更重要的是,這個研究的結果可能是有價值的,因為與安徽電子發現差距的獎勵性能和偏好在組織內,我們有可能為dissertation提供合理和適當的建議,為公司和通過策略建議安徽電子可以有更高層次的員工士氣以及員工的動機,以及他們可能有更高層次的整體性能。

Introduction

More importantly, the results of the research might be valuable for Anhui Electronic, because with the findings of the gap between reward performance and preference within the organisation of Anhui Electronic, it could be possible for the dissertation to offer rational and appropriate suggestions for the company and through the strategies suggested the Anhui Electronic could have higher level of employee morale as well as employee motivation, with which they could have higher level of overall performance. The results might be even valuable for the entire power industry in China because based on the literature review, all of the power companies are SOEs controlled by the central government of China, in terms of this situation, the suggestions for Anhui Electronic might also be valuable for the other power companies in China, through which the industrial condition of the employee treatment as well as employee relation could be enhanced with multiple benefits brought by the change.

3.1.3可能限制的dissertation

在參加研究可能還需要評估可能的限制的dissertation,通過該研究可以更合理地設計以避免這些局限性影響研究的結果,除了,通過實現可能的限制的dissertation,研究方法的選擇可能會受益,因為在使用錯誤的方法可以使原來的限制的dissertation甚至放大,不可避免的造成的結果偏袒。

3.1.3 Possible limitation of dissertation

Before taking the research it might be necessary to evaluate the possible limitation of the dissertation, through which the research could be designed more rationally with avoiding those limitations affecting the results of the research, besides of that, by realizing the possible limitation of the dissertation, the selection of research methods could be benefited because in using wrong methods could make the original limitation of the dissertation even enlarged, with the unavoidable consequence of the results being biased. 

In terms of this, there might be the following several limitation of the dissertation the author should be aware of. To begin with, the lacking of researching experiences might be the source for mistakes and bias to be occurred in the research, without sufficient experiences in handling the research process, controlling the research quality and analysing and processing with the research results, it could be foreseen that the research quality could be lower than expected. Besides of that, the lacking of sufficient knowledge for the Anhui Electronic might be limiting the appropriateness of the research design for the author, without sufficient knowledge about the power company it might make the result lacking precision and less valuable for the company. #p#分頁標題#e#

In order of avoiding the two aspects of potential limitation, the author had firstly viewed the related books about researches methods, process control, as well as data processing through which the author could have acquired sufficient knowledge about the researches; besides of that, in order of enhancing the knowledge about the Anhui Electronics, the author would firstly talk to my father, also the recommender of the qualitative and quantitative researches, for the company information, through which the author could know better about the company. 

3.2 Methods of Quantitative Research

Quantitative research could do help to the development of better understandings about the detailed conditions from the various thoughts, opinions, feelings, ideas, and all other subjective feedbacks from the respondents towards certain topics (Aaker et al., 1997). Quantitative research could usually show the results with numerical ways, through which the result could be analysed with quantitative way and the summaries of the results could be undertaken statistically, more importantly, quantitative research could be conducted to relatively large group of people, through which the researchers could make use of them and them find the abstract disciplines of the phenomenon (Ghauri & Gronhaug, 2005). Based on the above analysis, this research method would be deployed in the following research in this dissertation to better achieve the research aim and objectives.

Among all the research methods for quantitative research, questionnaire is the most frequently used method. Questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents, and this kind of research instrument is also widely used in the managerial, sociological, , and psychological researches (Aaker, et al., 1997). In this dissertation, questionnaire would also be cited as the research method for the quantitative research. Following are the discussion about the rationale, proposed size, designing, and possible deficits of the questionnaire:

3.2.1 Rationale for questionnaire

Questionnaire might be beneficial for the research results with several advantages of this method. To begin with, questionnaire is much cheaper than the other research methods, might not need too much investments on this research (Ghauri & Gronhaug, 2005). This is suitable for the author’s condition, as a student doing the research project alone; being cheap would be important and necessary. Besides of that, questionnaire could be easily adopted by the author, under the circumstance that the author is lacking relative experiences on managerial researches, because with a good pre-designed questionnaire, the research quality might be easily controlled because the questionnaire would be highly standardized with fixed questions given to the respondents expecting their honest answers, and all the respondents had to do is to fill in the blanks and try to make their choices truly reflecting their internal thoughts (Aaker et al., 1997). #p#分頁標題#e#

Considering the detailed condition of this research, the questionnaire might be suitable in spite of the above two advantages, as questionnaire could be easily adopted to large number of respondents without consuming too much time, therefore in order to find out the reward performance and preference of the employees in Anhui Electronic, the author could make face-to-face questionnaire to multiple hundreds of employees within a week, and a simple selection of the answered questionnaire could make the analysis smoothly taken. 

Based on the above rationale analysis, the aim for the questionnaire would be:

What might be the general attitudes holding by the employees towards their reward system?

What might be the rewards received and perceived by the employees?

What might be the rewards preferred by the employees?

3.2.2 Proposed size and rational choice for the size

Currently there were approximately 70,000 employees in Anhui Electronic and in headquarter of this company there were approximately 600 employees working in all types of positions. The author was given the permission as well as the invitation by the Anhui Electronic for making the questionnaire among the employees from the all six departments of the company in the headquarter, which were the up to 500 employees in: 

Financial department;

Personnel department; 

Safety and security department; 

Technological department;

Supply chain and procurement department; 

Equipment maintenance and repairing department.

The proposed size for the sample would be including 50% of the 500 employees, which means approximately 250 employees would be involved in the questionnaire and among them, 200 questionnaires would be selected based on their departments, positions, as well as answering of the final open questions. 

3.2.3 Design and implementation of questionnaire

The expected time for each questionnaire would be 5 – 10 minutes including the former introduction and explanation of the questionnaire as well as the time for the respondent to take the questionnaire. Based on the above consideration, the questionnaire would be made as simple as possible containing 15-20 questions (and one or two open questions). Before that the pilot test would be undertaken among several of my classmates and friends, through which the author could know the time and possible reaction of the respondents, and with several adjustments the questionnaire could be made more reasonable. The implementation of the questionnaire would be expected to last for five working days, and in each day, employees in one or two departments would be questioned and their results would be collected and input into the computer after the research. 

Besides of that, with the above considered aims for the questionnaire, the questions containing in the questionnaire would be including the following information:#p#分頁標題#e#

Respondents’ personalized information, including their department, age, monthly income, working time in the company, and etc., this type of questions could be made preparing for the further analysis for the empirical results; 

Respondents’ general attitudes towards the rewarding system in the company, including their attitudes towards the fairness, sufficiency, types towards the rewarding system as well as the general satisfaction towards the rewards given;

Respondents’ actual perceived rewards by the Anhui Electronic, in terms of the benefits, compensation, recognition and appreciation;

Respondents’ preferred rewards for the Anhui Electronic, in terms of the benefits, compensation, recognition and appreciation;

Open questions about respondents’ attitudes towards possible changes or adjustments needed to be taken by Anhui Electronics in terms of the reward system. 

3.2.4 Possible deficits of questionnaire

There are several possible deficits of the questionnaire during the research process. Firstly, the questionnaire might be biased due to the small range of sample selection (Aaker, et al., 1997). Based on the above analysis, there were altogether 70,000 employees in Anhui Electronics, and the questionnaire was taken only among 250 of them, all working in headquarter of this company. Also the questionnaire would only cover line manager and baseline employees, as for the senior managers of the company, the questionnaire cannot be reached and this could make the research results biased actually; furthermore, the questionnaire might not be able to identify the rationale for employees “wanting” or “prefer for” those rewards. In order of avoiding those deficits causing unexpected results for the research, the author would firstly have careful selection for the sample, picking up representative employees in different positions and departments, holding different attitudes towards the company rewards. Besides of that, in the following qualitative research the author would try to discover the information about rewards offered to senior managers and senior managers’ preferred rewards as a compensation for the deficit of this questionnaire. 

3.3 Methods of Qualitative Research

Qualitative research, different from the quantitative research, could be deployed for the author to have deeper and wider aspects of knowledge towards the case studied through multiple methods such as interview, ethnographic research, phenomenology, historical research, etc. (Joseph et al., 2003). In this qualitative research, the interview would be selected, which could be defined as the conversation between two people (also called the interviewer and the interviewee) through which the two sides of conversation would be discussing towards certain questions and the valuable and deeper information could be acquired for the further analysis of the research projects (Kinnear and Root, 1988). As for more detailed method, the semi-structured interview would be held in the research of this dissertation, which could be an open-ended, discovery-oriented method that could be suitable for the discussion of programme processes as well as outcomes from the perspective of the target audience or key stakeholders (Aaker et al., 1997). In the following, the rationale for semi-structured interview, proposed size and invitation of interviewee, designing and implementation of interview, as well as possible deficits would be discussed. #p#分頁標題#e#

3.3.1 Rationale for semi-structured interview

Semi-structured interview could allow the researcher to discuss with the interviewees about certain issues deeply with a prepared discussion list, usually the semi-structured could make it possible for the interviewee to have better understanding and deeper knowledge about the topics discussed (Joseph et al., 2003), which is just needed by the researcher who had not sufficient knowledge about the company’s detailed reward system. More importantly, semi-structured interview could allow the researcher to acquire the information needed and not originally expected with talking about the interviewees’ personal experiences and thoughts, through which the research might be more targeted and more problems could be found out with the semi-structured interview (Kinnear and Root, 1988). This is actually needed by this research. http://ukthesis.org/ygsslwdx

Because of the above advantages to be acquired with the semi-structured interview, the author could acquire both detailed information about the company’s rewarding system, and the other aspects of knowledge such as the senior manager’s preference of rewards to be offered, the effectiveness of current reward system to the senior managers and their subordinates, etc. 

Based on the above discussion, the semi-structured interview should be aiming at the following aspects of contents:

What are the detailed rewards system in the company?

What are the rewards offered for senior managers?

What are the preferred rewards by senior managers?

What might be adjusted or changed in the original reward system in the company in order to better motivate the employees and managers?