QNT 561 SAMPLING DATA COLLECTION PLAN

Business Research Plan

Nakisha Wong-Chong, Jascinth Brockington,

Nancy Taresh, Andre McNally

QNT/561

August 25, 2014

Warren Huckabay

Introduction

Manufacturing companies have the common issue of high turnover rate with their employees. Pay is not always the reason for these high turnover rates and the work environment for employees in this type of work is sometimes a major challenge. Royal Packaging and Distribution has experienced a significant decline in productivity that may be a result of high employee turnover. The company noticed an increase in human resources activities in conjunction with low productivity and the inability to fulfill packaging orders on time.

Finding a resolution to the problem includes numerous steps, including determining if the high turnover of employees is directly related to a decrease in productivity, and then defining manageable steps to find the cause and effect. It is important this dilemma as it had a direct impact to the company's success. The dilemma at hand also has severe effects to the company's profits and contribution margin. The next steps for Royal Packaging and Distribution would be to determine what data needs to be researched in order to come to a resolution and a sound business decision. “A useful way to approach the research process is to state the basic dilemma that prompts the research and then try to develop other questions by progressively breaking down the original question into more specific ones” (Cooper & Schindler, 2011, p. 81),

Research Question

Through the process of identifying and analyzing a research question that applies to this particular organization, the correlation between low productivity and high turnover ratings has been chosen for further research and discussion. The data collection needed is based on, what would be the impact on productivity within the organization if there is a decrease in a high turnover rate? What is the connection between employee turnover and the low productivity within the plant? If there is a connection, is it related to employee satisfaction or other factors of the job? Can the quality of productivity be measured solely by the company's employee turnover? Through the development of this research question crafted from an organizational dilemma, an appropriate research design has been determined and its characteristics, such as independent and dependent variables.

Hypothesis (s)

The hypothesis should provide a logical response to the research questions provided by the manager’s dilemma, can be tested, and includes independent and dependent variables. A hypothesis often follows a basic format of "If {this happens} then {this will happen.}" Typically structure the hypothesis to describe what will happen to the dependent variable if changes are made to the independent variable ("Psychology: What Is A Hypothesis?", 2014). The hypothesis is as follows:

If there is a relationship between low work productivity and the high employee turnover rate, then, it can be assumed by providing a survey of employee satisfaction, the results will provide Royal Packaging and Distribution data to determine the variables necessary to make a sound business decision on increasing employee satisfaction – resulting in lower employee turnover rates, ultimately increasing productivity. "Productivity can be boosted with more variety in work responsibilities. Variety would create workers who have more job satisfaction. So, if workers are cross-trained in other, even similar, duties, then productivity will increase and turnover will drastically decline."

Alternatively, in contrast, if there is no relationship between low work productivity and the high worker turnover rate, then the lower productivity can be a result of extended days off or vacations overlapping in schedule to low training or retraining initiatives. Therefore, requiring further research into the employee scheduling process and training.

Further testing of these qualitative and quantitative data measure will be conducted to conclude the research on productivity standards for the organization. This leads this research into defining the study variables.

Study Variables

[Identify the variables for which data will be collected. For each variable, identify the level of measurement. Triple click anywhere in this paragraph to begin typing.]

Data Collection

[In this section, Describe the plan that would be used to collect data for this research. The plan should identify how the objects from which data would be selected, the samples size, and how the data would be collected. If surveys are proposed, describe the survey instruments that would be used to collect your data (attach instrument to the paper). Provide appropriate support for the size of the sample to be collected. Triple click anywhere in this paragraph to begin typing.]

Data Collection Results

[In this section, summarize the data collected using descriptive statistics. Triple click anywhere in this paragraph to begin typing.]

Hypothesis Testing Method

[Identify the statistical procedure used to accept/reject the hypothesis. Triple click anywhere in this paragraph to begin typing.]

Hypothesis Test Results

[In this section, provide the results of the testing done to accept or reject the stated hypothesizes. Show all calculations used. Triple click anywhere in this paragraph to begin typing.]

Conclusion

[In this section, summarize the findings of the study and state your conclusions. Triple click anywhere in this paragraph to begin typing.]

References

Cooper, D. R., & Schindler, P. S. (2011). Business research methods (11th ed.). New York, NY: The McGraw Hill Companies, Inc.

Psychology: What is a hypothesis?. (2014). Retrieved from http:// http://psychology.about.com/od/hindex/g/hypothesis.htm