BUS703 Research Proposal: Amazon's Performance Appraisal System

This research proposal examines the role of performance appraisals in motivating employees, focusing on Amazon's performance management system and its impact on productivity. The proposal outlines the problem statement, research objectives, scope, and relevant literature, including equity, expectancy, and goal-setting theories. It addresses the research question of whether effective appraisals motivate employees to improve their performance. The methodology employs a quantitative approach, utilizing questionnaires to gather primary data from Amazon employees. The proposal also includes a discussion of potential research limitations and a time schedule for the project. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments for students.

Managing Research

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Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Problem statement.......................................................................................................................................3
Research objective.......................................................................................................................................3
Research scope............................................................................................................................................4
Literature review.........................................................................................................................................4
Justification.............................................................................................................................................8
Hypothesis...............................................................................................................................................8
Research questions......................................................................................................................................9
Research methodology and design..............................................................................................................9
Quantitative Research Design................................................................................................................10
Data collection method..............................................................................................................................10
Research limitations..................................................................................................................................11
Time schedule...........................................................................................................................................12
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................13
References.................................................................................................................................................14
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Introduction
Before going to prepare a research proposal on the basis of the business problems, it is important
to have the brief introduction about the performance appraisal system. Basically, the
performance appraisal is the process of assessing the employees on the basis of how they are
performing on job front. Performance appraisals aims at determining who should be promoted,
who should be demoted, who should need training at workplace through assessing the strengths
of the employees and their contribution in the organization.
The need for performance appraisal systems arises at the organization in order to gain the higher
productivity. Performance appraisal leads to the employee motivation as well as the job
satisfaction of the employees. If the performance appraisals are conducted properly at the
workplace, then appraisals at the workplace will help in:
 Improving the performance of the employees at workplace
 Setting goals and objectives for the employees
 Helping managers to assess the effectiveness of the employees and take corrective
measures related to the hiring, promotion, demotion and development of the employees.
The research is carried out on the basis of the business problem faced by the company and then
analyzed the decision taken by the company. The company that we have chosen for this research
is Amazon and the whole research revolves around the performance appraisal and how it
enhances the productivity of the employees(Aggarwal, 2013).
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Problem statement
Amazon is the American ecommerce company that offering various products and services of
different brands to the customers through the online mode and also it is a cloud computing
company based in the Seattle. In this company, more than 566,000 employees are working and
company achieved the US$177 billion in the year 2017. According the news of the New York
Times, it is found that company was facing problem with its structure and less focused towards
the employees. Because of this reason the company faced a problem of the low performance of
the employees and this leads to affect the productivity. However, Company decided to review its
performance management and make it more employee focused(Fankhauser, 2016).
Research objective
The research is carried with an objective to find out the role of the performance appraisal in
motivating the employees to improve their performance and productivity levels. The objective of
this research is to find out how the performance appraisals are effective in encouraging the
employees to improve their performance. Also, the purpose of research objective is to determine
the role of the performance appraisals in achieving the organizational and personal goals. The
study is also focusing more on the employee motivation(Jansirani, et al., 2013).
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Research scope
Performance appraisals and management of the performance of the employees in the
organization is the major function of the human resource department and this function helps the
companies like Amazon to solve their problems by focusing more on the improvement of the
skills and competencies of employees. The scope of this research is based on the employee
performance appraisals that utilizes the personal qualities of the employees and helps in
improving the work performance by making use of their full potential in carrying out the
organizational goals. The need of utilizing the personal qualities of employees arises because to
improve the performance of the employees to achieve its overall objective of the company.
Literature review
The performance evaluation is defined as the planned interaction between the HR managers and
employees with regard to examine the performance, strengths and weaknesses with a view to
improving future performance.
Looking at the theoretical framework, there are many theories given by the authors in the favor
of the performance evaluation such as the equity theory, expectancy theory and path goal theory.
According to the viewpoint of Adams, the equity approach is the appropriate way to effective
supervision as it simply means the fairness. It is analyzed through this theory that, people feel
themselves motivated if they are treated fairly in the organization in relation to promotion,
compensation and transparency in their evaluations(Mwema & Gachunga, 2014).
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Many studies done with regard to the performance appraisal in the organizations and it is found
that the performance appraisal is the process of evaluating an individual performance in order
take decision. Expectancy theory indicates that people on employees in the organization will be
motivated when you believe that their efforts results into the higher performance, will lead to
awards and rewards, which are valuable to the employees, in order to improve their
performance.
The different type of rewards that we can offer to the employees are such as bonus, increment,
promotion salary increment which later on satisfy the personal goals of the employees in the
monetary terms. The next theory goal setting theory which is given by the Lock and Latham
indicates that people feel motivated and encouraged automatically when they are giving some
specific goals to achieve(khan, 2013).
Therefore, the number of studies conducted by the authors for measuring the employee
performance but still there are some of studies which are not suitable in some cases to measure
the performance of the employees. It is observed that effective performance appraisal system
changes various factors like clarity, openness and fairness, and management by objective. The
performance of the employees is evaluated on the basis that their actual performance which is
going to be compared by the standard set for the same performance. The employees who
performed or meet the standards of the organization are said to be the higher performer in the
company(ACAS, 2007).
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According to the current best practice thinking, the best way is to get the information related to
the different opinions about the work of individual and share good suggestions for the
improvement of that individual. These kinds of elevations are called as the 360 solutions which
are used by many of the organizations. The best part in 360 degree of results is that it reduces the
chance of biasness at the business between employees and it gives a full picture of the
contributions of worker towards your organization. Some of the organizations give proper
training to the employees in order to improve their presence skills and utilize the skills in order
to achieve the organizational goals which help in increasing the productivity levels also. Some of
the authors suggested that it is very important to review and we find the job description duties
and responsibility of the Employees with the changing time so that they make sure that work of
every employee is according to the set targets and will need to provide the measurable
results. Therefore, future research is carried out in order to find out the relation between the
employees’ performance appraisal system as well as their productivity levels of the
employees(Barends, et al., 2016).
The performance appraisal is the technique which can be used by the organizations also to
protect the employees from favoritism and the fairly distribute the rewards and awards to them.
It is important for the top management to develop the strategies in order to improve the
performance of the employees. According to the previous researchers, it is analyzed that the
employees want that employees should follow the rules and regulations of the company work as
per the policies and standards of the organizations. Organizations has the responsibility to
provide the good working conditions, fair pa, fair treatment and secure career, power and
involvement of the decisions. Although, with the change in time, it is found that it is a very
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controversial issues also in the case of some organizations. Some researchers have expressed
their doubts about the process of performance appraisals in the organizations(COF, 2015). There
are many advocates of performance appraisals who claimed that the performance appraisals are
the most critical concept and research related to the motivation is conducted by many people
with the help of the previous theories of the motivation such as Maslow and Expectancy theories
of motivation. Motivation is also the need of any employee in the organization. The motivation
to the employees can be given in two different ways, monetary and non-monetary incentives. In
the organization, there are two types of the employee, on who need monetary incentive and the
second one who need the non-monetary incentives. Monetary incentives include bonuses, salary
increment and salary hike by promotions etc., whereas the non-monetary incentives include the
appreciations, awards, best performer title and giving examples of the employee to other team
members(Department, 2001).
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Justification
In the previous literature review there are many positive impact that have been found related to
the performance of individuals in the organization but still there are some studies with does not
provide a particular measure to implement by the companies in order to resolve the problems
faced by them if any. Survey and resources explain in there is literature review more about the
performance appraisals and its positive impact on the organizational goals(Daoanis, 2012).
Hypothesis
The hypothesis that has been analyzed from the literature review are based on the following two
assumptions:
H0: There is a relationship between the performance appraisals and employee motivation
H1: there is no relationship between the performance appraisals and the employee motivation.
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Research questions
The whole research is based on the one primary question related to the performance appraisal
and that Research question is
“Does effective appraisal helps in motivating their employees to work harder and improve
their performance”?
Research methodology and design
Research methodology is a most important part of resources a study because it is known as the
different kind of strategies with the help of which we can identify the research problem. To carry
on this research quantitative research approach has been adopted in which the data for research is
collected with the help of questionnaire survey interviews. The research work is to find out the
role of performance appraisal in motivating the employees at work place and how it should
improve the performance for the employees. This research work in involve the preparation of
questionnaire with regard to the performance appraisal at workplace in Amazon company.
Coming to the research approaches, quantitative approach is found useful because it is dependent
on the primary data which is collected through the survey. The scope of this research which is
based on the employee performance appraisals that utilizes the personal qualities of the
employees and helps in improving the work performance by making use of their full potential in
carrying out the mission of the firms. The need of utilizing the Personal qualities of employees
arises because to improve what does wireless to achieve its overall objective of the
company(Katavich, 2013).
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Quantitative Research Design
These approaches used to collect the primary data and it is very helpful in analyzing the fresh
data. The data is collected with the help of the interviews and questionnaires which can be done
utilized in this are also identify the role of performance appraisal at the workplace. The primary
data is collected with the help of a questionnaire which is distributed among the employees to
know their view points with regard to the appraisals and its effect on their performance.
Data collection method
As this part is based on the primary data, s in this research the data is collected with the help of
questionnaires which is distributed among the number of employees in order to achieve the
research objectives.To carry on this research quantitative research approach has been adopted in
which the data for research is collected with the help of questionnaire survey interviews. The
research work is to find out the role of performance appraisal in motivating the employees at
work place and how it should improve the performance of the employees. In this research the
results can be described with the help of charts, graphs, in order to make easily understand by the
users and to represent the quantitative data more effectively. Data collection is the very
important part of this research work as we targeted the employees for this to ask about their
viewpoints. The whole research will be based on the collected data and the responses shared by
the participants. The questionnaire survey will include the multiple choice questions which are
related to the performance appraisals of the employees(Ying, 2012).
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Research limitations
On the topic of evaluation of performance of results of employees at workplace, there is enough
research has been done but still there is a need of some research in order to find some measures
with regard to the performance appraisals. Also it is quite difficult to convince the people to
participate in the questionnaire and also this search is based on the volunteer
participation(USOPM, 1998).
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