Chapter3: Methodology

Chapter3: Methodology

Introduction

This chapter will focus on the research framework and design, the hypotheses’ formulation and research method. This methodology will base on motivational theories analysis of Maharaj Rock Quarry Company to determine the research aim and objectives. The process of primary and secondary including statistical method will be discussed. In addition, this research will use a pilot survey in order to provide reliability and validity.

3.1. Research framework, design and formulation of hypothesis

The research design

The stage of the research process is briefly explained below. The figure demonstrates the decision making that researcher must take in every phase of the process of the research. The research process is begin with discovering the problem and explanation.

Figure ?? A research process flowchart
Source developed from Zikmund 1994 pp. 38

This research begins with discover the problem that some of the employees at Maharaj Rock Quarry are lack of motivation. This problem leads to decreasing in job quality and production process. After discover the problem, a clear objective and definite design are created to make the research more efficient. The problem definition stage of the research process is probably the most significant stage; however; it is commonly ignored from many researchers (Zikmund, 2000). Exploratory research then conducted throughout the beginning stage of the research process. By analyzing any previous research on employees’ motivation, by communicating with knowledge persons, and by casually examining the situation, the researcher can increasingly sharpen the concepts. The four major categories of technique to gaining insights and obtaining a clearer concept of a difficulty contain analyzing in secondary data, pilot studies, case studies and experience surveys. Secondary data related to motivation at work are collected. The inside information from the company, articles and books discussing theories and previous empirical studies about employees’ work motivation are also gathered. Zikmund (1994) found that secondary data usually be collected faster and lower cost than primary data. Conversely, secondary data maybe outdated or possibly will not precisely reach the objective of the researcher.ต่อ pilot study

3.3 Data Collection Method

In this research, researcher collected information to meets the research objective. Therefore, the literature review and related data are collected by using both primary data and secondary data.

3.3.1 Primary data

Primary data is created to resolve the specific problem to investigate (McDaniel and Gates, 2007). Wilson (2006) stated that there are three key processes of gather primary data. Firstly, he called a process of observation, qualitative and quantitative research. Those process may be either separate or join together. From Table 3.1, quantitative research is suitable for this particular model as this research contain limited probing, with using of questionnaire and decision model.

Table 3.1: The differences between Qualitative and Quantitative (McDaniel and Gates, 2007)

A structured approach is used with sample of potential respondents to produce scientific insights into employees’ motivation at Maharaj Rock Quarry. Survey method was chosen to collect information. As Zikmund (1994) claimed that survey ‘is a research technique in which information is gathered from a sample of people by use of questionnaire; a method of data collection based on communication with a representative sample of individuals’.
He also emphasised that there are many advantages of surveys method. Surveys present quick, efficient and inexpensive of measuring information of the respondents. However there are some errors in survey research and the two main causes of error in survey are ‘random sampling error and systematic error’. Figure ?? present the a variety of survey error form.

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Figure ?? Tree diagram of Total Survey Error
Source: developed from Zikmund 1994 pp. 172

According to figure ??, this suvey might have some error

3.3.2 Secondary data K.Jear

Secondary data has been written or printed by researchers for distinctive purpose that might be relevant to research problem (William, 2003). In the meantime, secondary data provides necessary background information and builds credibility in this study such as definition, industry data, and reference which are important for the beginning of this study (McDaniel and Gates, 2007).

The advantages of secondary data are convenience and spend less cost and time when compare with primary data collection. Apart from this, the secondary data helps to clarify research needed while carrying out this research.

The secondary data was gathered through the secondary research methodology which obtained information from previous source and documents. By doing this, the secondary data was available in reports of various organisations, internet, and literature materials such as books and academic research.

The main source of knowledge and information is the text books that provide basic theory and definition of the targeted subject. From time to time, the authors often have different attitudes and opinions on particular issue. However, there is a main stream of theory which is thought to be typical because it was shared and accepted by the most authors. Many books demonstrated theories by cases and experience support.

One disadvantage of the text books is that some of their information might be old-fashioned or out-of-date. Although some theories are old, they are classic models that are useful for many years. Several new theories were not be publicised immediately because they need to be tested, argued, evaluated, and written systematically into text books. Therefore, the text books provided only some reliable theories for this study, even though they are not the up-dated information.

In addition, internet providing secondary information has become more visible and accessible to the researcher. Researchers have used such search engine which is now being popular among computer users to look for the needed information. Google and Google Scholar allow users to enter key words and to search for databases on their websites. However, search engine found many irrelevant articles and databases.

Several journals provided new concept, idea, and recent information in different criteria and made them available in the form of electronic database. Academic journal is the most important source to get research findings and useful information that used in this study. The Brunel University supports its students and researchers by providing valuable resources such as books, journals, and databases.

Athens account can access to electronic database which is the easiest and fastest way. Researcher used the key word ‘work motivation’, ‘rewards system’, and ‘employees’ satisfaction’ to find the needed articles from over thousand journals. Those included Human Resource Management International Digest, Journal of Managerial Psychology, European Journal of Innovation Management, and Employee Relations

The problem of using the journals is that the most articles aim to release the latest findings and information. Thus, it might lead to the lack of information validity and reliability in some area. Impact factor provides quantitative tools for ranking, evaluating, categorizing, and comparing journals. It is a measurement of the incidence in which an article in a journal has been cited in a particular period. However, impact factor apply only to journals, not articles or researchers. There is misuse in evaluating individual because a wide variation from article to article within a single journal.

The limitations of secondary data, the fact that information was not designed particularly to meet this study’s need. The collection of data was not controlled the accuracy of the secondary data such as gathering, codes, and data analysis. In addition, it might be biased to support the vested interest of source.

Based on secondary data, there are vital theories, framework, and recent information for this research. Nevertheless, the availability, the accuracy, the validity and the reliability are frequently involved all these data collection. The secondary data is insufficient for the conducting of this research. Hence, this research needs more primary supporting data to ensure that the result of research findings are valuable and reliable (Malhotra, 2007).

3.4 Population and Sampling

As Cooper and Schindler(2000) asserted that population is the whole group of basics concerning what the researchers desire to shape out the results and finding. Thus, the chosen group of people has to be a good quality representative of the population (Grimm, 1993).

3.5 Questionnaire design

Relevance and accuracy are the two fundamental criterions to be reached whether the questionnaire is to meet the research’s objectives. The questionnaire was designed systematically by made quite a few decisions as listed below (Zikmund 2000)
o What should be asked?
o How should each question be phrased?
o In what sequence should the question be arranged?
o What questionnaire layout will best serve the research objective?
o How should the questionnaire be pretested? Does the questionnaire need to revised?

For asking the respondents a specific question and gave them a particular alternative to help them make a quick decisions, close-ended question was used (Aaker and Day, 1990). In addition, the questionnaires were made in both Thai and English versions as mean to bring the participants have deeper and clearer understanding in the questions.

The questionnaire contains 10 questions and was classified into two main area (see in Appendix 1). As the instruction can support the participants to complete questionnaire, the research’s objective was noticeably described. An explanation of respondents voluntary and confident was provided by encoding information to numeric form. Finally, the most significant part is individual opinion, and therefore, this study can minimize biased response by stressed that there is no right or wrong answers. The questionnaire can be categorized into four sections as shown in table ??

3.6 Pilot test and Alterations K. Jear

Pilot testing or pre-testing is a self-administered questionnaire survey that is tested in full range of questions. The purpose is to identify problem in the questionnaire, eliminate research design fault, and to measure the practical, format and completion time (Ghauri and Gronhaug, 2002; Wilson, 2006). This testing can ensure that respondent understand all questions and questionnaires consist of full targeted information. It also can articulate whether the method chosen for the use in a research program is adequate to meet the research objectives (Ghauri and Gronhaug, 2003). It is important to prove questionnaire which is carried out in this research is consistent and able to do actual research.

The questionnaire was conducted by sending the email survey to a small group of sample of the population. The participants were chosen by judgment of the sample in which investigator regards as the most appropriate in this research. All of them have to work at Maharaj Rock Quarry Company with different ages and work experience. Ten pilot survey with difference ages and work experience was conducted. This may provide difference idea of rewards toward work motivation.

3.7 Validity and Reliability

The research which provided opportune correct and clear information is an ideal research(McDaniel and Gates, 2007). Finn et al (2000). stated that research is assessed by using a validity and reliability to guarantee adequacy of attitude scales.

This research used ‘Cronbach’s alpha technique’ which basically calculate the average reliability coefficient. This technique calculates the standard intercorrelations between items to concept (McDaniel and Gates, 2007 ; Bryman and Cramer, 2995). Generally, alpha score less than 0.60 represents a lack of reliability, the alpha which can acceptable should be between 0.7-0.8 ranges, and over 0.8 is more internally reliable (Saunders et al., 2007 ; Cronbach, 1990 ). Sekaran (2003) stated that 10-20 respondents were appropriate for a pilot study;thus, ten questionnaires were carried out as a pilot survey. According to pilot surveys, the reliability coefficient alpha for 10 variables is 0.819 (Appendix 2a), therefore, this questionnaire is acceptable and appropriate to conduct actual research.

3.8 Method of Analysis (SPSS)

The data collected in the questionnaires administered for this study were analyzed using SPSS (statistical package for Social Science) version 13.0. The alpha level is 0.05.Likert scale technique was used in order to achieve an appropriate measurement of the respondents’ attitude toward job satisfaction and motivation. Pearson’s correlation was used to examine the correlation concerning variables in the research framework. Then, multiple-regression is used to investigate the relationship between independent and dependent variables.

3.9 Limitations of the survey

Limitation occurred in the survey could affect the result of the research. In this study, there were three core possible limitations which are method of data collection, answers given by the respondents and questionnaires. Firstly, selected approach for data collection was one of the limitations. As Schaefer and Dillman (1998) agreed that although World Wide Web technology is more prevalent in surveying methods, there is still some disadvantage of it. Nevertheless, due to this research focus on online purchasing behavior, gathering data by merely through online could lead to biasness. To a large extent, sending out online questionnaires to respondents could produce narrowed scope of sample group. It is obvious that people who response the online questionnaires seem to be respondents whose life styles are already online. As a result, it could have an influence on biasness as it eliminates the opportunities to collect data from other people who do not have or do not want to have online access. In this case, thus, another data collecting approaches such as face to face interviewing or sending questionnaire by hand delivery instead of web-based communication might bring more efficiency for the research outcome.

Secondly, respondents might be a cause of incorrect answers. For one thing, certain respondents are in a hurry, so they might choose the wrong choices by accident, and some of them might in an unstable emotion, then the questionnaires are completed wrongly. Apart from these, there are still having other factors like unreliability of the respondents, their misunderstanding and their prejudice toward online purchasing behavior. Moreover, they may answer the questions roughly without consideration, therefore, the answers that come from these kinds of respondents do not elicit from the real opinion or experience.

Lastly, the questionnaire itself could affect the validity and reliability of the research. It is generally agreed that the close-ended questionnaire is provide less time consuming and ease of use for respondents. On the other side, the multiple choices presented in the questionnaires might not perfectly match to their exact opinions. Accordingly, respondents had to choose one choice that is not an answer they want because they cannot find the answer that actually suits their points of view.

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3.10 Summary

This chapter focused on the research design that appropriate with the research aim and objectives. Several different methods was used as to collect the data both primary and secondary data. The quantitative research is both launched through web hosting site and used of electronic mail. Furthermore, the use of pilot test is to guarantee that the questions are capable to carry out in actual research, to evaluate reliability as a consequence of Cronbach alpha technique and to evaluate proper samples size from statistic formula. The next chapter will analyze data from data collection to test hypotheses from the designed framework.