Qualitative study paper (6-10 pages)(15-20 references) previous papers provided done in the prior two weeks

Supervisor Support Training and the Effect it has on the Employee Retention Rate

BUS-7380 Qualitative Business Research Design and Methodology

Week 7

Amenia Payne

Dr. Eva Philpot

March 08, 2020

Supervisor Support Training and the Effect it has on the Employee Retention Rate Comment by Eva: I have commented on this topic before. As phrased here, this isn’t appropriate for a qualitative study. You cannot measure cause and effect in qual research and retention rate is clearly a quan construct.

This varies depending on various aspects such as the methods that are utilized. This includes in-depth interviews, observations and focus groups among other methodologies that might be employed during Qualitative Research design. The main reason for carrying out qualitative research is to have exquisite understanding of particular topics of the particular topic of discussion or rather the first hand experience. Therefore, this research considers data that is quality rather than the quantity of the data, therefore small but focused sample base. In other words, qualitative research answers the questions how and why the phenomenon is focused. Comment by Eva: What is “this”? Comment by Eva: I am not following you here Comment by Eva: Qualitative… Regardless of method, you will want to collect quality data

Statement of the Problem

Employee retention is very important in every organization, there are people who look after the employees, just as there are people who look at other resources of the company. Therefore, looking at the people, they are mostly part of the HRM department in every organization. Employee turnover is the issue that needs to be halted, although there are various ways of doing this the problem with employee retention should be approached in a wide angle (Kundu & Lata, 2017). Rather than looking at the employees solely, trying to solve the problem form the employee point of view, the problem can be solved in the employer point of view (Yate & Leggett, 2016). As mentioned before, at times all the blame goes to the employees or the external factors, but before the blame game starts have organizations considered internal factors like supervisor training. Basically, the people who manage or supervise the employees should be professional so that at the end of the day the same people will be able to contribute in the efforts of increasing employee retention. The study is relevant in this field, because as a business degree one of the main objectives is focusing on how to manage the resources and employees and resources, the most important of the resources a business can have (Myers, 2019). Therefore, has the supervisor training that has been happening over the years helped in the retention of the employees, or it is not effective enough therefore the need to come up with different remedies that will change the narrative? Comment by Eva: ? Most people work outside of HR so I’m not understanding what you mean. Comment by Eva: Your problem statement should be void of speculation and opinions. A problem is an evidence-based issue and high turnover can be used here but you need to cite data and provide a context, such as an industry or industry segment For example, a problem may be that the annual turnover rate in retail is 75%.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of this research is to establish the effectiveness of the supervisors training and how it relates to the aspect of employee retention. Through the utilization ethnographic and grounded theory research methods of data collection the main aim of the paper is to prove the hypothesis that discusses the relationship between supervisor training and employee retention. The research will involve the collection of data and through Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) one will be able to collect the quality data that will be further synthesized into the data that can be used to come up with the appropriate conclusions. At the moment there is no determined conclusion but through the research design methodologies will be developed that will help in coming up with the appropriate data that will come up with the conclusions. As mentioned before the main goal of Qualitative Research Design is to come up with the small but accurate data that can be used to come up with the finalized data. In other words, the research process can be considered to be a funnel with layers, whereby data goes through various layers and the Qualitative Research design is the last layer and produces the refined data. Although the research carries various steps that are carried over a period of time, the purpose statement of the research is the most important aspect that needs to be considered to be conclusive of the scope of the research. Like some areas that will be covered include servant leadership, organizational leadership and organizational learning. Comment by Eva: Per above, this isn’t a proper qual research purpose. Qual research is exploratory. You cannot establish effectiveness or measure relationships to other variables. A proper purpose may be to explore how supervisor training can be designed to improve leadership competencies in industry X. Comment by Eva: You cannot pick two competing designs. Select one. Comment by Eva: There are no hypotheses in qual research and 2) you don’t “prove” a hypothesis; it’s either supported or not by the data. Comment by Eva: At the very least, you should explain who will participate in your study Comment by Eva: I am not understanding what you mean by “final data”. The only data you will have is what you collect

Research Question

The research is important as it will help in keeping the project on the right track. Which means that it will lead to the investigation that will need data collection and analysis as mentioned before (Korstjens & Moser, 2017). Therefore, the research question in this qualitative research is: how does supervisor support training affect the increase or decrease of the employment retention rate in organization. Which means that the main direction of the research is looking at ways that supervisor support raining will affect the employee retention rate. Therefore, this will lead to various data collection methodologies and strategies. Like the combination of both ethnographic and grounded theory research will be instrumental so that one can be able to come up with the sum data that can be synthesized in the final quality data. Such methodologies will help to answer the research question through various techniques like in-depth interviews of employees, and company executives that have been able to test the supervisor's support training and seen the effectiveness, or the opposite. Another important aspect when ethnography is used is that previous ethnographers can be able to provide their inputs about previously held research that was undertaken in the light of the answering the same or similar research question. The chosen research question will be instrumental in this research as it will help in getting the right data, as it focuses on the precise issue of supervisor support training and decides in what to know about the issue which is the effect it has on employee retention. Comment by Eva: This is a quantitative research question . see above Comment by Eva: I think you may have misunderstood what qual research entails. You should not be selecting two competing designs because they are very different and cannot be easily combined. There also isn’t a thing called a “final quality data”

Qualitative Method Chosen

The qualitative method chosen was ethnographic research, this was influenced by various aspects that mostly make this type of research fit in the overall research objective goals (Silverman, 2016). While most of the time ethnographic research is confused with quantitative research or the alternative to quantitative research, it is not the case and it is not why it is the chosen method for this research. This research is chosen as it entails both ideas of research simultaneously, that is through this method one is able to look at and understand both quantitative and qualitative data at an instance that brings both the data from every sphere to come up with a single piece of the puzzle. This makes the end qualitative result possible as it holds a process of synthesis as mentioned before as it goes from large amounts of data to the small but concentrated data needed. Additional ethnography is considered to be multifactorial, which means that it houses both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection to come up with a comprehensive conclusion (Reid & Russell, 2017). Finally, ethnography is filed base meaning that it involves getting to the field and studying people on their place of work in this research. That means that ethnography is somewhat personal because the researcher has personal contact with the people who are studying, as this is like getting the data straight from the source. Just to add on to this method, the research also provides the ability to look at previous research, through getting the data that previous ethnographers were able to collect in the same field (Press, 2018). Comment by Eva: It most certainly is not confused with quan research Comment by Eva: Ethnography does not involve collecting any quan data

Qualitative Research Design

The Qualitative Research Design that will be used is ethnography, mainly because observation is the main data collection and as mentioned it helps in coming up with the most appropriate or accurate data (Ravitch & Carl, 2019). The research can be grounded theory of phenomenology, but the choice made was ethnography, due to the main reasons; first it is because it resonates with the research method, second it is because this method looks at the cultural parameter that affects the chosen workplace of study in responding to the supervisor support training and how it affects the employee retention. For instance, an organizational culture might be that employees are conditioned to be independent therefore affecting their relationship with the supervisor, therefore the support supervisor training can be rendered useless. This research design enables one to look at the possibilities that might be entailed in research before coming up with conclusive data that can be taken to the next step. Reiterating the previous facts, is that the data collection is both formal and informal interviews and observation, meaning that the quality of data will be first hand and exceptional. While on the analysis of data an emic approach is taken, that allows one to interpret the data form the point of view of the study population (Johnstone, 2016). Whereby in this case the results expressed as if the subjects themselves were responding to the research question. Whereby the researcher is not familiar with the social norm of the population or their language, then an etic perspective can be taken that involves interpretation perspective. Comment by Eva: Observation is 100% subjective so you cannot say it’s accurate, from an objective standpoint… Comment by Eva: Ethnography IS a research method.

Selection of Participants

The participants to be selected from the population under study it is important, in the development of the overall research this section can be considered to be part of the preparation of the ethnographic research. During the planning it is important to put in mind who will provide the best information that will be useful for the research within the organization. The simplest way to find the needed population is through the purposive sampling method. This entails that the members will be selected IN the basis that out of all the employees who provide the best information about the supportive supervisor training and its effects on employee retention. Therefore, immediately the employees chosen in this case should be executives, especially members of the HRM department and some employees. The choice of the target population should not be random as for example in a workplace there are a lot of people working there and if you chose random employees, you might interview the janitor, cook or the accountant who might not understand the effects of support supervisor training (Van Lith, 2019). That is why the choice should be based on specific target employees as mentioned before, the most appropriate people to interview in this case should from the HRM department, executives in charge of supervisor training and some employees that understand some aspects of employee retention and how it can be reduced. Comment by Eva: You are confusing population (the sum of all the particular orgs / culture, or individuals you wish to study) with sample (= participants in your research) Comment by Eva: If you want to do an ethnographic study, what is your (sub)culture? That’s where you need to start.

Aspects of Ethnography Research

Data Collection

The data collection in this type of research is rather personal as it has been mentioned before. The main ways of data collection include; observation and interviews. The observation is done on the target population to learn more about their organizational culture, while interview is taken to establish various aspects that can provide data about supervisor support training. While there are other sources of data collection this remains to be the most important (Barrett & Twycross, 2018).

Data Analysis

When it comes to the analysis of data software applications are instrumental, because manual methods will actually provide information that is not accurate. This is to remember that the data collected is in large quantities and needs to be synthesized to small quality data, for this to be qualitative research. Software such as Microsoft Excel can be very useful (Fisher, 2017).

Ethical protection of Human Rights

Human rights should be protected during fieldwork and research, in ethnography and anthropology the protection of human dignity and human rights is the top priority as it is the reason that the study is undertaken. To better the lives of the human beings in these communities (Pietila et al. 2020).

Elements of Trustworthiness

This research is important as it will help to establish various aspects, that cannot be defined in any other way. Qualitative methods are able to establish trends even before they appear on quantitative data. Therefore, data trustworthiness is important, whereby it comes in the various components; confirmability, dependability, credibility and transferability (Kyngas et al. 2020).

References

Atwood, M. A., Mora, J. W., & Kaplan, A. W. (2010). Learning to lead: Evaluating leadership and organizational learning. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 31(7), 576-595. doi:10.1108/01437731011079637

Bambale, A. J. (2014). Relationship between servant leadership and organizational citizenship behaviors: Review of literature and future research directions. Journal of Marketing & Management, 5(1), 1-16.

Barrett, D., & Twycross, A. (2018). Data collection in qualitative research.

Fisher, M. (2017). Qualitative computing: using software for qualitative data analysis. Routledge.

Friese, S. (2019). Qualitative data analysis with ATLAS. ti. SAGE Publications Limited.

Harding, J. (2018). Qualitative data analysis: From start to finish. SAGE Publications Limited.

Johnstone, B. (2016). Ethnographic methods in entrepreneurship research. Lulu. com.

Korstjens, I., & Moser, A. (2017). Series: Practical guidance to qualitative research. Part 2: Context, research questions and designs. European Journal of General Practice, 23(1), 274-279.

Kundu, S. C., & Lata, K. (2017). Effects of a supportive work environment on employee retention. International Journal of Organizational Analysis.

Kyngäs, H., Kääriäinen, M., & Elo, S. (2020). The Trustworthiness of Content Analysis. In The Application of Content Analysis in Nursing Science Research (pp. 41-48). Springer, Cham.

Myers, M. D. (2019). Qualitative research in business and management. Sage Publications Limited.

Press, A. L. (2018). Toward a qualitative methodology of audience study: Using ethnography to study the popular culture audience. In The Audience and its landscape (pp. 113-130). Routledge.

Pietilä, A. M., Nurmi, S. M., Halkoaho, A., & Kyngäs, H. (2020). Qualitative Research: Ethical Considerations. In the Application of Content Analysis in Nursing Science Research (pp. 49-69). Springer, Cham.

Ravitch, S. M., & Carl, N. M. (2019). Qualitative research: Bridging the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological. SAGE Publications, Incorporated.

Reid, J., & Russell, L. (Eds.). (2017). Perspectives on and from Institutional Ethnography. Emerald Group Publishing.

Silverman, D. (Ed.). (2016). Qualitative research. Sage.

Van Lith, T. (2019). Qualitative Research Methods in Art Therapy. In Art Therapy Research (pp. 83-118). Routledge.