., 2009)Epistemology: ” philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge and what constitutes acceptance knowledge in a field of study” (Saunders et al., 2009)Axiology: ” philosophy that studies judgements about the role of values” (Saunders et al., 2009)(Saunders et al., 2009)emphasize that no philosophical perspective is better than another but the best philosophy is determined by the research and the research question. According to (Saunders et al., 2009), there are two main research approaches they are inductive and deductive.
Deductive Inductive
Deductive reasoning works from the more general to the more specific. Sometimes this is informally called a ” top-down” approach. We might begin with thinking up a theory about our topic of interest. We then narrow that down into more specific hypotheses that we can test. We narrow down even further when we collect observations to address the hypotheses. This ultimately leads us to be able to test the hypotheses with specific data. Inductive reasoning works the other way, moving from specific observations to broader generalizations and theories. Informally, we sometimes call this a ” bottom up” approach. In inductive reasoning, we begin with specific observations and measures, begin to detect patterns and regularities, formulate some tentative hypotheses that we can explore, and finally end up developing some general conclusions or theories. According to the nature and methods of research, it is suggested that Epistemology paradigm will be used in this research as philosophy studies the nature of knowledge and what constitutes acceptance knowledge in a field of study (Saunders et al., 2009). Deductive approach will be utilized as the theory states that information is key to every business success.
Scope of Literature
A good review points out areas where prior studies agree, where they disagree, and where major questions remain. The literature review also helps: To spot gaps in existing knowledge. To avoid reinventing the same as this will save time and can stop you from making the identical mistakes as others. To identify other people working in the same and related fields. To increase your breadth of knowledge of your subject area. To identify the seminal works on the topic. There are three main sources of Literature according to (Saunders et al., 2009)Primary SourcesReportsEmailsThesesConference ProceedingsCompany ReportsUnpublished manuscript sourcesPrimary sources are original materials. They are from the time period involved and have not been filtered through interpretation or evaluation. Primary sources are original materials on which other research is based. They are usually the first formal appearance of results in physical, print or electronic format. They present original thinking, report a discovery, or share new information (University of Maryland Libraries, 2013). Secondary SourcesJournalsBooksNewspapersGovernment PublicationsSecondary sources are less easily defined than primary sources. Generally, they are accounts written after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. They are interpretations and evaluations of primary sources. Secondary sources are not evidence, but rather commentary on and discussion of evidence. However, what some define as a secondary source, others define as a tertiary source. Context is everything (University of Maryland Libraries, 2013). Tertiary SourcesIndexesAbstractsCataloguesEncyclopediasDictionariesBibliographiesTertiary sources consist of information which is a distillation and collection of primary and secondary sources (University of Maryland Libraries, 2013). According to (Rowley, 2004) searching literature must be: Related to the research topic. Written by an reliable authorBiographical details given in the book will summarize the authors experience in the field. Up-to-date, as signalled by the publication date. Published by a reputable publisher in the relevant field. Literature must be clearly structured and easy to read and understand. Research using tertiary sources such as library searches using abstracts and indexes, as well as online databases. key word searches such as motivation, service quality, employee development, customer satisfaction were conducted.
Research Design
The most prominent and common purposes of research are exploration, description and explanation. Exploration involve familiarizing a researcher with a topic. Exploration satisfies the researcher’s curiosity and desire for improved understanding. Exploration tests the feasibility of undertaking a more extensive study. Exploration helps develop the methods that will be used in a study (Wikibooks, 2010). Description involves describing situations and events through scientific observation. Scientific descriptions are typically more accurate and precise than causal ones. For example, the U. S. Census uses descriptive social research in its examination of characteristics of the U. S. population (Wikibooks, 2010). Explanation involves answering the questions of what, where, when, and how. Explanatory studies answer questions of why. For example, an explanatory analysis of the 2002 General Social Survey (GSS) data indicates that 38 percent of men and 30 percent of women said marijuana should be legalized, while 55 percent of liberals and 27 percent of conservatives said the same. Given these statistics, you could start to develop an explanation for attitudes toward marijuana legalization. In addition, further study of gender and political orientation could lead to a deeper explanation of this issue (Wikibooks, 2010). RESEARCH DATA GATHERING TECHNIQUESExperiment: The most systematic technique of data collection is laboratory experiment, where it is hoped all variables will be able to be controlled by the researcher (Ellis, 2010). Survey: Surveys are any form of questioning of a sample of people with hopes of getting an insight into a larger population of people. Since people are either being asked to fill out a questionnaire, or are being asked by a door-to-door interviewer or by someone on the telephone, or responding to questions from a computer, surveys usually depend on self-reporting of the data by the subject (Ellis, 2010). Case study: this is using past experiences to identify causal relationships. There are four ways of carrying out case study research; single case highlighting an extreme case, multiple case to establish if the findings of the first case occur in others, holistic is looking at whole organisations and finally embedded is a detailed examination of a sub groups or particular small occurrences. Action research: Action research involves the process of actively participating in an organization change situation whilst conducting research. Action research can also be undertaken by larger organizations or institutions, assisted or guided by professional researchers, with the aim of improving their strategies, practices and knowledge of the environments within which they practice. As designers and stakeholders, researchers work with others to propose a new course of action to help their community improve its work practices (Wikipedia, 2013). Ethnography: Is a qualitative research design aimed at exploring cultural phenomena. The resulting field study or a case report reflects the knowledge and the system of meanings in the lives of a cultural group (Wikipedia, 2013). Archival research: Is the study of existing data. The existing data is collected to answer research questions. Existing data sources may include statistical records, survey archives, and written records (PsychWik, 2010). The two methods of data collection areQuantitative researchQualitative researchQuantitative research options have been predetermined and a large number of respondents are involved. By definition, measurement must be objective, quantitative and statistically valid. Simply put, it’s about numbers, objective hard data. The sample size for a survey is calculated by statisticians using formulas to determine how large a sample size will be needed from a given population in order to achieve findings with an acceptable degree of accuracy. Generally, researchers seek sample sizes which yield findings with at least a 95% confidence interval (which means that if you repeat the survey 100 times, 95 times out of a hundred, you would get the same response), plus/minus a margin error of 5 percentage points. Many surveys are designedto produce a smaller margin of error (Anderson, 2006). Qualitative Research is collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data by observing what people do and say. Whereas, quantitative research refers to counts and measures of things, qualitative research refers to the meanings, concepts, definitions, characteristics, metaphors, symbols, and descriptions of things (Anderson, 2006). Qualitative research is much more subjective than quantitative research and uses very different methods of collecting information, mainly individual, in-depth interviews and focus groups. The nature of this type of research is exploratory and open-ended. Small numbers of people are interviewed in-depth and/or a relatively small number of focus groups are conducted. Participants are asked to respond to general questions and the interviewer or group moderator probes and explores their responses to identify and define people’s perceptions, opinions and feelings about the topic or idea being discussed and to determine the degree of agreement that exists in the group. The quality of the finding from qualitative research is directly dependent upon the skills, experience and sensitive of the interviewer or group moderator (Anderson, 2006). This type of research is often less costly than surveys and is extremely effective in acquiring information about people’s communications needs and their responses to and views about specific communications (Anderson, 2006).
Sampling Strategy
There are two main sampling techniques, probability and non-probability. Probability is where each member of the population has an equal chance of selection. probability sampling can be broken down into simple random, systematic, stratified random, cluster and multi-staged. Non-probability can be broken down into quote, snowball, purposive, self selection and convenience. Non-probability is where there is an uneven chance of selection. Non-probability sampling will be used in this research as it does not involve random selection and it saves time and cost, while allowing us to closely investigate.
Research Limitations and considerations
There are three main limitations and constraints for conducting a research (Bryman & Bell, 2007). Gathering data can be expensive, it is important to measure the cost of gathering data again the value to the research. The required time for the data collection of research can impact the quality of research, too short a time scale can mean data may not be of a high standard, yet if too long a time scale is given data can become out of date and inaccurate. It is critical for accuracy of data, the researcher must ensure there are no leading questions or bias to ensure the data quality is not compromised and finally legal constraints such as the Data Protection Act 1998. According to (Information Commissioner’s Office, 2013) there are eight key principles of the data protection act: Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully. Personal data shall be obtained only for one or more specified and lawful purposes, and shall not be further processed in any manner incompatible with that purpose or those purposes. Personal data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purpose or purposes for which they are processed. Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date. Personal data processed for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes. Personal data shall be processed in accordance with the rights of data subjects under this Act. Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data. Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data. There are six key principles of ethical research that the ESRC expects to be addressed whenever applicable: (Economic and Social Research Council, 2013). Research design should be reviewed and carried out in a manner which insurers integrity, transparency and quality. Participants must be fully informed about the purpose, methods and intention of the research. Confidentiality of supplied data must be respectedParticipants must be free from coercionParticipants must not be harmedAny conflict of interest or partiality must be disclosedLimitationsAccess to suitable sources of primary and secondary data will be one of the main limitation as access to the organization chosen to be studied may be difficult as the research may be viewed as sensitive . The time required for data collection, analysis and interpretation is tedious. ConclusionsThe conclusions of the research are not known yet, but once the research is conducted it might help the company in understanding the ways to motivate employees on delivering service quality to improve customer satisfaction.
