Exploring Business Psychology and Organizational

INTRODUCTION

The corresponding research study would be enumerating the business problem of evaluating and building better understanding of the business psychology and the related organisational behaviour, especially in the context of business dissertation help. This would be identifying and reflecting the impact of the dominant perspective of the occupational psychological inclinations amongst the existing human resources within a selected company and would be simultaneously formulating a qualitative research plan for the purpose to better comprehend the existing dimensions of the problem. In this context, the research study has selected the leading Australian supermarket and grocery store retailer, Woolworths Supermarkets Limited. This company trades under the name of Woolworths and was founded during 1924. Currently, Woolworths, in tandem with the market rival of Coles, has an almost duopoly throughout the Australian grocery retail market and the supermarket chain with the current market share possession amounting to 80% of the entire market at Australia. According to Knox (2015), Woolworths primarily specialises in the sales of groceries in the form of vegetables, meat, packaged foods and other edibles. However, the company also sells DVDs, magazines, household appliances, stationary items, health and beauty products and even supplies for pets and babies. Currently, Woolworths owns 1000 stores throughout Australia which are comprised by 976 supermarkets and 19 convenience stores. The company also operates an online shopping and delivery service named as the ‘Homeshop’ portal. Most importantly, according to Price (2016), Woolworths is one of the largest retail functionary employers in Australia with 115000 working personnel currently working under the organisation.

Identification and rationale of selection of the Business Problem

Regarding the existing organisational functioning imperatives of Woolworths, the current business problem could be determined to be the dearth of recognition and assessment of the dominant behavioural perspectives within the majority of the workforce of the company. This is significant for Woolworths to formulate effective theoretical hypothesis so that better alignment could be achieved between the personal behavioural perspectives of employees of the company and the values and work culture which Woolworths propagates. Further, the effective research performance in identification of the occupational psychology of employees of Woolworths could enable the organisational management from dual perspectives. According to Hodgkinson (2016), the initial perspective is the realisation of the necessary changes in the processes of operations and recruitment which could assist the selected organisation to better manage the organisational behavioural practices so that proper working culture could be maintained. The second perspective is the assistance which the corresponding research could provide to the managerial hierarchy of Woolworths to formulate better decisions regarding human resource management (HRM) processes. Such HRM could involve both recruitment and conditioning of the employees involving three definite psychological considerations. According to Runfola et al (2017), these are the behaviourist classical conditioning, cognitive and humanistic perspectives. More specifically, this research opportunity could provide an in-depth understanding of the individual differences which could exist within the workplace controlled by the Woolworths. This could further assist the retailer under consideration to design and develop HRM policies for better conditioning and alignment of the organisational workforce with the policies and performance objectives of the company.

Literature Review

According to Gorgievski and Stephan (2016), the major factors which could have lasting impact on the working individuals at any specific business organisation are mostly dual fold from the categorical perspectives. The initial one is the procedural perspective which denotes the training and development opportunities provided to the working personnel by employer business organisations such as the Woolworths. The second one is the perceptual or cognitive perspective which entails the sense of growth, satisfaction and associated commitment which could be fostered within the human resources of any such corporate entity. As per the research of Kang (2016), these two perspectives constitute the overarching scenario of behavioural management process of business psychology within the operational framework of any business organisation. Maheshwari et al (2017) have suggested that there are four stages which lead to the culmination of conditioning management of organisational human resources by any employing company such as the Australian retail giant selected for the purpose of this research study. The initial stage, according to Chmiel, Fraccaroli and Sverke (2017), involves confrontation and acceptance, on part of the organisational human resources, of the organisational reality which they could be about to experience. This is corroborated by the research literature of Easterby-Smith, Thorpe and Jackson (2015), which suggests that this cognitive transformational process could be further influenced, from a positive perspective, by exposing the existing and prospective employees of any business organisation to the most realistic preview of the responsibility profiles associated with the business operations of the concerned organisations. In case of Woolworths, such responsibilities are directly indicative of the tasks of retail store management, marketing, sales operations and delivery of goods and services to the customers, with particular emphasis on sustaining customer satisfaction principles as has been outlined by the organisational managerial hierarchy.

Furthermore, Seddon et al (2017) has stated that the second one of such stages stems from the effect of the first one and it denotes the inculcation of clarity of task roles within the organisational working culture by the involved employees, including the long standing ones and the newly recruited or trainee ones. Cascio and Aguinis (2018) have outlined the significance of this psychological transformation process through the research perception that this process is assistive in enabling the concerned organisations to communicate the organisational expectations and requirements in terms of job performance to the human resources. The observations of Katou (2015) have suggested that this phase is particularly significant to modify the occupational psychology of employees towards aligning their personal work values with the particulars of the organisational working culture and objectives. This leads towards the third stage of suitability development within the organisational context by individual employees from their distinctive psychological perspectives. De Mascia (2016) has stated that this third stage is reflective of the differentials of impact of acquired knowledge regarding the general functioning imperatives within employer organisations such as the Woolworths. Proper culmination of this stage of occupational psychology management by employer companies could lead to the development of the necessary strategic human resource base within the organisational HRM structure. Finally, the fourth stage involves the demonstration of successful development of socialisation and complete transformation, from the occupational psychological perspectives of the employees. Lagrosen and Travis (2015) have averred that this stage also makes the employees aware about their occupational responsibilities from multiple perspectives and this leads to the fostering of the ability within the general psyche of the organisational employees to perceive the formal and informal particularities related to their assigned job details. This further makes the employees conscious about the entirety of performance criteria related with their responsibilities.

According to Riggio (2017), this entire sequence of occupational psyche transformation process is vital for any business organisation, such as Woolworths, which has to manage a comparatively large number employees. It is the measure of success which could be achieved in performing this entire sequence in favour of the organisational objectives and performance criteria, which determines the effective management of human resource elements within the business structure of large companies such as Woolworths, with particular emphasis on the improvement of the ability of employees to adapt to transformations in the working culture. Maree (2017) has stated that it is this sequential process of employee psychology management which Woolworths need to be successful in so as to develop the competitive approach of functioning within the existing working personnel and further, to constitute successful and performance driven team structures through which greater qualitative functionality could be achieved in terms of market based performance outcomes. For this purpose, the corresponding research plan development would be seeking to explore the current behavioural psychological traits of the employees of Woolworths so as to provide the company management hierarchy with a more comprehensive and informative understanding regarding the occupational psychology based behavioural variables and perspectives which dominate the performance and change adaptability of the employees of this company. The previous literature review has been formulated to provide the theoretical perspectives of business psychological conditionalities which could now be focused upon as points of references for the research questions development.

Specific research question defining
Research Questions

What are the motivational measures which have been effective within the working architecture of Woolworths? What are the critical perceptions regarding knowledge investiture opportunities within the functionality structure of Woolworths? What are the general attitudes towards of the Woolworths employees towards the leadership styles practiced at the organisation involving those of transformation and transactional leadership elements? What are the psychological stressors which influence the performance measures of the employees of the Woolworths? What are the psychological and behavioural stress manifestations amongst the general portion of the Woolworths employees regarding their job responsibilities? In terms of the general research problem of dearth of proper research and understanding of the business occupational psychological inclinations of the Woolworths employees, the formulated research questions are particularly significant in addressing specific segments of development processes of such understanding concerning the research topic. For instance, the initial question focuses on the prospects of current opportunities within the organisation under consideration to develop effective team building and collaborative working conditions. This also is the tool to measure the favourable or unfavourable attitude which could exist within the employees towards the changing functional procedures of Woolworths in the hyper competitive market scenario of retail sector at Australia. Next, the second question has outlined the research inquest concerning the consciousness and attitudinal measures of the Woolworths employees towards their task identity and significance of the job profiles. According to Collings, Scullion and Vaiman (2015), from an academic perspective, this is directly relatable to the previously delineated core research problem through the sequential and random functionalities which could be observable within the selected Australian retailer. The question has been formulated to define the extent to which the organisational vision and mission as well as the associated functionalities of Woolworth have impacted the general psyche of the majority of the employees. Furthermore, this question also investigates the internal perceptual orientation of the employees towards the perceptions of organisational value and efficiency in the form of lateral learning and performance progression opportunities which could be available to the employees. This would be also indicative of the prospects of professional development available at Woolworths which could foster positive psychological attitudes towards the employer organisation.

Please refer to Appendix II Qualitative research method identification

The qualitative research method would be conducted through the selection of particular research participants from the research populace and by gathering of qualitative research data from such participants through the process of in-depth interviews. The research populace would be comprised off the working personnel currently employed at the Sydney and Hobart stores of the company as well as the headquarters personnel currently working at the Bella Vista, New South Wales, Australia. The reason for selection of the research population personnel from such location has been the convenience of accessing these facilities including the availability of transportation facilities and the proximity of such locations to major communication facilities. According to O'Boyle, Patel and Gonzalez‐Mulé (2016), the qualitative interview process could be envisaged as a particular conversation which is undertaken with a purpose. This purpose is served through the obtaining of knowledge about specific subjects by the interviewer from the interview respondent. Thus, the justification of selection of the interview process for the qualitative research could be comprehended as the effort by the researcher to observe the conditions relating to business occupational psychological conditions of the Woolworths employees from the perspectives of the interviewees. Furthermore, the researcher could thus formulate the best possible understanding regarding the manner and the reason of the interviewees arriving to such perspectives regarding the research topic. Furthermore, Nienaber et al (2015) have stated that interviews could provide any research process with three distinct advantages. The initial one is the discovery of new situational perceptions from the interviewees which had previously not been conceived. The second one is the richness and optimised nature of gathered qualitative information from the interview process since the individual assessments and perspectives are particularly representative of differential variables in situations and conditions which encompass any critical research topic such as the one under consideration. Finally, the direct contact between the interviewer and the interviewee could formulate a specific rapport between them and this could result in the divulgence of the most accurately honest responses from the interviewees.

Qualitative research plan

The researcher would be selecting a specific sample of research participants through the utilisation of dual methods of probability based stratified random sampling and purposive sampling. The judgemental or purposive sampling would be utilised to select 10 mid-level managerial personnel of Woolworths working at the New South Wales headquarters of the company. The utilisation of such subjective sampling method would be justified under the rationale of selection of particular managerial personnel based on the characteristics of them being directly forming the link between the ground level operational staff of the retailer and the higher echelons of the company. Further, the stratified random sampling process would be utilised to select 20 more store level staff of the company at the Sydney and Hobart stores of Woolworths. This form of sampling would be effective to categorise the entire number of existing employees at these two locations into small groups first through considerations of compatibility in terms age and job profiles and responsibility designation. Then, random method could be applied to select the final sample of 20 research participants from the research population. This could, theoretically, provide the entire research population the most extensive opportunity to participate in the data collection and research process. Moreover, the combined research participant number would be no more than 30. Due to the fact that in-depth qualitative interview process is a time and labour consuming undertaking, no more than 3 interviews would be ever conducted on a daily basis by the researcher. The interview venues would be the three previously mentioned locations regarding the respective research participants. The interview questionnaire would be constituted with open ended semi-structured questions which would be developed from the thematic connotations of the previously mentioned research questions with special emphasis on the suitability of such questions pertaining to the work conditions of the individual interviewees. The emphasis would be to reflect the research hypothesis and both of the independent and dependent research variables through the individual questions. The gathered research data would be analysed through first recording the verbatim transcripts of the interviews and then subjecting such transcripts to thematic analysis under which similar themes and opinions could be detected. Apart from these, the researcher would be also performing discourse and narrative analysis on each of the gathered transcripts of the interviews. Finally, the evaluative outcomes could be linked with the research problem under consideration in this study through comparative analysis.

The ethical implications of the research would entail the three fold research principles. The first one would be the acquisition of informed consent from the research participants by the researcher prior to the interview session commencement. Through this the researcher would be ensuring that no measure of coercion or force could be included in the process of the interviews and the process could be completely voluntary in nature and the research participants could cease their participation at any point of time. The second would be the provisioning of the letter of beneficence through which the interviewer would be ensuring the balancing of the risks and benefits related to each question since these could infringe upon the sensitivities of the interviewees and the researcher would be preventing and minimising intentional and non-intentional offence regarding such research inquests. The final would be the consent provisioning, on part of the researcher, to uphold the confidentiality of the gathered information and the anonymity of the research participants. This would be ensured through the signing of the Certificate of Confidentiality issued by the Australian government.

Please refer to Appendix I

Reference List

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