Business Research Methodology: Cross-Cultural Challenges at Walmart

This research proposal investigates the challenges of managing cross-cultural behavior within Walmart's international business operations. The project aims to analyze these challenges, focusing on the company's human resource strategies in a globalized environment. It includes a detailed literature review, research questions, and a hypothesis. The methodology encompasses both qualitative and quantitative research approaches, utilizing interviews, focus groups, and online questionnaires to gather data. The research design employs analytic and descriptive methods to explore the complexities of cross-cultural issues. The proposal outlines the research variables, sampling methods, and data collection processes, including considerations for reliability and validity. The project also provides a time schedule, a Gantt chart, and a conclusion, offering a comprehensive framework for understanding and addressing cross-cultural challenges in international business, specifically within the context of Walmart's global presence.

Running head: BUSINESS RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Proposal on the Challenges of Managing Cross Cultural Behavior in International
Business
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Project Objective.............................................................................................................................4
Project Scope...................................................................................................................................5
Literature Review............................................................................................................................5
Research Questions/Hypothesis.......................................................................................................7
Primary Questions.......................................................................................................................7
Secondary Questions...................................................................................................................7
Research Design and Methodology.................................................................................................8
Qualitative Research........................................................................................................................8
Research Design..........................................................................................................................8
Reliability and Validity................................................................................................................9
Sampling......................................................................................................................................9
Sample Size.................................................................................................................................9
Data Collection Method.............................................................................................................10
Research Variables....................................................................................................................10
Quantitative Research....................................................................................................................10
Quantitative Research design process.......................................................................................10
Interviewing and Questionnaire design.....................................................................................11

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Validity of data..........................................................................................................................11
Justification of the use of Qualitative research..........................................................................12
Limitations of the Research...........................................................................................................12
Time Schedule...............................................................................................................................12
Table 1- Time Schedule Table of the Research.........................................................................13
Figure 1: Gantt chart..................................................................................................................14
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................14
References and Bibliography.........................................................................................................15
Appendix........................................................................................................................................17
Appendix 1.................................................................................................................................17
Appendix 2.................................................................................................................................18

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Introduction
The modern day business modern day environment of business is extremely competitive
in nature that helps the organization to be at it operational best and attain a certain degree of
competitive advantage in the market (Thomas and Peterson 2017). A modern day business house
is comprised of a lot many individuals from different cultures and different background. The
purpose of conducting the following research is to examine different such cross cultural
challenges that the management of the business organizations faces on operating a smooth
business. The research will be focusing on Walmart Company, the largest retail chain of America
and the world. The unique quality of the company is its ability to provide goods at cheap prices
and also provides a quality shopping experience for the buyers (Luthans and Doh 2018). The
successful human resource strategy employed by the company will be the area over which the
research will focus. The proposal has shown a timeline that establishes the time limit of the
research as well as the milestones of the research.
Project Objective
As mentioned in the earlier paragraph, the main objective of the following project will be
to focus on the challenges of the different types of the cross cultural aspects of the organization.
The industries such as Walmart have expanded themselves to a number of different countries in
the world as a result of wide scale globalization (Luthans and Doh 2018). The expansion implied
the recruitment of a varied range of workforce of different culture and different community
totally unknown to the culture of the company. The objective of the organization is to thus to
highlight on the cultural challenges faced by the management of the mentioned retail giants and

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how the organization cope up with them. The research will also highlight the factors that are
behind the success of the organization in the global market.
Project Scope
The choice of the topic itself has been the first and foremost reason behind the increase in
the scope of the research. The topic of the research deals with the challenges faced in
globalization. This is important for increasing the scope of the project. The research will be
discussing the main concepts of the cross cultural challenges faced by the organization along
with the causes of the success in the competitive market. The research will also include both the
primary as well as the secondary research elements, which aims to further increase the scope of
the research.
Literature Review
The Human Resource Department of the business organizations in the modern world
faces a tough time to manage the workforce and the workplace in total given the wide variety
and range of the people working in the particular company (Lewis 2015). The expansion policies
of the Multi National Corporations have forced them to recruit different individuals from the
local area or the host country where they start their business operations. It is very much
important for the HR management of the organization to manage the workplace properly because
of the presence of a large number of employees who are from different cultures and different
backgrounds. It is important for the organization to standardize the workforce and maintain a
friendly workplace to attain success in the market (Deresky 2017). The operations of the
business in global markets have been possible due to the presence of the modern levels of high
scaled communication channels. Walmart has its presence in almost all the large countries with

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healthy economies. This includes the likes of USA, China, Japan, India and many more as such.
The human resource department of the company along with the centralized Human resource
department of the organization maintains an effective and proper communication between the
organizations to maintain a smooth flow of business operations. The coordinated efforts of the
Human Resource department help in the removal of discrepancies of the culture, understanding,
traditions and the ways of performing a particular task. The behavior and culture of the
employees are responsible for increasing complexity in the business and thus these two aspects
have to given extra care to make sure no such serious complexities offer as a result of such
complexities.
The data and the knowledge of the business etiquette, habit and attitude of the foreign
nation are quite significant to compete and co-operate the business in the international market. It
will help to evaluate on how the Management of Walmart deals with the different situations of
the International Market and whether they take offensive or defensive steps to tackle such
situations (Deresky 2017). There are many cases when the company faces issues on dealing with
specialized situations. The company is unable to deal with the different kinds of advance
technology in markets which does not have quality advancement. On the other hand it is capable
to develop promotional and advertising approach on different communication channels like the
internet or web services. This can be used as the primary source of information for the
organization.
According to, Cascio (2018) the time when the workforce of a particular country makes
entry into another host country, the people will be prone to suffer a cultural shock. This will be
because of the differences in the culture, race, language, habits and many other such similar
characteristics of the business organizations. There are high chances of these people to become

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isolated and separated from each other and make the most of the other employees. This also
creates tremendous stress on the employees and affects their professional performance in a
negative manner and will also lead to the loss of their self confidence.
Research Questions/Hypothesis
The Hypothesis that will be developed while doing the research is as follows;
H0- Walmart is not able to face the Cross Cultural Challenges faced by them in International
Markets
H1- Walmart is able to face the Cross Cultural Challenges faced by them International Markets
As mentioned earlier the research will be formulated by using both primary as well as
secondary research elements. Therefore there will be a need to address the different primary as
well as secondary research questions that will surely arise on the course of the research.
Primary Questions
The primary questions of the research will be based mainly upon the different aims and
objectives of the research. The following questions will try to address the different elements of
the research topic and will thus have more concentration on the following. The primary research
question will be directly linked to the research. It is as follows;
1. How does the MNC’s especially Walmart manage the cross cultural challenges that
occur as a result of international expansion?

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Secondary Questions
The secondary questions arising in the research will basically concentrate in the
discussion and address of any additional elements of discussion or questions that may arise from
any additional sources of information regarding the research topic. Some of the secondary
research questions can be as follows;
1. How do business organizations control the workforce considering people coming from a
diverse range of background?
2. What are the ways by which the human resource management of a company helps an
isolated employee to bring back the self confidence in him?
3. What are the ways of gaining competitive advantage by means of proper communications
in between the HR departments?
Research Design and Methodology
The nature of the study is one of the key elements to the development of the methodology
of the research study and also decides on the method of deciding the strategies of the particular
research. The research will use both the qualitative and the quantitative elements to evaluate the
different objectives of the research. The advantages of using qualitative data can be described
easily by interpreting the final results of the study (Creswell and Creswell 2017). The following
results include the strategies used by the mentioned organization to control the different cross
cultural behavioral challenges of the organization in different international market where the firm
operates.

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Qualitative Research
Research Design
The evaluation of the objectives will be completed for this project with the use of the
Analytic or descriptive research design. The choice of the particular research design over the
other two existing designs is mainly due to the capability of the particular design to provide a
detailed analysis of the different concepts and theories of the particular research topic. The
following research design will be essential to gain an in depth understanding of the different
cross cultural challenges and the ways by which the management of the mentioned retail
organization tackles them to attain the needed competitive advantage in the market. Therefore it
can be said that the following research design will be helpful and is also the most suited to gain
the understanding of the cross cultural concepts and the challenges along with the detailed
analysis of the mentioned topic.
Reliability and Validity
The validity of the different information and the research methods will be measured and
tested properly. The main reason behind the testing of the validity of the research is to make sure
about the genuineness of the information received. Reliability is the degree to which the
assessment tool can easily produce the stable and consistent result of the information (Boyack
Smith and Klavans 2018). The validity and reliability of the information used for the particular
research is very much important to the success of the business. The information regarding the
cultural concepts must be collected from genuine sources to ensure the genuineness of the
research.

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Sampling
The sample will be selected using the purposeful sampling method. In the following type
of sampling method the participants are selected based on some pre selected criterion based on
the research questions.
Sample Size
The sample size is predetermined and the participants consist of some employees,
supervisors and communication experts of the mentioned retail company. The sampling will
continue for the research until and unless a saturation point is met within the research. A sample
size of 50 participants will be considered for the research.
Data Collection Method
The research methods that are be used to collect the data are done by conducting
interviews and focus groups. The interviews will be used to explore the views, experiences and
beliefs of the different participants of the research. On the other hand the focus groups will be
used to group dynamics that will be used to generate qualitative data regarding the challenges
and the ways of success for the organizations.
Research Variables
The research will focus on both the dependent and independent variable that will
determine the research analysis of the organization. Both the variables of the particular study will
be evaluated after the evaluation of the results of the research.

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Quantitative Research
Quantitative Research design process
The quantitative research is done with the use of the descriptive design which helps to
study the different statistical elements of the following topics in detail. The data regarding
cultural competitiveness and the cultural challenges will be collected through a process of
structured research instruments and the results of the research will be based on a larger size of
research participants.
Research Instrument
The particular research will complete the quantitative part of the research by means of an
online questionnaire.
Quantitative data Analysis
The quantitative data will be analyzed by the SPSS method. The SPSS method will help
to analyze the topic in a variety of ways that is reliable enough and provides a different angle to
the study.
Sampling and Sample Size
The sample size will be much bigger than the qualitative analysis and will consist of a
large number of participants who will be provided an online questionnaire for the survey.

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Interviewing and Questionnaire design
The questionnaire is designed and generated to the participants through internet. The set
of questions must be open ended and will consist of multiple choice answers. The interviewing
of the participants will be done through Skype to save the time of conducting face to face
interviews.
Validity of data
Each and every of the data is gathered through genuine sources which itself ensures the
validity of the data.
Justification of the use of Qualitative research
The vast scope of the research topic and the aim of the research to gain an idea on the
identification of cultural research has been the main reason behind the selection of the qualitative
research.
Limitations of the Research
There may be some limitations in the study as because it might happen that the different
theories and models required for the purpose of the study might not be sufficient enough or may
not be best suited for finding the actual results and meeting the goals of the following business.
There may be possibilities that there is a limited availability of resources like the unavailability
of the participants due to various reasons, receiving less or irrelevant information regarding the
actual discussion of the research topic. The problems or issues may arise at any given point of