Quantitative Research - A report on employees of best western hotel chain

Preview document (6 van de 49 pagina's)

Contents
1. RESEARCH OBJECTIVE AND RESEARCH QUESTION............................................................................. 4
1.1. Research set - up ..................................................................................................................... 4
1.2. Client’s description ................................................................................................................. 5
1.3. Objective of the research ......................................................................................................... 5
1.4. Central questions of the research ............................................................................................ 6
1.5. Sub – questions of the researchs ............................................................................................. 6
2. LITERATURE RESEARCH ................................................................................................................... 8
2.1. Search questions .................................................................................................................... 8
2.2. Search methods....................................................................................................................... 8
2.3. Literature review ..................................................................................................................... 9
Bibliography ....................................................................................................................................... 9
2.4. Core concepts and reformulated sub - questions.................................................................... 13
3. CONCEPTUAL MODEL .................................................................................................................... 15
3.1. Bi - variate conceptual models ............................................................................................... 15
3.2. Research hypothesis .............................................................................................................. 16
3.3 – 3.4. Reformulated objective and research questions ............................................................. 16
4. PLAN FOR DATA COLLECTION ....................................................................................................... 17
4.1. Research strategies ............................................................................................................... 17
4.2. Methods of data collection .................................................................................................... 17
4.3. Questionnaires ...................................................................................................................... 18
4.4. Sampling plan ....................................................................................................................... 19
Assignment 4.5 ............................................................................................................................ 19
5. PLAN FOR DATA ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................ 20
5.1. Univariate analysis methods .................................................................................................. 20
5.2. Bivariate analysis methods ..................................................................................................... 20
5.3. Methods used for testing hypothesis ..................................................................................... 21
6. EXECUTION AND ANALYSIS ........................................................................................................... 23
6.1. Problems encountered during data collection phase ............................................................... 23
6.3. Univariate analysis................................................................................................................. 23
6.4. Bivariate analysis – measures of association ........................................................................... 32
The previous version of this report does not include the scatter plot .............................................. 32
.................................................................................................................................................... 32
6.5. Bivariate analysis – Inferential statistics.................................................................................. 35
7. CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATIONS AND DISCUSSION ................................................................... 40
7.1. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 40
7.2. Recommendations ................................................................................................................. 41
7.3. Extensive reflection ............................................................................................................... 42
Works Cited...................................................................................................................................... 45
APPENDIX I. QUESTIONNAIRE............................................................................................................. 47
APPENDIX II. RESEARCH SET UP COMFIRMATION FORM ...................................................................... 48

1. RESEARCH OBJECTIVE AND RESEARCH QUESTION
1.1. Research set - up To further elaborate the goal of this research, discussions between research team’s representative and
the clients occurred regarding relevant topics. The information about the purpose of this research can
be found below.
•
Assignment delimitation
The clients do not have a particular management issue that they are experiencing with, but
rather want to get more insight into their employee’s satisfaction. By acquiring this information,
the hotels chain can get a better understanding which factors they can maintain or what
problematic area that needs improvement regarding the satisfaction of their employee. This led
to the fol owing management questions:
a. How satisfied are the employees of Best Western hotel chain?
b. What measure can management of Best Western hotel chain take to improve the
working environment?
c. What measure can management of Best Western hotel chain take to improve the
working condition?
After extensive deliberation the research team has chosen to investigate management questions
“a” and “b”.
After assessing the information provided by the customers, it is concluded that the group of
people whom the clients would like to investigate are the employees of Best Western hotels
chain and the subject which the clients wants to know about is the degree of satisfaction of their
employees.
•
Prerequisites
After discussing with the customers, it is agreed that to investigate this matter at every Best
Western hotel is impossible considering the size of this research. Therefore, the clients chose
four hotels in the chain in Netherlands region for the research team to conduct the investigation:
Best Western plus Rotterdam Airport, Best Western hotel Eindhoven, Best Western hotel in Baars
and hotel Haarhuis.
Contact information from the chosen hotel wil be given to us and the information about
employees can be gathered by contacting each hotel. Furthermore, the clients made notation that their company wil not be held responsible for any
cost of this research. Additional y, it is acknowledged that the final report wil be sent to the client via email and that
they wil be kept updated with the process of the research, has the right to access information
within this research, such as results of the questionnaire.

1.2. Client’s description
The Best Western Hotel and resorts chain has been a concept for more than 70 years. They have 4200
hotels in more than 100 countries al over the world. With seven various unique brands, there are
multiple target groups to reach out to. A sample was chosen for this research and four different hotels were sent a survey for the employees of
those hotels to do. •
Best Western plus Rotterdam Airport hotel is a four stars hotel located near Rotterdam The
Hague Airport. This hotel is perfectly located close to the airport and has a broad target group
for both leisure and business guests. With the free shuttle bus to and from the airport is it quite
popular.
•
Best Western hotel Eindhoven is located at the side of the centre of the city, close to the airport
as well. This hotel has got 60 rooms and has a big restaurant for people in the hotel and people
that do not stay in the hotel. •
Best western hotel in Baars also has 60 rooms. With four types of rooms in a small city in the
Netherlands, this attracts a lot of leisure guests. This hotel is located close to a big highway,
which makes it also popular for business guests.
•
Hotel Haarhuis is a four stars hotel situated in the city center and opposite of the train station
of the city Arnhem in The Netherlands. Hotel Haarhuis started in 1918 as a smal coffeehouse
with a couple of rooms only. This year in May, the hotel wil be opened for 100 years. Nowadays,
the hotel has 118 rooms, with several room types. The hotel also consists of a spacious lounge,
restaurant, bar and 9 meeting rooms. The hotel has a face-to-face approach when it comes to
the standard and quality of services given. This means that Hotel Haarhuis aims for personal
attention.

1.3. Objective of the research

After discussion with the clients and taking management questions into account. The team has drawn
up the objective of this research: The objective of this research is to gain insight into the satisfaction of employees at Best Western hotel
chain about the hotels they are working at in order to formulate recommendations on how to improve
the working environment. The objective consists of two parts:
•
The objective of the research (the need for information): gain insight into the satisfaction of
employees at Best Western hotel chain about the hotels they are working at
•
The objective within the research (the relevance of the management question): how to improve
the working environment

1.4. Central questions of the research
This research aims to answer the question “What is employees’ satisfaction level of the Best Western
Hotel chain on the working conditions at the hotels?”, which asks for information of satisfaction level of
Best Western hotels chain ‘s employees and eventual y, the factors that influence employees’ satisfaction.
In order to obtain this information, several central questions are formulated as below: •
Descriptive question:
“How satisfied are the employees of Best Western hotel chain regarding the working
environment?”
•
Testing question:
“To what degree does the location influence the employees’ satisfaction about the working
environment of the Best Western Hotel chain?”
“To what degree does the age influence the employees’ satisfaction about the working
environment of the Best Western Hotel chain?”
“To what degree does the gender influence the employees’ satisfaction about the working
environment of the Best Western Hotel chain?”
“To what degree does the job position influence the employees’ satisfaction about the working
environment of the Best Western Hotel chain?”

1.5. Sub – questions of the researchs
The core concept of the central questions is the satisfaction of employees or job satisfaction. The
definition of employees’ satisfaction is a person’s satisfaction level about his or her job. After thorough
discussion, the core concept is operationalized into the fol owing aspects:
•
The employees’ benefits
•
The facilities
•
The meals at the canteen
•
The freedom of the employees to speak up their opinion
•
The satisfaction level of the guests
•
The number of compliments and complaints received

The sub-questions are:
•
To what extent are the employees of Best Western hotels chain satisfied about the employees’
benefits?
•
To what extent are the employees of Best Western hotels chain satisfied about the facilities?
•
To what extent are the employees of Best Western hotels chain satisfied about the meals at the
canteen?
•
To what extent are the employees of Best Western hotels chain satisfied about the freedom of
the employees to speak up their opinion?
•
To what extent are the employees of Best Western hotels chain satisfied about the satisfaction
level of the guests?
•
To what extent are the employees of Best Western hotels chain satisfied about the number of
compliments and complaints received?