Lewis, R., Donaldson, E., & Tharani, T. 2011. Management competencies for enhancing employee engagement. (Project Report). London, UK: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (Research Insight).

• INTRODUCTION

This paper is a report of a critique of the research paper “Management competences for enhancing employee engagement”. This research paper was written by Research Insight through the consortium of authors affiliated to Affinity Health at Work. The paper aimed at identifying a definition of employee engagement that would encompass the definitions that had been used in research papers and also in practice. The paper thus purposed to identify the behaviors of line managers and senior managers towards employee engagement. The paper also aimed at developing a management competency framework that could be used to provide a clear guidance regarding employee engagement. The researchers sampled a population among the employees and used interview proforma to collect data. They came up with a form of management competency framework on how to engage employees.

The paper has to a greater extent followed the guidelines for research, and had identified the reasons why some research principles have been employed, instead of the others. It has also presented information in a systematic manner, especially the results. The paper has also touched on many of the sections needed in a research paper, including the implications of the research to policy-makers and future research. However, the paper has no abstract that would have summed up what the paper is about. The researchers have also not reviewed the existing literature to a degree that is satisfactory. They also used only one third researchers in analysis meaning that they did not do enough to reduce bias. I will analyze the research paper in sections.

• SUMMARY OF THE RESEARCH PAPER

The research paper in focus aimed at identifying the behaviors of managers towards employee engagement, identifying the differences on these behaviors between different levels of managers, and developing a management competency framework for guiding the practice of employee engagement. The researchers sampled a population in global firm and interviewed the participants through phone. The researchers used a technique content analysis to analyze the data. Behavior extraction by content analysis was done by the two researchers, and a third researcher was involved to reduce bias and subjectivity. The researchers then presented the results in the form of tables, and they also did frequency analysis. They identified the behaviors as per the participant’s feedback and used them to develop a management competency framework. Lastly, they documented on the policy and research implications, and provided a reference list of the few materials they reviewed.

• THE ARGUMENT

3.1 Background and Introduction

The organization and content presentation on the introduction part of this research paper is good and commendable only that the researchers have ignored some of the parts that would have improved the credibility of their research paper. First, the background of the author is very credible. The Affinity Health at Work is consultancy firm specializing in research concerning improvement of the workplace health. The authors of the report, Taslim Tharani, Emma Donaldson and Rachael Lewis are renowned business authors on business matters. This serves to give this research paper some level of credibility. The authors have tried to define the problem in the introductory part, and it is also commendable that they have identified the gap. This has helped necessitate the need for their study.

From the introductory and the background part, two issues can be identified that question the credibility of the research paper. Firstly, the authors have not presented an abstract that would sum up the information contained in the paper. Before writing a research paper, it would have been good for the authors to provide an abstract, or at least an executive summary. This would have served to give the reader a glimpse of what their report contained. Secondly, even though they have reviewed a few articles, the information contained in these articles does not suffice the argument the authors are making concerning employee engagement. From the few articles that the authors have reviewed in the introduction part, only a few of them are concerned with the behaviors that are common in employee engagement (Mitchell et al 2010. The other studies the authors have reviewed are focusing much on emphasizing the need for engaging employees in the workplace (Schaufeli and Bakker 2010; Saks 2006). The authors specified that their aim centered on developing a framework for employee engagement, yet the insufficient review of literature presented focuses on the effect of employee engagement. Reading a paper by Haid and Sims(2009), one would want to differentiate between management competences, and organizational performance as facilitated by the right management competencies. The Lewis, Donaldson and Tharani’s (2011) paper aimed at developing a framework for competencies and not emphasizing on the impact of applying the right management competencies. One would like to argue that it was important for them to mention why they were developing a management competency framework. While that is agreeable, only a smaller part of the literature review would have been dedicated to this. Instead, the authors would have reviewed a good number of previously documented literatures, which specifically deals with a framework, or behaviors for management competencies. This would have facilitated greatly in the support of their thesis. Then they wouldn’t have avoided a section on literature survey.

3.2 Research Methodology.

The authors sampled 48 employees in a global firm and interviewed them via phone. Their choice of a global firm is very commendable, as this has the features of multiculturalism. The age-distribution of their sample is also commendable. From age 20 to 60, the authors had the opportunity to get the views of both the young and the old. However, there are a few faults with their technique. Firstly, the authors have not explained how they arrived at their sample size. The reader would have liked to know the number of employees in this firm, in order to establish the validity of the sample size. Secondly, the sample includes employees that are only one month old in the firm. These employees might not have experienced the real behaviors of the managers, a factor for questioning the credibility of the results. Thirdly, it is contradicting that the interview proforma is based on the “feelings”, “thinking” and the “acting” components of the respondents. The claims by the authors that the respondents focused on the manager’s actions cannot be substantiated. This is because the interview proforma focused more on the feelings and the thoughts of the respondents. The implications of this are to invalidate the results.

The other issue with the research paper is the method adopted for the study. The telephone interview method did not allow a good interaction with the respondent. Lewis, Donaldson and Tharani (2011) have not provided a response rate for their study. In their study, which also focused on employee engagement, Desai, Majumdar and Prabhu (2010) interviewed respondents by sending a questionnaire to them. This technique gave the respondents enough time to interact with the questionnaire and provide valid data. Also, Desai, Majumdar and Prabhu (2010) compared two organizations, while, Lewis, Donaldson and Tharani (2011) selected respondents from only one organization.

The content analysis that the authors used to analyze their data was a good technique for their intended purpose. This was the best method to develop the framework they wanted to develop. The inter-rater agreement percentages they obtained are also very commendable for the credibility of the study. It is also commendable that the authors have involved a third author in an attempt to reduce bias and subjectivity. However, the authors have not touched on how they dealt with autocorrelation bias (Hogenraad, McKenzie and Martindale 1997).

3.3. Results, Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendations

The results of the research have been presented in tables. Even though the authors have not involved other forms of presentation of results such as graphs, their aim and research results match the tabulation form they have used. The arrangement of the results has served well for the development of the management competency framework as the authors intended. In addition, the authors have done the frequency analysis which has served to show the different patterns of responses in the two groups. It is also notable that the authors have discussed the results and made recommendations for policy implications. While discussing the implications of the management competency framework developed, the authors have focused on the importance of its application, rather than how it should be applied. It would have made more sense if the authors showed how the management competency framework would be applied, or how the competencies outlined in the framework were being applied, in the global firm they surveyed. However, their argument about the effect of employee engagement on organizational performance rhymes with the propositions of Desai, Majumdar and Prabhu (2010), and also Haid and Sims (2009). The inconsistency in the aims and the discussion of results faults the study.

• CONCLUSION

In conclusion, Lewis, Donaldson and Tharani (2011) have succeeded in developing a management competency framework that can be used by employers to improve performance. They employed content analysis effectively and presented the results in a systematic way. However, their failure to review sufficient literature, choice of methodology, and the inconsistency between the aims and the discussion shows that their framework ought to be treated with caution.

REFERENCES

Desai, M., Majumdar, B., & Prabhu, P. G. 2010. “A study on employee engagement in two Indian businesses”. Asian Journal of Management Research, 2010, pp: 81-97.

Hogenraad, R., McKenzie, P. R., & Martindale, C. 1997. “The enemy within: Autocorrelation bias in content analysis of narratives”. Computers and the Humanities, Vol 30, no. 6, pp: 433-439.

Haid, M., & Sims, J. 2009. Employee engagement: Maximizing organizational performance. Philadelphia, PA: Right Management Inc.

Mitchell, N., Anderson, N., Sutton, R., Hill, J., and Mackerell, R. 2010. Employee engagement: The rules of engagement. Coventry: The Training Foundation.

Saks, M. A. 2006. “Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement”. Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol 21, no 7, pp: 600-619.

Schaufeli, B. W., & Bakker, B.A. 2010. “The conceptualization and management of work engagement”. In M.P Leitter and A.B. Bakker (eds). Work engagement: A handbook of theory and research (pp 10-24). New York, NY: Psychology Press.

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