Spanning Borders, Spanning Cultures, Research Paper Example

Quantitative Problem Statement

Nepotism is a growing trend in the business and could have lasting impacts on the organizations that are taking part in the placement of family members in key leadership positions of the organization. With people aiming to centralize or control the management of the assets of organizations, there are instances when family-related individuals take on the higher positions which have lasting and distinct impacts to the organization. The close familial bond among high ranking officials is becoming visible through the availability of information through the internet.

The rising nepotism within the corporate organizations is increasing and ultimately filling the leadership roles based on family lineage as opposed to the appropriate level of skill, expertise and experience thus creating a vacuum of leadership at the decision making positions within the organization.  The question however relies on the idea of making a distinct connection between company success and the existence of nepotism among business leaders.  Legitimacy theory is defined by the assumption that a business binds itself into a social contract in which in return for its existence the corporation will act and conduct actions that are corollary to social objectives.  Legitimacy is viewed like other resources that can be used or built up over time.  Certain actions or non-actions can help build the company’s legitimacy among those that the company is bound to in the social contract.  There are other actions such as not obeying rules or regulations or even utilizing other corporations that do not meet the requirements of the parent country’s social contract that would diminish this legitimacy ranking (Tilling 2004).

The study herein involves the research on how operations and actions of implementing nepotism into the hiring, promotion and leadership positions impact the organization in social, financial and operational results.  The connection will be qualitatively and quantitatively measured based on performance based metrics as well as internal infrastructure, culture and human resource metrics.  Nepotism will be measured by how many relatives work in the organization as well as how many hold leadership responsibilities within the company.   These results will be correlated with the derived metrics and related to the interviews and responses of the employees of the organization based on the data collected through anonymity.

Quantitative Purpose Statement

Comparing their performance with that of the performance of local networks of businesses in other nations, this research will illustrate how nepotism is creating a distinct void in appropriate talent within the modern business operations in both how they are being managed as well as how the distinct favoritism is handled and mitigated by the other employees of the organization.  A major point of contention within the concept of nepotism in business is the negative ramifications and stigma of hiring family members as opposed to those that feel they are the appropriate or best fit for the position.  This type of behavior by leadership could have social and economic issues that ripple throughout the organization.  This research project would shed light on the issues and results fo nepotism and allow for changes to better the company and create a better working environment for all the employees.  Resolving them through seeing how they fully affect the organization’s operation is then considered necessary. It is then the purpose of this research to make sure that the data presented in past studies and the current situations in the market are all realigned to give ample interpretation of how nepotism impacts business growth.

Quantitative Null Question

Nepotism, being a common weakness among organizational establishments has become a source of social and work commotion on several organizations (Freitang & Stokes, 2008). Considerably, this concept of putting family members in charge of particular positions in the company has a great impact on how an organization functions. The question is how much such impact affects the overall value of the business and the ways by which the development of the organization is handled according to the primary goals set for the business to follow. The hypotheses to be set to regulate the presentation of the response for this question are as follows:

Null hypothesis (H₀)

Nepotism does not impact the social, financial or operational aspects of business.

Alternative Hypothesis (H₁)

Nepotism impacts the social, financial and/or operational aspects of the business.

Hypotheses

Nepotism does have its good and bad impacts on business organizations; learning how to manage the operation alongside the existence of nepotism could do businesses some good.

Background of the Research

There are multiple facets of a research project and each section has its own pitfalls and potential challenges.  While researching a project it is best to limit the amount of potential input outside catalysts have on the research project unless they naturally are needed to produce the results.  Preconceived notions and opinions should be limited and avoided in order to obtain the fouled or tainted results desired from a research project.  Preconceived information may impact the results of the experiment.  Our own experience may subconsciously lead our results toward an end state that may or may not reflect the actual results.  If the experimentation or research was done previously it may or may not have the same results depending on the assumptions and other environmental factors.  Just because a research project was completely in the past it does not mean that the same inputs were used to create the same response.  The personal experience of those performing the research project may impact the results by allowing the actions taken previously to impact the potential results.  Also, while completing a research project, the notion about what the research presumes will happen could sway the results.  It is best to go into a research project and let the results speak for themselves.  The research should provide clean, clear and focused data points that have as little as possible influence from uncontrolled or extraneous variables.  Ultimately the research project needs to have the methodology and focus to provide the deliverables outlined by the researchers or stakeholders of the research project.  The purpose of a research project is to prove, disprove or gain further insight into a problem statement.

Significance of the Study

The purpose of this study, then, is to explore how nepotism impacts organizations.  This information would provide the data to formulate information to make informed decisions on what areas the organization needs to focus on to make the appropriate hiring and promotion decisions to better the organization as a whole.

Objectives

1. To understand what areas are impacted by nepotism within the organization.
2. To determine the relationship between success or failure in the organization and how it is linked to nepotism.
3. To determine the variability between the hiring and promotions within the organization and how it impacts the success of the business..

Theoretical/Conceptual Framework

The method of research for this project takes into account the framework of successful research methodology and utilizes a primary research methodology implementing a survey tool, an interview process and an observation of the employees that are related within the organization as well as those employees that are not related to gather the full picture of the company dynamics. The research data gathering technique used is the survey tool. The survey tool is used to gather data so that the information can be compiled and analyzed by the researchers. This information will provide a framework to shed light on the objectives of the research project. The reason for choosing the survey lies in the fact that the objectives of the research project require information gathering from large samples of the organizational population which includes not only directly corollary information about the business hiring processes but also the organizational impact on both family members and non-family members including key information on demographics, organizational composition, level of progression within the company and other key attributes of the project.  The information gathered will help create the picture needed to determine the right core competencies and skills necessary to hold a leadership position as well as the skills necessary to be promoted within the organization.  The survey will be inclusive of the types of variables that are introduced into the research project and will allow a quantitative value to be assigned to the variable.

The specifics of the research gathering techniques included providing a survey with nine questions denoting specific demographic attributes and then focusing on the core requirements of the research project that allows insight into the competencies and requirements of specific skills sets that will allow success in the company. The survey tool used is a web based program that allows users to login and generate their survey on the user’s time table. This is important because the person taking the survey must have enough time to take the survey and should be able to have access to take the survey at their convenience.  Having web-based option available allows the user to select their optimal location and time to complete the required information.

The basic preface of corporate sustainability is the actions taken by a corporation to ensure that their current activities do not compromise the future generation’s potential for sustainability.  The challenges for ensuring corporate sustainability revolve around balancing the ability to meet the stakeholder’s commitments as well as understanding the priorities of each of the stakeholders.  The sustainability provided by the corporations is also in a fluid and dynamic environment due to the ever changing variables in the global market. Sustainable efforts by corporations require a concerted effort by the business in new and innovative ways of thinking regarding the current use of resources as well as future demands on resources and sustainable requirements. The way that corporations present how they are providing sustainable corporate responsibility is through reporting on their economic, environmental and social contributions. Maintaining a level of control over the nepotism within an organization will allow the company to hire the appropriate person for the job.  The right people in key decision making areas will allow for the best opportunity for success in the future.

References

Adetula, E.,(2011). The naked truth. xlibris Corporation. p. 71.

Elliot, J. & Ali, S. (2007). The presidential congressional political dictionary. Wildside Press LLC. p. 88.

Freitag, A, & Stokes, A. (2008). Global public relations: spanning borders, spanning cultures. Routledge. p. 208.

Salinger, L. (2005). Encyclopedia of white-collar & corporate crime, V2 pp. 374–375.

Tilling, M., (2004). Refinements to legitimacy theory in social and environmental accounting, pp. 245-256.