Diversity Management at Arab National Bank - Literature review Example

Methodological Framework The methodological framework is equal to a strategy through which the researcher conducts a research (Schutt, 2011). Ideally, the methodological framework provides details about philosophies, assumptions (if any) and the methods and choices made in data collection and analysis. The methodological framework below emphasises the overall approach that this research takes. It also indicates the research methods, techniques and procedures used in the collection and analysis of data relating to ANB. Research Philosophy Research philosophies constitute the topmost layer of the research onion as conceptualised by Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009). A researcher can choose among four research philosophies namely pragmatism, interpretivism, realism, and positivism. According to Collins (2010), the research philosophy that a researcher uses, means that they “accept certain assumptions” about the way they view the world. Those assumptions form the basis through which the researcher launches their research strategy. Collins (2010) argues that a researcher’s practical considerations, style of working and beliefs inform their choice of a philosophy. In this research, the interpretivism philosophy was chosen for use. According to Rubin and Rubin (2012), the interpretivism philosophy understands that “people look at matters through distinct lenses and reach somewhat different conclusions” (p. 19). The interpretivism philosophy rejects the objectivist concept, which indicates that meaning is found in the world independent of consciousness. One of the reasons why the interpretivist philosophy was chosen is because it enables the researcher to appreciate that “the social world is culturally derived and historically situated” (Blaxter, Hughes & Tight, 2006, p. 60). The foregoing would mean that the historical culture of Saudi Arabia has an effect on how diversity management is handled at ANB. The interpretivist philosophy was also chosen because it enabled the researcher to carry out some in-depth investigations. Personal beliefs by the researcher also played a role in the selection of the interpretivism philosophy since the researcher believes that research has the ability to discover why people do the things they do. As Pat (2006) indicates, the interpretivist philosophy allows researchers to collect descriptive data, since the emphasis is usually on insight and exploration as opposed to mathematical and experimental treatment of data. This philosophy is also important for answering ‘why’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ questions. However, considering that truth is not grounded in scientific logic, a reader’s perception regarding the truth about a researched issue would depend on the researcher’s ability to argue in support of his or her observations. The choice of this philosophy therefore meant that the researcher had to make the work as convincing as possible to the reader through justifications obtained from literature. Research Approach Research approaches constitute the second topmost layer in Saunders et al.’s (2009) research ‘onion’. Usually, researchers choose between inductive and deductive approaches when conducting research. An inductive approach starts by making specific but limited observation and based on accumulated evidence, makes generalised conclusions (Butte College, 2008). The deductive approach on the other hand bases its arguments on a general rule, and based on gathered evidence, proceeds to make specific conclusions (Butte College, 2008). In this research, a combined approach of both inductive and deductive reasoning was used because it enabled the researcher to make full use of the mixed method choices, which included obtaining both qualitative data through interviewing managers at ANB and obtaining quantitative data through questionnaires that were issued to sampled employee respondents. Data obtained from questionnaires were quantitative in nature, and as such, well suited for the deductive approach. Through deductive reasoning, the researcher used existing theories to identify a hypothesis. The foregoing was in line with Gulati (2009), who indicates that the deductive approach is important in finding patterns within observed phenomena. Qualitative data acquired through the interview survey allowed the researcher to use inductive reasoning, where the researcher used the observations from data to come up with a theory/explanation of how diversity management occurred at ANB. The inductive approach starts by making specific and limited observations, then proceeds to makes general conclusions regarding an issue under observation based on accumulated evidence. This approach follows a specific pattern where evidence is gathered, patterns are sought, and a theory or hypothesis is formed to explain the observations. In this research for example, the interviews formed the basis of data from which the inductive approach was applied and an explanation of diversity management at ANB was arrived at. Notably, the management at ANB sets the diversity agenda at the bank and this means that their opinions regarding diversity management was a reflection of how diverse representations were handled in the workplace. Combining the inductive and deductive approaches ideally enables the researcher to capitalise on the strengths of both approaches while minimising their weaknesses. Research Strategy According to Saunders et al. (2009), a research strategy is “the general plan of how the researcher will go about answering the research questions”. The authors identify plausible strategies as including archival research, grounded theory, case study, experiment, ethnography, action research and survey. Remenyi, Williams, Money and Swartz (2003) note that the research strategy gives the researcher the directions needed to conduct the research. Still, Saunders et al. (2009) indicate that the most appropriate strategy should be selected based on the objectives of the research and the questions that a researcher wishes to answer. Another consideration when choosing the research strategy is the philosophical underpinnings that the researcher wishes to use, the resources available, time needed to conduct the research, and existing knowledge regarding a research issue (Saunders et al., 2009). This research adopted the survey strategy, which according to Schutt (2011), “involves the collection of information from a sample of individuals through their responses to questions” (p. 160). The survey strategy enabled the researcher to systematically collect data from different individuals at ANB. Schutt (2011) also observes that the generalisability, efficiency, and versatility of the survey strategy make it easy and effective for use. The fact that multiple variables could be measured in this research without significantly increasing the cost and/or time of the research made it an ideal strategy for use in the ANB case. Considering the issue of diversity in this research, the survey strategy was also ideal because it enabled the researcher to sample people from different subgroups. This made it possible for the researcher to identify consistency in how diverse groups are managed at the bank. Care however had to be taken in order to attain a representative sample of the diverse cultures represented at ANB. Attention was also given to measurement and survey design in order to ensure that quality data was obtained from the survey. This was in line with findings by Schutt (2011), who argues that surveys need to minimise the errors of observation and errors of non-observation. Errors of observation were found to come from “the way questions are written, the characteristics of the respondents who answer the questions, the way the questions are presented in questionnaires and the interviewers used to ask the questions” (p. 163). Special care was therefore taken to minimise errors that could arise from all the aforementioned ‘trouble’ areas. Open-ended questions were for example given to ANB bank managers thus allowing them to be as detailed as they wished to be about diversity management issues at the bank. The questionnaire used on the sampled diverse workforce on the other hand required the respondent to pick an answer from a provided list that best described their experiences and/or perceptions regarding diversity at the subject bank. The researcher also avoided using jargons, leading questions and vague language in the questions in order to enhance specificity. To reduce chances of inaccurate answers from respondents, the researcher assured the respondents that their identities would not be revealed and the research findings would be used for nothing else except for the research being done. The foregoing ideally reduced the need for respondents to appear to be socially desirable to their employer. It also arguably reduced the number of fence sitters who prefer to give neutral answers to avoid risking their jobs. Non-observation errors arise during due to several reasons identified by Schutt (2011) as: poor sampling that leads to the inability to acquire an adequate and/or representative research sample; random sampling and the risk that such sampling does not obtain a representative sample; and non-response by respondents hence distorting the sample that had been initially targeted by the researcher. To reduce non-response, the researcher made the questionnaire and survey questions attractive by spacing the questions and writing the questions neatly and clearly. This was done in an effort to ensure that the respondents were not confused about what was required of them, and to give the interviewer an easy time when asking questions during the survey. A great effort was also made to ensure that the wording of the survey questions made it possible for questions to be understood similarly by all respondents. Simple words were specifically used, considering that Saudi Arabia is a predominantly Arabic-speaking country and that respondents were from diverse linguistic backgrounds. Simple English words therefore had to be used. The researcher also tried to draw specific answers by using specific questions. The structured questionnaire was also designed with the elements of simplicity, attractiveness and clarity in mind. Consequently, the author managed to get responses to most of the questionnaires he had sent to respondents. Research Choices Research choices form the third innermost layer of the research onion as indicated by Saunders et al. (2009). Saunders et al. indicate that one can use a mono method of research, mixed methods, or multi-method. In this research, the mixed method choice was chosen for use. According to Creswell and Clark (2007), a mixed method choice enables researchers to collect both qualitative and quantitative data for use in the same study. Quantitative data is obtained through close-ended information, similar to what was gathered through the questionnaire used in this research. Qualitative data on the other hand, was obtained through open-ended questions such as those in the interview questions that were used on ANB managers. As indicated by Creswell and Clark (2007), analysing qualitative data typically requires the researcher to aggregate words or images “into categories of information” and present the diverse ideas presented in the qualitative results coherently (p. 6). In this research, questionnaires were used to gather quantitative data, while surveys were used to collect qualitative data. Specifically, the questionnaire addresses issues of nationality, gender, age, education and fluency in the Arabic language. Additionally, the questionnaire seeks to gauge employees’ perception towards how the management manages diversity in the bank. The interview questions on the other hand sought to understand whether the managers at ANB had a comprehensive understanding of diversity at the workplace, and whether the diversity was adopted in different human resource strategies. According to Creswell and Clark (2007) the use of mixed methods enables the researcher to solve a puzzle, study different aspects during research, and triangulate findings. Additionally, it has the added benefits of generality and aids the researcher in interpretation. According to Creswell and Clark (2007), the open-ended and closed-ended nature of the questions used in a research differentiates qualitative and quantitative research better that the sources than the sources of research data. To arrive at conclusive results, Creswell and Clark (2007) indicate that there are three ways through which a researcher can mix the qualitative and quantitative data. They include merging the data, connecting the data, or embedding the data. In this research, quantitative and qualitative data were merged in order to provide a complete understanding of diversity management at ANB. The foregoing means that both data sets was analysed separately, and the understanding gained thereof used to form a conclusion regarding diversity management in the subject Saudi Arabian bank. Time Horizons Saunders et al. (2009) point out cross-sectional studies and longitudinal studies as the two time horizons that researchers get to chose from. A longitudinal study takes a longer time as a researcher collects data from the same sampled respondents over an extended period of time. A cross-sectional study is on the other hand much faster as the researcher collects data once, and in a limited span of time. In this research, a cross-sectional study was used because it was faster, cheaper and easy on the respondents especially considering that the research was done in a corporate environment. The suitability of cross-sectional studies in this research was also enhanced by the fact that all respondents were drawn from the same organisation, hence making it easier for the researcher to observe, record, and describe the characteristics in the sampled respondents. The choice of cross-sectional study over a longitudinal study provided the researcher with a snapshot of diversity management at ANB and the characteristics (both at management and employees’ levels) associated with it. Given that the aim of the research was to identify how ANB managed diversity, a cross-sectional study appeared more suitable than a longitudinal study, which would have been more useful if the purpose of the research was to identify how diversity management at the bank has changed over the years. Considering the mixed method approach discussed above, the cross-sectional study also made it easier for the researcher to investigate how the relationship between managers and employees affects diversity management at the bank. Techniques and Procedures According to Saunders et al. (2009), techniques and procedures constitute the innermost part of the research onion, and involve data collection and analysis methods. As indicated elsewhere in this methodology section, this research used a mixed method approach, where qualitative and quantitative data was gathered through interviews and questionnaires respectively. The analyses of the two data sets were quite distinct since qualitative analysis as indicated by Tohoku (2001) seeks to provide a detailed and complete description. Quantitative analysis on the other hand seeks to construct statistical models from the research findings. The major difference between the two analyses therefore is that one assigns frequencies to data, while the other does not. Theoretically, the mixed methodology approach has advantages that extend even to data analysis. For example, a researcher is able to draw distinctions from qualitative data during analysis, which can also be looked out for during the quantitative analysis. Additionally, Tohoku (2001) indicates that mixed method approaches “tend to reject the narrow analytical paradigms in favour of the breadth of information, which the use of more than one method may provide” (para. 5). Ideally, qualitative research often sets the stage for quantitative research. Conclusion The research methodology ideally provides the ‘nuts and bolts’ of research. It enables the researcher to know which methods, philosophies and assumptions to use, and for what purposes. True to Rajasekar, Philominathan and Chinnathambi’s (2013) view, a research methodology “is a systematic way to resolve a problem” (p. 5). As is evident from the various sub-sections in this chapter, the methodology shows the type of data that has been collected, the methods used for data collection, the analysis techniques used, the philosophy of research used, the approaches, strategies and time horizons used in research. In other words, the research method offers a detailed description of how the research was conducted making it easy for future researchers to replicate the same researcher in order to verify whether or not similar results would be attained. References Blaxter, L., Hughes, C., & Tight, M. (2006). How to research. NY: McGraw Hill International. Butte College. (2008). Deductive, inductive and abductive reasoning. Retrieved from http://www.butte.edu/departments/cas/tipsheets/thinking/reasoning.html Collins, H. (2010). Creative research: The theory and practice of research for creative industries. Bloomsbury: AVA Publishing. Creswell, J., & Clark, V. L. (2007). Designing and conducting mixed methods research. London; New York: Sage. Gulati, P. M. (2009). Research management: fundamental and applied research. New Delhi: Global India Publications. Pat, C. (2006). The researcher student’s guide to success. Berkshire, England: McGraw Hill International. Rajasekar, S., Philominathan, P., & and Chinnathambi, V. (2013). Research Methodology. Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0601009.pdf Remenyi, D., Williams, B., Money, A., & Swartz, E. (2003). Doing research in business and management: An introduction to process and method. London: Sage. Rubin, H. J., & Rubin, I. S. (2012). Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data (3rd edition). London: Sage. Saunders, M., ‎ Lewis, ‎ P., & Thornhill, A. (2009). Research methods for business students (5th ed.). Pearson Education. Schutt, R. K. (2011). Investigating the social world. The process and practice of research. London: Sage. Tohoku, A. (2001). Qualitative vs quantitative analysis. Retrieved from http://www.sal.tohoku.ac.jp/ling/corpus3/3qual.htm Read More