Qualitative Hypothetical Research

Question:

Qualitative Hypothetical Research

The workforce is categorized by an increased number of women, ethnic backgrounds, minorities, and different lifestyles. This has apparently imposed undue harm to both the organization and the individuals that are directly impacted by the leadership decision -making. However, to some extent, the leaders have realized that these demographic workforces have transformed into a position which could affect the organization function and competitiveness. As illustrated by their Fortune 500, more than half of the C-suites and boardrooms are comprised of whites that are male (Donnelly, 2017).  This research will focus on how the organization manages diversity to make it equal to all employees. Despite a persistent awareness of the need to manage the related concerns itself on diversity issue, companies have implemented various approaches to diversity management. Managing diversity should concentration on the targeted education, training, recruitment initiatives, mentoring problems in an effort to intensify and retain employees (Weech-Maldonado, 2002). However, some research has explored the organizational approach to diversity management which focuses on the diversity and inclusion.

For example, Fortune 500 conducted a survey that entailed of 10 companies which contained a total of 450,000 employees from those that been honored for their diversity. The participates used for the survey consist of people with disabilities, women, minorities, and people from the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning) community Fortune examined the lucidity on diversity and inclusive by collecting data from the EEO-1 database from the past years. The general goal of their research (and the problem) was to understand better the some of the factors and significances that surround how companies had influenced the industry leaders to set the role modeling and expectations since they were directly accountable for hiring a substantial amount of the Americans workers.

To narrow their investigations, the researcher set out to learn about the general nature of the diversity of their culture and success to the organization. Given the hiring practices related to the leader’s position, Fortune had to employ 17.5% of the total U.S. workforce companies on diversity (Donnelly, 2017).  To obtain their answers, the researchers compared the 400 companies on gender or ethnicity of their employees which, is a set requirement for the Department of Labor to be done on a yearly basis. However, the DOL only received about 20% of the reporting from the companies in 2017 about the race and gender of their employees and less than four percent shard on the data (Atlassian, 2017).

In fact, only five companies returned information to the DOL on their measuring process. Nevertheless, out of the five companies only 3.2 listed the data on race and gender as it pertains to the job category and management level. Therefore, Fortune 500 had to request for public information on the EEO-1 to obtain the information to complete the study. To the surprise, only sixteen companies made a list and another eighty-four companies distribute half the information on the percentage of the women or nonwhite worker and the other contain a share of demographics related to the leadership. The vast three out of 4 companies list a full report on diversity in numbers related to the technical area like Apple, and Google (Donnelly, 2017). The findings need more research and information to conclude.

Quantitative Hypothetical Research

According to Atlassian (2017), the workforce is categorized by an increased number of women, ethnic backgrounds, minorities, and different lifestyles. This has apparently imposed undue harm to both the organization and the individuals that are directly impacted by the leadership decision -making. However, to some extent, the leaders have realized that these demographic workforces have transformed into a position which could affect the organization function and competitiveness. As illustrated by their Fortune 500, more than half of the C-suites and boardrooms are comprised of whites that are male (Donnelly, 2017). So, how do organization measure the positive relationship between business performance and diversity to make it equal across the board?

This research will focus on how the organization measures the positive relationship between business performance and manage diversity to making it equal to all employees. Despite a persistent awareness of the need to manage the related concerns itself on diversity issue, companies have implemented various approaches to diversity management. Managing diversity should concentration on the targeted education, training, recruitment initiatives, mentoring problems in an effort to intensify and retain employees (Weech-Maldonado, 2002). However, some research has explored the organizational approach to diversity management which focuses on the diversity and inclusion.

For example, Fortune 500 conducted research on ten companies which contained 450,000 employees which included 2700 top managers from those that been honored for their diversity. The participates consist of people with disabilities, women, minorities, and people from the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning) community. The data was collected from C-suites and boardrooms, and financial data that included earnings before their tax and interest from the year of 2010 through 2013.  In addition to taking gender data, ethnicity and genealogical information were obtained because of their heritage.

Therefore, the measurements of the relationship amongst leadership diversity and financial performance had to retrieve from the Herfindahl Hirschman Index (Hirschman, 1964). The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index measures the market concentration by calculating the square market share of each company that competes in the marketplace by summing the resultant numbers so; it could range from 0 to 10,000 points (Hirschman, 1964). However, by using the index chart, the fortune 500 company can recognize the difference, for example, a company that exists with four managers that have four different ethnic minorities have an increase of diversity than a business with equal size of managers and ethnic minorities. In fact, by using the index, the size of the dataset will permit the result that had been statistically significant to allow the value in the relationship that pertains to the leadership on the measured term of observing the rise in the earnings before interest and taxes.

This research will focus on how the measurement is utilized in diversity to making it equal to all employees. Despite a persistent awareness of the need to manage the related concerns itself on diversity issue, companies have implemented various approaches to diversity management. The investigators used the HH1 method to distinguish amongst the diversity within the companies that contained the same number of managers outside the largest group but were two top management teams were inclusive of a higher range of ethnicity history. For example, if one company contained 24 Whites and 6 Black managers and another company contained 24 Whites, 3 Hispanics, and 3 Blacks, using the HHI method allows the second company to be more diverse with the management team:

HHI (1st Company) =0.68=24(10) x2+6(10) x2

HHI (2nd Company) =0.66=24(10) x2+3(10) x2+3(10) x2

If the HHI had contained a 1.0 team, then everyone would have had the same ethnicity. The increase of the HHI would indicate the decrease in diversity meaning index increase in diversity. The analysis of the date forms the group of the ten companies all revealed the statistically significant associated amongst the diversity and financial performance. The firms with top quartiles for gender diversity were 16% (United States Department of Labor, 2017) and 36 percent more likely to contain financial returns over the national industry median (Atlassian, 2017).

In the study,  the C-suite and index data did not prove that any relationship of the correlation had a casual existence of a higher gender or ethnic diversity in receiving more profits however, illustrated the diverse leadership  was more successful. The findings only prove to show more efforts were made to increase the number of women in management and remain to be limited in the representation. However, the dataset illustrated no statistically significance to the correlation amongst the gender diversity and performance. From this stand, the correlation is observed from the reports by only 10 percent on the increase in gender by three percent (Atlassian, 2017) in earnings. Nevertheless, out of the five companies only 3.2 listed the data on race and gender as it pertains to the job category and management level. Therefore, Fortune 500 had to requests for public information on the EEO-1 to obtain the information to complete the study. To the surprise, only sixteen companies made a list and another eighty-four companies distribute half the information on the percentage of the women or nonwhite worker and the other contain a share of demographics related to the leadership. The vast three out of 4 companies list a full report on diversity in numbers related to the technical area like Apple, and Google (Donnelly, 2017). The findings need more research and information to conclude.

Answer:

Introduction

It is possible for a researcher to choose between a number ways for conducting a research. However, the selected design for the research depends on the nature of the research and the outcome expected from the same. Research design required for qualitative method significantly varies from the one needed in the quantitative method, which can be explained from the philosophical stance. Both hypothetical research designs proposed in this will study the issue of growing diversity the workplace and the leadership associated with it.

Qualitative Research Design

Purpose

The purpose of the qualitative research will help understanding the impact of diversity in the workplace and how different leadership style can help managing a diversified workplace.

Research Design

Being the most flexible research method available, qualitative research helps the researcher in encompassing wide range of accepted techniques and structures. Adopting qualitative research design for understanding the issue of diversity and leadership in the workplace will have an explanatory approach (Lewis, 2015). This is effective in extracting data related to the matter for developing idea behind the issue, which in turn helps in identifying solution. This qualitative research will have two approaches. The first approach will be to identify the issues related to diversity in workplace. Focused group interview method can be useful in this case for extracting necessary data. Second approach will be focusing on the leadership approach taken by the managers in handling the diversified workforce. Personal interview method in this case will provide optimum benefit.

Data collection and analysis

Qualitative research is vastly different form the quantitative method, as it does not involve statistical analysis. This calls for open-ended questions for the data collection method (Roberts et al, 2014). Moreover, the questions can be of two types that are structured or semi-structured. Implementation of semi-structured questions will be effective in this case, which can be implement survey method (Palinkas et al, 2015). Though, the qualitative method, unlike quantitative method does not have specificity in the outcome of the result, they however provides opportunity to the research to explore a wide range of possibilities. This enables the researcher to conduct intensive research for collecting in-depth information related to the issue, which in this case will provide opportunity for understanding the relation between the diversified workforce and leadership style.

The qualitative data collected through the focused group interview and personal interview has to be analyzed for developing understanding of the issue. The qualitative analysis method beneficial in this case is the framework analysis that involves thematic framework, coding and interpretation (Gale et al, 2013). Thematic analysis tool will help in this case for identifying the pattern in the data. The coding utilized under the framework analysis useful in this case is open coding that will help in organizing raw data to make sense out of it.  The second stage involved in framework analysis is the thematic analysis that helps in identifying the patterns involved. This further helps in categorizing the themes involved and relation between the themes. The final stage of the selected qualitative analysis is the summarization of the data that is the interpretation of the data.

Quantitative Research Design

Purpose

The purpose of the quantitative research is to identify the leadership style best suited for managing diversified workforce. This will further help in identifying the element of diversified workforce greatly affect the efficiency of  the team.

Research Design

Quantitative research as considered by Yilmaz (2013) is the standard experimental technique, which involves statistical and mathematical approach for proving the issue. This will help in proving the issue of diversity in workforce and the efficiency of particular leadership style in solving the issue. The first step of conducting quantitative research is the hypothesis formulation. The purpose of formulating hypothesis is to identify the issue and help concluding the research from the collected data in the process. The later step of quantitative research involves data collection and data analysis.

Data Collection and Data Analysis

The data collection method in quantitative research as narrated by Neuman (2013) is the collection of statistical data that can help understanding the intensity of the issue. The data can further be divided into primary and secondary data. Data falls under the primary data are collected first hand that had not been utilized earlier. The secondary data on contrary are the data that have been gathered from the secondary sources other than direct respondents. This data can be collected from the works of other scholars or authentic government reports. Both the data will be beneficial in this particular case for gaining complete understanding of the issue. The primary data collection method beneficial in this case is survey method. Survey of a selected population will help identifying the intensity of the diversity issue in the workplace. The survey will further help understanding applicable leadership in resolving the issue. Questionnaire is an important tool utilized in the survey method. The structured questions are put into the questionnaire, which is later distributed among the respondents (Mertens, 2014). The respondents in structured questionnaire are enabled to provide their answers within the provided range of answers.

The secondary data in this case will be collected from the other scholarly works for identification of the necessary leadership style for solving the issue. The scholarly articles will be reviewed for identifying the efficiency of leadership styles recoded in the article. Statistical analysis of these articles will help in identification of the required leadership style.

Data collected through the questionnaire and secondary data collection will then be analyzed using regression tool.  This will help identifying the variables in the data (Cruz, 2013). The next tool that will be utilized in the following is the hypothesis verification tool. It helps identifying the positivity and negativity of the variables.

Conclusion

It is possible to conclude from the above research that both qualitative and quantitative research method has the potential to study the diversity and leadership issue in the workforce. However, the approach and the outcome of both the studies are widely varied. The qualitative research will help identifying the origin of the issue, whereas the quantitative research helps  in justifying the issue.

References

Cruz, C. D. (2013). Genes: a software package for analysis in experimental statistics and quantitative genetics. Acta Scientiarum. Agronomy, 35(3), 271-276.

Gale, N. K., Heath, G., Cameron, E., Rashid, S., & Redwood, S. (2013). Using the framework method for the analysis of qualitative data in multi-disciplinary health research. BMC medical research methodology, 13(1), 117.

Lewis, S. (2015). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Health promotion practice, 16(4), 473-475.

Mertens, D. M. (2014). Research and evaluation in education and psychology: Integrating diversity with quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. Sage publications.

Neuman, W. L. (2013). Social research methods: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Pearson education.

Palinkas, L. A., Horwitz, S. M., Green, C. A., Wisdom, J. P., Duan, N., & Hoagwood, K. (2015). Purposeful sampling for qualitative data collection and analysis in mixed method implementation research. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 42(5), 533-544.

Roberts, M. E., Stewart, B. M., Tingley, D., Lucas, C., Leder‐Luis, J., Gadarian, S. K., … & Rand, D. G. (2014). Structural Topic Models for Open‐Ended Survey Responses. American Journal of Political Science, 58(4), 1064-1082.

Yilmaz, K. (2013). Comparison of quantitative and qualitative research traditions: Epistemological, theoretical, and methodological differences. European Journal of Education, 48(2), 311-325.

 

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