Management of a Diversely Skilled Team
Chapter 5: Methodology
5.1. Introduction
Nowadays, businesses have started to recognize any kind of diversity at workplaces helps to maximize productivity, loyalty and creativity. Diversely skilled teams allow functional specialization and collaborative interaction. As diversely skilled teams are considered to be beneficial for businesses, their effective management is a key issue of organizations. The main purpose of the paper is to study the differences, mainly in skills, which affects management and interaction between team members as well as social intelligence techniques and leadership characteristics to manage a diversely skilled workforce successfully.
5.2. Research Design
This study explores the management of a diversely skilled team. The study is based on one research question. The chapter presents the detail description how the study was designed and conducted including explanations regarding the research approaches which were used to collect the data for analysis. The choice of the research approach will depend upon the research objective, the research question, the amount of time and existing knowledge (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2007).
There are several types of research including descriptive, analytical, predictive and explanatory ones (Collis & Hussey, 2009). This research is carried out to understand the peculiarities of managing a diversely skilled team and help to better understand the social aspect in managing the team with wide diverse skills (Kumar, 2005). However, the main aim of this research is to establish the possible intelligence ways that managers may use to manage a diversely skilled team.
5.3. Setting and Background
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The first minister of education in Saudi Arabia was Fahd Bin Abd AlAziz (the late Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques) (Ministry of Education Official Website, 2011). The Ministry of Education has a responsibility for the provision of general education in primary, intermediate and secondary schools, and the educational service for the handicapped. In addition, the Ministry is responsible for seven of the eight universities in the country, adult education, museums and antiquities.
Education has been seen to be of primary importance since the time the Kingdom was formed. One of the first King Abdul Azizs acts was to convene an educational gathering in the Holy City of Makkah aiming to initiate the establishment and promotion of educational resources throughout the land. The plans improved the education system considerably. The current Ministry of Education continues this tradition (Sedgwick, 2001)
5.4. Population and Sample
The Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia has 2000 leaders/managers who manage 25 departments. The Ministry includes thousands of employees who are diversely skilled. The participants of the questionnaires were managers who are engaged in managing diversely skilled teams.
5.5. Hypothesis/Research question(s)
The research question is What are social intelligence techniques to manage a diversely skilled workforce successfully?
5.6. Instrument
To get research data we conducted an online questionnaire. All the questionnaire participants provided answers. In order to create a flow of questions, a set of questions was developed, which recorded opinions of questionnaire participants. The use of structured questions was assumed to correlate strongly to the number of responses. The questionnaire helps to get information about a defined problem (Chisnall, 2001). According to Hague and Jackson (1999), the purpose of a questionnaire is as follows: to get accurate data from respondents, to provide structure to interviews and a standard form, on which comments, facts and attitudes can be based. The questionnaire conducted suggests possible ways and methods which can be effectively employed by managers to achieve a high standard level of management.
5.7. Data Collection
Theoretical data were collected from articles which were published in international journals and Internet resources, e-books and textbooks. A questionnaire was used to collect research data as it is considered to be an essential stage of the research methods. Its preparation and administration requires considerable professional expertise. In addition, a questionnaire facilitates the data processing.
5.8. Data Analysis
Carrying out this research, both primary and secondary data have been used. The primary data are the results from the case study and the interviews\surveys conducted whereas the secondary data includes literature reviews and knowledge gained from different scientific reports.
The questionnaires helped to obtain the opinion of the managers. All questions in the questionnaires have been designed to be easily understood. Secondary data analysis was used to analyze the studies which have been made by others (Dawson, 2002). It includes any data that are relevant to the research question. Implementation of secondary data analysis provides the researcher with an opportunity to analyze data collected by another researcher, which help him to address posing questions. Some things should be done before using secondary data for analysis (Denscombe, 2002). The researcher must thoroughly review the data that he/she uses. Among the strengths of the secondary data analysis is the ability to use search engines and web-based materials; it uses already existing information and captures comprehensive information. The data gathered will help to study the information necessary for leaders to come up with possible strategies that are capable of bringing a lasting solution in the matter.
5.9. Summary
In this chapter, the research methodology used in this paper has been explained and justified. A questionnaire was designed to gather data for analysis. A structured questionnaire was chosen the most suitable research method, which is usually implemented when it is necessary to question a large number of respondents (Blaxter, Hughes, & Tight, 1998). Secondary data analysis was also used to get a better understanding of the research subject.
