Relationship Between Employee Empowerment (Research Proposal Sample)

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT AND BUSINESS PERFORMANCE: A CASE STUDY OF BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO COMAPNY
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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMPLOYEE EMPOWEREMNT AND BUSINESS PERFORMANCE: A CASE STUDY OF BRITISH AMERICANTOBACCO COMPANY
Abstract:
This study’s aim is the establishment of the existence of a relationship between the employee empowerment and the organization or business performance or productivity using the British American Tobacco Company as the case study. The study will employ a positivist research philosophy approach as it is the most applicable approach for a social science study. The research design that will be employed by the study is the cross sectional design in which data will be collected only once from a sample of 400 respondents who are the employees of the British American Tobacco Company. The data collection will be done using questionnaire, which will be based a likert scale. Data analysis will be done using both the descriptive and inferential statistics techniques. Multiple linear regression analysis will be adopted to help in establishing the relationship between the employee empowerment and the business productivity.
Introduction:
Background Information:
Employee empowerment normally referred to as act of giving employees the authority of deciding and acting on their own initiative (Menon 2001, P 170). The ever - changing competitive environment today, organizations and business require employees who have the ability of successfully doing their jobs leading to superior business performance, which in turn makes the business more profitable. The need for good performance and profitable business has resulted into need for employee empowerment, which has been growing as people are asserting their demand to be recognized, valued and consulted. It has been pointed out by some researchers that people can be the ultimate source of sustaining competitive advantage in any business since traditional sources related to financial capital, markets, and economies of scale have been weakened by environmental changes and globalization (Goetsch & Davis 2014). Some researchers have argued that firms wishing to succeed in today’s global business environment must make appropriate human resource (HR) investments to acquire and build employees who possess better skills and capabilities than their competitors (Fernandez & Moldogaziev 2013, P 499). They further argued that today people have taken on an even more central role in building an organization’s competitive advantage than in the recent past. Consequently, many bushiness organizations are now empowering employees as the surest way of improving their performance. British American Tobacco Company is not exempt from this reality. Against the backdrop of the need for employment empowerment in order to increase the productivity and performance of a given business, this study will seek to establish if there is an existence of a relationship between the employee empowerment and the productivity of a business or organization using British American Tobacco Company as the case study. The study will use organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and job autonomy as dummy variables for measuring the employee empowerment. Job autonomy refers to the freedom that an employee possesses in order to participate in decision making rather than being restricted by procedure (Esser & Olsen 2011). Job satisfaction can be defined as an individual’s general attitude towards the job (Jeong & Jung 2013). A person with high level of job satisfaction holds positive attitude towards the job, whereas a person who is dissatisfied with the job holds a negative attitude about the job. Organizational commitment, on the other hand, refers to the relative strength of an individual’s identification with and involvement in decision making within an organization or the extent to which employees are committed to their work (Wood 2015, P 134).
Problem Statement and Relevance of the Study:
In the current globally competitive environment, organizations and businesses are striving for ways and means of attaining and sustaining a competitive advantage over their competitors. Consequently, many organizations and businesses have resorted to employee empowerment as a more effective way of improving their performance and productivity. Park (2015) stated that employee empowerment entails recognizing, releasing, and transferring sufficient and appropriate authority and resources to employees. Matthews and Ross (2014) had also found that empowerment gives employees freedom in their work performance for fast decision making, thus contributing to organizational and business performance and productivity at a higher level.
Employee empowerment results in outcomes, which include organizational commitment, job satisfaction and job autonomy. Tavakol and Dennick (2011) argued that organizational commitment is an antecedent to job satisfaction as it involves a strong belief in and acceptance of the organization. Similarly, individuals who feel empowered at work are more likely to be committed to the organization. In addition, a person with a high level of job satisfaction holds positive attitude towards the job, whereas a person who is dissatisfied with the job holds a negative attitude about the job. On the other hand, Matthews and Ross (2014) stated that job autonomy may enhance organizational performance because employees are allowed freedom in their work accomplishment. Today’s workforce is consisting of a diverse population, and such differences need to be addressed to enable the employees to maximize their potential and organizations also can maximize their effectiveness (Thomas 2014).
Some studies have shown that employee empowerment directly leads to organizational performance. Although the studies attempted to establish a link between employee empowerment and business performance or productivity, doubts have been cast on their validity. The findings indicated that there is a strong relationship between employee empowerment and organizational or business performance. Conversely, research by Kim (2003) indicated that there is no direct or significant role of employee empowerment on the success of a business or organization. Given the mixed findings on the relationship between employee empowerment and the performance or the productivity of a business, there is need for further research to conclusively determine this link.
Previous studies certainly, did not consider other variables such as organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and job autonomy. As such, there is need for a study that includes these variables, which had not been fully addressed in the previous studies. This study specifically will focus on how each of these variables relates with the productivity or performance of a business and draw a general conclusion on the relationship between employee empowerment and performance or productivity of the business. In this way, the study will be valuable in filling in the gap that exists on the relationship between the employee empowerment and performance or productivity of a business, as the previous studies have gave a contradicting positions.
Research Questions and Research Objectives:
The general objective of this study will be to establish the relationship between employee empowerment and the performance of productivity of a business. The study will also seek to achieve the following specific objectives:
To establish the relationship that exists between organizational commitment of an employee with the performance and productivity of the organization or business.
To establish the relationship that exists between the employees’ job satisfaction and performance or productivity of the business or organization.
To establish the relationship that exists between the employees’ Job autonomy and the performance or productivity of a business.
The research questions that this study seeks to address include:
What relationship exists between the organizational commitment and performance of the business or an organization?
What is the relationship between the employees’ job satisfaction and the performance or productivity of a business or organization?
What relationship exists between the employees’ job autonomy and the performance or productivity of a business or organization?
The research questions will be supported by testing the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: A significant relationship does not sexists between the organizational commitment and the productivity or the performance of a business organization.
Hypothesis 2: A significant relationship does not exists between job satisfaction and the productivity or the performance of a business organization
Hypothesis 3: A significant relationship does not exists between job autonomy and the productivity or the performance of a business organization
Literature Review:
Introduction:
Literature on employee empowerment and organizational performance is replete with notions and contentions implying that employee empowerment, is a necessity for superior organizational performance. This chapter discusses the theoretical and empirical studies that relate to employee empowerment and organizational performance. The chapter opens with a brief review of the theoretical foundation, followed by a review of the study variables with the aim of highlighting the knowledge gaps.
Theoretical Foundation:
This study will be anchored on certain theories, which provide explanation on the role of employees in the performance of organizations. The two main theories upon which this study will based are the resource-based theory and the human capital theory. First, the resource-based theory focuses on the role that ...