BUS-Res 3

NORMAN, ELTON_BUS7380-8-1 2

NORMAN, ELTON_BUS7380-8-1 1

Apply the Qualitative Method and the Research Problem

BUS-7380 Assignment # 1

Elton Norman

Dr. Vicki Lindsay

3 October 2019

Hi Elton,

I am not the author of this course nor the author of the assignments. I am here to help you move forward with qualitative research. Within this course, I have found that the author of this course did a wonderful job bringing great material to you through your reading assignments and did not give you unnecessary reading or writing assignments. Everything in this class should benefit you in all aspects of writing a research paper. The author of this course seemed to succinctly give you all the information that you needed to successfully navigate through qualitative research methodology and design. This is a new course, and it may have the occasional hiccup. Therefore, if you find any problems or if you have any questions as you are working through the reading material or the assignments, please feel free to ask me. I have downloaded all of the reading material (I think), so if you cannot get to it, please feel free to ask, and I will get it to you as soon as possible. I think that is usually the only major concern in new classes such as this. Also, I have not seen any rubrics within the course, so the assignments will follow a simple grading process that I have below.

If I ask you a question within the paper, I DO NOT expect you to answer the question as a reply to the feedback or within a separate email to me. Instead, try to explain it more precisely or clearer within the next assignment. Or, if that question never arises in this course, keep the question/ feedback for later so that it will be helpful to you during the proposal and dissertation phases.

Explanation emails of why something was said or done within the paper are usually not conducive to your writing within this course. If I ask about a concept, I would want to know how it fits within your paper within a certain idea that you had at that moment. When you recreate that moment in the next paper (or down the road during your proposal or dissertation), you can pull that question back out and answer it then. However, if you have questions about your topic, please email or use Skype. Skype is the best way to get an impromptu IM conversation started with me. DO NOT put the question in the comment section of the submission portal. Only add notes about problems with submission issues there. Do not put important questions or important information within that comment box. The comment box is only accessible to me if I physically pull your submission. Therefore, I do not see those until I physically pull the submission. A question that you may have on Sunday when you submit the assignment may not be seen until Thursday.

Most likely, I will be ignorant about your topic of choice. But, I do know a lot about research and statistics. This is where I will be most helpful to you. I have 36 graduate hours of research methods and statistics. I conduct research for a living. I am known in the field of academia for my research skills. My very-expensive, government-owned (still paying off student loans) brain is constantly thinking “research” methodology and design. I most likely will be thinking about the methodology the whole way through your process. I will ask you how and what you plan on doing with this project throughout your time with me. It is up to you to be proactive with your education. If you have a question, ASK.

My questions about your topic will come from a person who is, most likely, not as educated as you are about your chosen field. If I don't understand something within your paper, it may be good to explain it better so that your final dissertation will not have numerous statements to “clarify.” It is always best to explain things in a way that most people would be able to understand the logic. You want to make sure that someone not as educated in your field may understand the logic or conceptualization of your theory. This is the basic idea of research – create new, clear, and concise information that can be passed on to others – in your field and within other fields.

So…. On to the feedback.

For this assignment, you were to use three to four pages to apply the qualitative method to a research problem. The author of the assignment asked for a one-page introduction, followed by what led you to decide to use this problem as your research topic. While doing this, the other you were asked to use 3 to 4 scholarly articles that focused on your degree specialization. Interestingly, the author seems to use the old school five-paragraph essay way of writing. If you are wondering what I mean by the old five-paragraph essay, you can easily Google the topic and find more information on it. Many learned this method in high school. I normally tell students to follow that exact way of writing style to get their thoughts across when writing the sections of a dissertation or research papers. Even though research papers consist of more than five paragraphs, the idea is the same. It brings the student back to writing topic sentences for their paragraphs and writing introductions and conclusions for their papers. This is a very good thought process to continue as you move forward with your writing.

The feedback process (unless changed by the author within the assignment) will and does consist of a four-part summary, a few short, location-specific balloon-comments found within the margins of the text, and the highlighting of grammatical or APA style errors found within the text. Make sure that you view your document with the track changes (review toolbar of the MS Word toolbar) set to ALL MARKUP to be able to see all the comments in the text and in the balloons.

Because this is your first assignment under my tutelage and grading, I will be grading is extremely liberally, but I will show you most everything that was wrong and how to fix it. I usually take around four hours to explain this within your first paper. The feedback will be extensive. It is extensive for everyone. You will note that your grade and the feedback seem to differ. If you use the feedback throughout the course, you most likely will see your writing become better, and you will see the amount of feedback diminish while the grade remains high. However, if you do not use the feedback throughout the course, you will see the grade diminish. NCU provides our students with many helpful software programs(normally the premium paid-for version free-of-charge) and provides academic coaches also free-of-charge to help students with all types of writing, citation, and referencing issues. Within this first assignment's feedback, I will point out where to find these helpful areas if you need them.

The summary is split into four parts. These four parts consist of grammar/punctuation, conformity with APA style citations, conformity with APA style references, and content. The order of the parts listed does not intend to emphasize the importance of the parts as the content is always the most important part of the assignment. Therefore, it is listed at the end because normal memory concentrates on what was heard / read last.

What was found:

Grammar/ Punctuation

Within your writing, I found a large number of grammar and punctuation errors that could have been helped by remembering those grammar and punctuation methods. This could be helped by proofreading. Remember, your writing skills help you to explain what you are trying to say to another person. In this case, you are explaining it to me. But, later, you will be explaining to future stakeholders. With all that being said, when I opened my word document of your work, my Grammarly app opened, as well (the premium version that you have from NCU works inside of Microsoft Word). Grammarly found over 40 critical issues prior to me even looking at the paper. Some are because of the program, but some are not. I use it as a background tool for my own writing. It may help your writing also. I have highlighted many of your mistakes using the yellow highlighter.

Many of the problems found were because of punctuation mistakes. This makes me believe that little proofreading was used on this submission. Not only is this not good, but it also does not make use of the MANY different programs and options that NCU gives the students for FREE. Have you downloaded the NCU Premium version of Grammarly program yet? This program and the APA Academic Writer are both found within the NCU Academic Success Center.

Grammarly software will help you with this paper! Grammarly could be incorrect, though. You must read the passage to make sure that it is not you. It may be the program that is incorrect. However, I have found that the Grammarly program is mostly correct. Incorrect catches could happen with any type of software. The software could also miss a lot of incorrect grammar problems. To forgo problems such as this, have another person look at your submissions, as well. A submission should not have a lot of mistakes, no matter how long the paper is. This website attached goes directly to Grammarly. Use it to see what I see. I have (I hope) marked most of the grammatical and punctuation problems within your paper with yellow highlighting. The following will bring you directly to the Grammarly program. Make sure you use your NCU email to create your account, so you will get the premium version FREE.

https://ncu.libguides.com/editing

ALSO

I need it to be reference correctly using APA format. Go to the Academic Writer program at NCU ASC. To understand what needs to be done. The APA Academic Writer is found going straight from this website:

https://ncu.libguides.com/APAStyle

Make sure that APA style referencing is adhered to!

APA style citations

There needs to be more citations throughout the in-text wording. It is hard to determine where you found some of this information. I have listed throughout places that need citations. There are places throughout that seem like they are either opinionated or examine some sort of fact that do not have a citation to back it.

APA style references

Remember that all references must be in APA format. This is not different from any other course. Make sure to use the APA Academic Writer to help you create APA style references. Some of the problems that occurred are:

Remember that your citations should match your references. There are many references here that do not match the year of the citations. There are many references here that are not cited within. There are many citations that are not referenced. Remember that titles of journal articles should not be in all caps. Titles of journal articles should be in sentence case; journals should be in italics. The issue and volume need to be correctly cited. When you use the Academic Writer program, it should help you with the citations and the referencing of your sources. Once you do this, make sure that you keep a copy of your references. Only reference what you use internally. If you cannot find the digital object identifier for your source in the article, use crossref.org website. Go to the metadata area and type in the title of your source. There should be no quotations in APA referencing. There are many problems with the references below. One main problem is that they should all be in alphabetical order by the first author's surname. I have highlighted the problems with APA style formatting. However, as I do that, I cannot highlight the problem with alphabetical order.

Content

The question that you should ask yourself as you are thinking about this is who will answer this question for you? Whom will you be able to get your hands on to answer this question? Is it a doable concept?

You seem to break your research problem or the purpose statement into four sections. There should not be a research problem, general business problem, specific business problem, and rationale. All of this should have fit Within your purpose statement using what the author explained was your template. I am unclear as to if you are using the Pepsi company as part of your research and why. Is this something that you can get your hands on, and is the Pepsi company a place that will help your research?

If you have any questions about any part of this, please feel free to contact me via Skype or NCU email.

V. Lindsay, PhD 9.2 /10 10/10/19

Introduction Comment by Vicki Lindsay, PhD: There needs to be more information on why diversity is something that is important to business. What has been found in literature that is important? Explain why it is important to have more research.

Diversity refers to all dimensions that can be used to bring out differences between people and groups. The dimensions which are involved in diversity can either be invisible or visible. The presence of diversity in the workplace can be seen in the workplace through the representation of all types of races, ethnicities, ages, and genders. The employees of a diverse business are the ones who have distinct qualities and elements which are different from one another (Buckingham, 2012). Workplace diversity has also been defined as the broad range of differences between people which influences the way people achieve business results and interact with one another (Hazard, 2004).

The different elements of diversity include actions, beliefs, and values which should vary in terms of age, physical abilities, lifestyle, gender, and ethnicity. The management of these elements can lead to problems in the workplace when using the old elements of administration. There are many components of workplace diversity which include the management of diversity, the problems associated with diversity, and many more. Diversity has been found to affect the job satisfaction of the employees as well as the diversity awareness (Thurlow, Mills, & Mills, 2018). In the past the supervisors and managers were looking for a workplace that is homogenous but nowadays they are looking to have a workplace that is different with a wide range of individuals.

Managing diversity is based on the assumption that having different types of employees leads to new methods of working together which will enhance productivity and morale (Hieker & Rushby, 2016). Each employee in a diverse workplace will look at creating policies and building skills that will shape their attitudes and workplace behaviors. There are several elements required in workplace diversity but the major one is equal employment opportunity. Equal employment opportunity warrants treatment of employees in an impartial and fair manner.

Research Problem Comment by Vicki Lindsay, PhD: You seem to break your research problem or the purpose statement into four sections. There should not be a research problem, general business problem, specific business problem, and rationale. All of this should have fit Within your purpose statement using what the author explained was your template. I am unclear as to if you are using the Pepsi company as part of your research and why. Is this something that you can get your hands on and is the Pepsi company a place that will help your research?

The core to social justice in the business is ensuring that it remains a place of diversity that ensures the recognition of liberties and basic rights at the same time promoting an atmosphere of trust. Research has shown that more racial and gender diversity leads to more customers and revenue an example being AT&T where 42 percent of employees are people of color (Parsi, 2019). Comment by Vicki Lindsay, PhD: Unclear. Are you using AT& T or Pepsi Co? You have ATT here and Pepsi at the end.

General Business Problem

Diversity is now a core part of every work-place but the majority of business are not aware of the benefits or the methods that they can use to promote diversity at the workplace.

Specific Business Problem

Businesses today need to understand how they can leverage on diversity to increase productivity and workplace and employee satisfaction.

Rationale

The qualitative research methodology is a critical market research method as it focuses on getting data through some form of conversational communication. The qualitative approach to research focuses not only on what people think but why they think so. An example of a method that is used in qualitative research is in-depth interviews. The qualitative approach helps in probing respondents and understanding their feelings and motivation. The qualitative approach to research will help in this case to dig deeper and understand the views of people when it comes to diversity in the workplace.

Qualitative research methods were not common in research but in social and behavioral sciences. The business world today is more complicated and it is critical to make sure that we understand all aspects of a concept and this can be best done through a descriptive and communicative approach. There are various methods that are used in qualitative research. There are one-on-one interview, focus groups, ethnographic research, case study research, record keeping and process of observation. Comment by Vicki Lindsay, PhD: What do you think that you will use?

There are various reasons why the qualitative approach is the best one when studying diversity in the workplace. The first one is that it provides detail and depth on the matter being studied. The qualitative approach will go deeper when looking at diversity and analyze the feelings, behaviors, and attitudes of the respondents regarding the issue of diversity. The qualitative approach is also good in studying diversity because it creates a sense of openness. It will encourage one to expand and open up new topics that can be studied which might not have been captured initially. Diversity is a human experience and a qualitative approach will help in simulating individual experiences regarding the topic. The actions will be understood better when individual experiences are clearly presented. The diversity in businesses can also be best studied by looking at it using qualitative method because it avoids making prejudgments. It helps understand why a certain response was given. Comment by Vicki Lindsay, PhD: Citation? Where did you get this information from? Comment by Vicki Lindsay, PhD: Citation? Where did you get this information from?

The outcome of the study using qualitative methodology is to come up with workplace diversity solutions. It is important for the study to provide solutions to the problem of workplace diversity. The diversity will be permanent in the workforce because of globalization and it is up to companies to create better action plans to accommodate the present business environment. The workplace diversity is today very prominent in the workplace. Creating a strong diversity plan needs to be the first thing that any business should do prior to anything that is related with a diverse workplace and workforce. Comment by Vicki Lindsay, PhD: Run on sentences Comment by Vicki Lindsay, PhD: Citation? How do you know that this is true? Comment by Vicki Lindsay, PhD: Citation? How do you know that this is true?

Purpose Statement Comment by Vicki Lindsay, PhD: This is the purpose of your research. Your research question is involved here.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the effect of workplace diversity in the modern workplace and what businesses can do to enjoy benefits of the diversity. A qualitative study design will be used in which narrative data will be collected and analyzed to show the effects of workplace diversity on job satisfaction and diversity awareness. These data will represent the benefits that can be accrued by businesses when they explore diversity at the workplace. Qualitative data will be gathered exploring workplace diversity from the employees at Pepsi Company. The reasons for using this form of data is to generate data, is to develop an in-depth understanding of diversity in the workplace and how it will affect workplace morale and productivity (Christian, Porter, & Moffitt, 2006). Comment by Vicki Lindsay, PhD: Tense. Reasons= plural. Form = singular. What are you trying to state?

Research Questions Comment by Vicki Lindsay, PhD: Think about your questions in more of a research-oriented fashion. Who can you get to answer these questions for you? Why would the answers of these questions be important?

1. How is diversity in the workplace characterized?

2. What is the effect of managing diversity in the workplace on employee job satisfaction and diversity awareness?

References

Parsi, N. (2019, August 16). Workplace Diversity and Inclusion Gets Innovative. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/0217/pages/disrupting-diversity-in-the-workplace.aspx Comment by Vicki Lindsay, PhD: This is not a scholarly journal. This is a trade magazine. Note that there are a lot of problems with missing information here.

Christian, J., Porter, L. W., & Moffitt, G. (2006). Workplace diversity and group relations: An overview. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 9(4), 459-466. Comment by Vicki Lindsay, PhD: Missing the digital object identifier.

Buckingham, D. E., (2009). A case study exploring the impact of managing workplace diversity on diversity awareness and employee job satisfaction. Comment by Vicki Lindsay, PhD: Where does this come from?

Hieker, C., & Rushby, M. (2016). Diversity in the Workplace. Gender and Diversity, 355-379. doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-6912-1.ch018

 Thurlow, A., Mills, A. J., & Mills, J. H. (2018). Feminist Qualitative Research and Workplace Diversity. Handbook of Workplace Diversity, 218-237. doi:10.4135/9781848608092.n10