BA (Hons) Business Management with Finance
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/11064
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Item An Investigation into Remuneration as a Motivating Factor in Career Choices?(2021)Remuneration has been at the forefront of many organisations for many years. The question of whether remuneration was the most motivating factor for individuals when choosing careers is something that has a vast amount of literature on. The concept of Remuneration is the money or wages associated with a job. The purpose of this study was ‘To investigate whether remuneration is the ultimate driver when choosing a career’. The aim of the research was ‘To investigate if remuneration is the motivating factor when entering and maintaining a career.’ The objectives set out by the researcher for the research were as follows: • To identify what factors, influence individuals when selecting a profession. • To examine to what extent individuals, hold remuneration as an important factor when choosing a career. • To investigate whether motivating factors within careers change over time. The study used a quantitative method of data collection, this was chosen as it was deemed the most suitable method of data collection for the topic. The research targeted 80 people to participate in anonymous online questionnaires. The participants had to be over the age of 18 and were either currently employed or have been employed previously. The questionnaire had 64 responses that came from friends, family, and peers from the university course of the researcher. The use of anonymous online questionnaires was selected by the researcher due to the fact remuneration could be considered as a sensitive topic. The study concluded that remuneration does hold weight when selecting a career, however this perspective changes as individuals settle into their career. Similarly, 70% of respondents said that what they look for in a job has changed over time, with 9 respondents suggesting that remuneration is no longer important to them as when they were first selecting a career. Furthermore, it can be concluded that as people settle into their career, their priorities change and tend to shift to having a good work life balance, having satisfaction within their roles and the ability to seek new opportunities and develop within their roles.Item An exploration into the importance of employability as a motivation for student volunteers and an assessment of its impact on long-term retention within the UK(2021)Volunteering plays a hugely important role in society, not only in terms of its economic and financial impact, but also for its ability to improve the mental health and wellness of volunteers and those in need. This study seeks to understand the motivations of students, specifically those aged between 18 and 25, to assess how important employability is when deciding to volunteer. Attention is also given to the importance and value of retention strategies to encourage student volunteers to remain in their roles, assessed from the student’s perspective. A considerable amount of the existing literature focusses on general volunteer motivations and often fails to address the specific motivations of students. What is currently missing from the research is a developed understanding of what motivates students and what can be done to retain them in the long-term. This gap will be explored with attention paid to exploring employability as a motivation. The literature review examines the existing body of literature and contributes to the creation of a number of themes, including increased involvement of institutional bodies and the changing nature of student volunteering, to aid in the achievement of the aim and objectives of the study. The aim of this study is to investigate the relevance of employability as a motivation for student volunteering and to explore any potential problems relating to the long-term retention of students. In addition to the aim, the following objectives were created to aid the study: • To uncover how important employability is to students when deciding to volunteer • To determine whether the nature of student volunteering poses any problems for retention • To establish which potential retention strategies are of the most value to students. The study adopted a quantitative methodology with an online questionnaire chosen as the data collection instrument. The questionnaire was distributed on social media platforms and received a total of 60 responses. The key findings of the study, first and foremost, confirmed that students do undertake volunteering in order to increase employability. However, the data also displayed a number of variances from the claims found within the literature. Such variances include how highly students value helping their community, a strong desire to get involved with volunteering at a young age and that training appears to be of less value than first thought. These findings demonstrate clear inconsistencies from the claims within the existing body of literature, thus, further research is required to fully understand the new developments. The future recommendations that were made include increasing the size of the study to facilitate generalisation to the population and diversification of the sample. Further, it is recommended that the target population is expanded to include a wider range of 18- to 25- year-olds, as opposed to only university attendees and that the topic is explored with consideration for the volunteer organisation’s perspective in order to understand their position.Item Flexibility in the Workplace: An Exploratory Study on the Impact of Flexible Working Arrangements on Employee and Organisational Performance(2021)Over the past few decades there has been an increasing use of flexible working in workplaces, through part-time, temporary, fixed term, job share, term-time and remote working opportunities, which has resulted in adaptations to traditional workplace environments in many organisations (Maitland and Thomson 2014; Austin-Egole et al. 2020). There has also been a gradual, but slow, increase in the use of remote working over the last few decades with 1.5% of employees working remotely in 1981 compared to 4.5% in 2019 (Office for National Statistics 2020). However, the Covid-19 pandemic has seen a significant rise in the incidence of remote working as in April 2020 86% of UK employees reported that they were working from home (Cameron 2020). This research study examined employees’ and employers’ attitudes towards flexible working in relation to the perceived impacts on both employee and organisational performance. This study adopted a quantitative approach, through the use of online questionnaires targeted towards both employers and employees. A total of 62 employees responded to the employee questionnaire, which was significantly higher than the 11 employers who completed the employer specific questionnaire. Results from this research have highlighted that generally workplace flexibility is viewed positively by both employees and employers. Additionally, findings indicated that employees and employers considered the impacts of flexible working arrangements to be increased job satisfaction, enhanced individual productivity and a better work-life balance for employees. These findings reflect those from similar quantitative studies such as Felstead and Henseke (2017), Gregar and Shah (2019), Eversole and Crowder (2020) and Ozimek (2020) whose findings have all highlighted that an employee’s job satisfaction, engagement and organisational commitment increases as a result of being given some degree of flexibility, which in turn then positively influences the overall performance of an organisation. Moreover, results have drawn attention to the impact that the pandemic has had in transforming the way in work has been, and will continue to be, carried out due to realisation of the benefits that flexible working can bring to both organisations and employees. The results from this study have also indicated that there is likely to be continued use of remote working as a result of learnings throughout the pandemic.Item The impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on customers' choice in commercial banks: an investigation among people living in the UK and in Italy(2021)In the current economic situation, Corporate Social Responsibility has played a fundamental role in integrating moral principles in banking activity. CSR is also gaining increasing importance in the business, in fact, it has been discovered that it has become one of the main factors that influence customers’ choice. As little is known on this topic in the banking sector, the aim of the research is to investigate whether CSR influences customers’ choice in the banking sector, focusing only on people living in the UK or in Italy, analysing differences and similarities between them. The approach that has been identified as the most suitable for this research, is the quantitative approach. Specifically, among a range of methods, the online survey appeared to be the most appropriate for the research topic, meanwhile the sample size of the research is composed of 132 individuals, obtained through the volunteer sampling technique. The findings suggest that CSR has become one of the factors that influence customers’ choice in the banking sector, however, only a relatively small percentage of participants stated that they are influenced by it. Therefore, the results suggest that CSR needs to be further implemented in order to play a more central role in customers’ choice in the industry considered. It has also emerged, from the data gathered, that there is a strong correlation between CSR awareness and the influence of it in customers’ choice, hence, suggesting also that banks should ensure a better knowledge of CSR among their customers. Lastly, it has also emerged that people living in the UK, compared to those living in Italy, are more aware of CSR and are also more keener to consider CSR when it comes to choose a bank.Item Examining Performance Measures and Their Application in Voluntary Sports Clubs(2021)Measuring performance in local sports clubs is challenging, particularly due to their nonprofit and voluntary nature. In recent years, there has been a growing demand in these organisations to introduce more professional management practices in order to address issues such as increasing competition and stakeholder pressure. Therefore, this thesis aims to examine board members’ current practices to measure performance in community-level, voluntary sports clubs and to make evidence-based recommendations on how they could be improved, changed or adapted to best achieve their organisational purpose. To achieve this aim, eight semi-structured interviews were undertaken with presidents of voluntary sports clubs in two different European countries. This qualitative research provided an indepth view of the various aspects of performance by exploring the effectiveness-related perceptions of participants. Results show that performance in voluntary sports clubs is multidimensional and socially created by the actions and interactions of members, board members, volunteers, coaches and other stakeholders. Expectedly, financial indicators and membership figures are regularly reviewed and used to determine a club’s efficiency and effectiveness. However, board members seem to be reluctant to implement measures to evaluate subjective aspects such as membership satisfaction or the internal atmosphere. The main recommendations for board members are, firstly, to recognise that performance goes beyond membership fluctuations and the financial health and, secondly, to introduce a standardised performance measurement system (PMS) to increase effectiveness, transparency and accountability. Findings demonstrate that an adapted form of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) serves as a useful, flexible and easy-to use PMS for most types of voluntary sports clubs.Item The impact of ‘societal issues’ on UK consumers’ non-essential spending decisions(2021)The aim of this study is to develop an understanding of the extent to which societal issues influence non-essential spending decisions in the UK. This study focuses on three societal issues: environmental issues, gender inequality, and racial injustice, which were found to be of the most importance to today’s society (McNulty, 2019). While awareness and discussion of societal issues is becoming ever more topical, limited research exists investigating a possible link to a change in purchasing behaviour. The little literature available suggested a substantial change in consumer demand, linked particularly with environmental issues and younger consumers. A substantial shift in consumer demands would affect many industries and would require a severe change in strategy for countless organisations, it is therefore pivotal that a potential change in demands be evaluated. A quantitative approach was adopted through the use of online surveys to gather information from participants aged 18+ who live in the UK. Nominal data was collected, and Likert scales were used to evaluate participants’ opinions on motivations they have when spending on non-essentials, as well as beliefs and awareness of societal issues. The results found that quality, convenience, and price were consumers’ top three considerations when purchasing non-essentials. While societal issues were not amongst the most important factors, this study found that awareness of an issue does increase the likelihood of action, such as a change in spending habit.Item An investigation of the motivating factors that influence individuals working in the Scottish financial sector and whether the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced their motivation factors(2021)Motivation is an essential part in an organisation’s success, if employees are not motivated then the business will not be able to operate, attain and retain the right individuals (Shoraj & Llaci 2015) Motivational theories show that there are multiple different factors influencing an individual’s motivation in the workplace (Maslow 1943; Herzberg 1965). As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment rates have risen rapidly (Blustein et al. 2020) and motivation levels amongst employees have fallen (Vyas & Butakhieo, 2020), resulting in changes in how people view their current employment position (Ancillo et al. 2020) This study aims to determine the most significant motivating factors influencing employees working in the Scottish Financial Sector (SFS), and whether the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted these motivating factors. A quantitative approach, using an online questionnaire, was utilised with a total of 43 respondents working in the SFS identified using convenience sampling. Findings from this study identified that before the COVID-19 pandemic, motivation was mainly due to promotional opportunities and the working conditions for employees in the SFS. This study also determined that the COVID-19 pandemic had caused a change in the motivating factors for employees working in the SFS, with pay and job security becoming the most significant motivational factors. Results also indicated that the age of employee has a significant influence on motivating factors compared to the gender of employees. In this study, results found that gender had little significance on employee’s motivation apart from achievement, in which men were far more motivated by than women. Meanwhile, age was far more influential on how people were motivated with trends appearing in all factors in this study. It is therefore recommended that SFS organisations use these findings to adapt their practises, to ensure employees remain adequately motivated in a post-pandemic workplace.Item An investigation on Tesco complaint handling procedures using manager thoughts(2021)This research investigates the complaint handling procedures of Tesco and assesses the management perceptions of their effectiveness. This study will explore why customer complaint handling procedures are important for the grocery firms operating in the UK. It will also look at what the Tesco management carry on in their stores, assessing and comparing the available literature as the best complaint handling procedures. Finally, it will make a recommendation on how Tesco can enhance its in-store complaint handling procedures to achieve the best outcomes. The research objectives have been achieved by analysing manager interviews measuring their responses. For this study, the qualitative research method has been chosen to gather in-depth thought and underlying patterns. The research identified in qualitative analysis the most appropriate method for this research due to the allocated time and the lack of literature available. The main findings suggest that Tesco management is aware of the most important impacts of the most used compensation techniques to prevent service failure. Customer loyalty has been identified to be the most crucial impact after their service recovery strategy; however, more efficient training to improve the complaint handling procedures could be provided to make the management aware of the value of their strategy and the percentage of the retained customers. On the other hand, a larger sample could show different results; additionally, managers working in a different area might have a deeper understating of the phenomenon. In-store procedures have been assessed have shaped accordingly to new technologies, allowing synchronous communication between stores and head-quarter. Finally, the most used recovery tool has been identified in the monetary compensation; however, even if managers agreed on this point, further studies indicate that this tool should not be overused in every situation, but, wisely according to the complaint channel and the customer typology.Item An Investigation into the Motivations Behind Panic Buying During Times of Crisis(2021)This dissertation aims to identify the reasons why individuals participate in panic buying during times of crisis. The purpose of this study is to investigate how panic buying impacts the demand and supply of essential goods. The study will help understand what factors influence panic buying as well as acknowledge the impact panic buying has on an individual. There is strong literature on panic buying from Yeun et al. (2020) and Sheu and Kuo (2020) which both focus on times of crisis. As the coronavirus pandemic is a recent and ongoing event there are very few studies about it, meaning there is a gap in the literature. However, previous crises such as the 2011 Christchurch earthquake (Forbes 2017), has indicated what can be anticipated in terms of consumer behaviour. A quantitative methodology is used for this study, with online questionnaires distributed to gather data. In total, 208 responses were collected; the respondents consisted of 171 females, 35 males and 2 non-binary individuals. Furthermore, the majority of respondents are aged 41 to 64. The key findings of this study show that some consumers were panic buying during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic which meant that others experienced shortages of essential products. Furthermore, there are various factors that prompt individuals to panic buy such as herd mentality, fear and perceived scarcity.Item Should organisations in the western world make reasonable adjustments for their religious minority employees?(2021)This research investigates whether organisations should be making reasonable adjustments for their religious minority employees. For example, the provision of prayer rooms or meeting dietary requirements. There is literature that discusses whether there should be adjustments implemented and the different attitudes towards such implementations. However, there is very little literature considering the perspective of religious minority employees. This is the gap this research intends to fill, and this is crucial due to the constant rise in diversity within the workforce. This research aims to investigate the perspective of religious minorities that are members of organisations within the western world, on whether they believe reasonable adjustments should be made for them and what the impacts of such adjustments would be. The aim, objectives, and time constraints of the research dictated the methodology to be a quantitative one. The method that was used was online questionnaires, where a total of 47 valid responses were recorded. Online questionnaires were selected because it was found to be the best method of reaching a specific sample due to the resource constraints and timeframe given. The general characteristics of the sample were Muslim males between the ages of 21-30. The results concluded that there are currently not enough adjustments being implemented within organisational practices for religious minorities. The preferred adjustments were prayer rooms alongside the time to pray, time off during religious holidays and meeting dietary requirements. It was found that reasonable adjustments would have a huge impact on employee motivation and engagement, and the majority stated that it would change the way they felt about work in a positive manner. Also, it was found that the majority of public and private sector workers highlighted that they felt their employer would be willing and receptive to implementing change within their organisations. Lastly, it was recommended for organisations to hold one-to-one meetings, and the training of all staff to raise awareness about religions and flexitime workers, to ensure a smooth implementation of such adjustments without any issues within the organisation.