Corporate Strategy: Employee Behavior & International Profitability

This report examines the impact of employee behavior, particularly its ethnic dimensions, on the profitability of Unilever in the international environment. It begins with an introduction outlining the research aim, objectives, questions, and rationale. A literature review follows, exploring the concept of employee behavior, the factors influencing it (workplace culture, management style, leadership, relationships, and job responsibilities), and how it affects profitability. The report then details the research methodology, including the research philosophy, approach, strategy, choice, sampling, data collection, and analysis methods. The findings are presented through a critical review of primary and secondary research. Primary research delves into the concept of employee behavior, different factors impacting it, and its effect on Unilever's profitability. Secondary research provides additional context and support. The report concludes with recommendations and an action plan to address the identified issues and enhance profitability, referencing key literature throughout.

Corporate Strategy
and Governance

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Background of Research.........................................................................................................1
Research Aim.........................................................................................................................1
Research Objectives...............................................................................................................1
Research Questions................................................................................................................2
Rationale of Research.............................................................................................................2
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................3
Concept of Employee behaviour............................................................................................3
Different factors impact on employee behaviour...................................................................4
Employee behaviour impact on the profitability of Unilever firm in international environment
................................................................................................................................................5
Different issues arise related to employee’s behaviour and its impacts on business profitability
................................................................................................................................................6
DISCUSSION ON PRIMARY AND SECONDARY RESEARCH...............................................7
Research philosophy...............................................................................................................7
Research Approach.................................................................................................................7
Research Strategy...................................................................................................................8
Research Choice.....................................................................................................................8
Sampling.................................................................................................................................8
Data collection methods.........................................................................................................9
Data analysis...........................................................................................................................9
Time horizon..........................................................................................................................9
CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE RESULTS OF THE RESEARCH..............................................10
Primary research...................................................................................................................10
Secondary Research..............................................................................................................19
RECOMMENDATIONS AND ACTION PLAN..........................................................................22

Recommendations................................................................................................................22
Action Plan...........................................................................................................................22
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................25
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................27

TITLE: How ethnic dimensions of employee behaviour impact on the profitability of the
corporation in the international environment.
INTRODUCTION
Background of Research
Employee behaviour is explained as reaction of staff members to specific situation in an
organisation. There is a need to employees to behave in sensible manner not gain the
appreciation from other but also maintain healthy working culture. One requires to be adhere
rules as well as regulations at workplace. Corporate and personal culture mainly impact way staff
members communicate as well as interact with each other’s. Beliefs of employees impact on
ethics along with ethical responsibility sense (Afsar, Badir and Kiani, 2016). The better customer
service helps in increasing productivity by providing the high quality products. It helps in
enhance sales of the business and drive engagement in providing positive outcomes. The good
employee behaviour helps in increasing the providing the positive customer experience that helps
in enhancing the sales and profit level of business. Unilever is British multinational consumer
products company that headquarter is in London. This consists candy, baby food, energy drinks,
ice cream, cleaning agents and others. The main focus of Unilever company is to make positive
impact by brands, relationships and operations in which partners can be engage at large. This
company is developing to improving way to manage impact and long term objectives of
developing sustainable business (Al-Omari and Okasheh, 2017).
Research Aim
The aim of this research is “To examine the impact of ethnic dimensions of the employee
behaviour on profitability of company in international environment. A study on Unilever.
Research Objectives
 To determine the concept of employee behaviour.
 To examine the different factors, impact on employee behaviour.
 To identify impact of employee behaviour on profitability of Unilever firm in
international environment.
 To analyse issues related to employee behaviour on how it impacts on profitability of
business.

Research Questions
 What is the employee behaviour?
 What are the different factors impact on employee behaviour?
 How employee behaviour impact on the profitability of Unilever firm in international
environment?
 What ate the different issues arise related to employee’s behaviour and its impacts on
business profitability?
Rationale of Research
This present investigation is related to examining the impact of ethnic dimensions of the
employee behaviour on profitability of company in international environment. There has been
gain the understanding regarding the behaviour of employees at workplace. Conducting the
present investigation helps in providing the benefits to researcher in personal and professional
context. In the personal context, the skill and abilities of an investigator can be enhanced.
Through this, an investigator can able to collect the in- depth understanding regarding particular
subject area (Bhardwaj and et. al., 2018). In professional context, research gains the knowledge
and enhance its research skills to conduct the similar investigation in the future and getting
positive outcomes effectively.

LITERATURE REVIEW
This part of research is related to collecting the information and data from using secondary
sources such as books, articles, internet sources, scholars and journals. The main purpose of
literature review part is to attaining the research objectives by consisting the secondary method
(Brooks and Oikonomou, 2018).
Concept of Employee behaviour
According to opinion of Mark Waschek (2020) employee behaviour defines the behaviour
of an employee at a workplace and their reactions towards the work. Employees should behave
properly in an organisation to gain the respect and the appreciation from others. The proper rules
and regulations are to be followed at the work place and these rules help in creating the healthy
work environment in the organisation. There are the different types of the employee behaviour
in the organisation like the task performers as they are the persons who have full knowledge
about the work they have to do in the organisation, Organizational citizenship the organization
has to provide extra to the clients for their long term growth in the future so that they can
perform their job responsibility in the proper manner, Maintaining the work attendance as the
employees should attend the office regularly so that they do not have burden in the future.
Employees behaviours can be characterized on the basis of the Adaptability, Humanity, Team-
work, confidence these are some features which help in defining the employee’s behaviour. The
person can find out the employee behaviour during its interviewing skills when the interviewer
asks the questions they can easily recognize the behaviour of the employees and the
communication skills of the people help in finding out the behaviours of the employees.
Employee behaviour help in creating a good environment and the innovative work place where
the decision can be taken easily in a good manner (Chen, Hung and Wang, 2018). It helps in
attracting the employees and the customers in a proper manner so that they can share their views
and the ideas which help in building the confidence in them. It helps the employees to engage in
an innovative thinking and solve the problems in an easy way. Employee behaviours can also be
determining by the respect given to the other employees like the male candidates should give the
respect to the female candidates and be polite with them and listen to them properly without
getting rude with them. There are several factors which affect the employee’s behaviours like
leadership as the goals and the targets are to be decided and everyone have to follow them and

help the subordinates in guiding them, work culture should be safe and positive enough and
should respect their seniors and have the job security so that they can work properly. Managers
should need to acknowledge the hard work of the employees and motivate them to work hard in
the future. Employees should not get overburdened with the work by the managers as it gives the
negative impact on the employees and they won’t be able to do the work properly. Managers
should also sit with the team members and discussed the performance and the behaviour of all
employees on the regular basis so that the decision can be taken in an easy manner. Treating
everyone equal is one of the task which help in determining the behaviours of the manager,
unequal distribution of work sometimes demotivate them and not able to work properly (Chuang
and Huang, 2018).
Different factors impact on employee behaviour
On the basis of M.T. Wroblewski (2020) each and every employee at workplace is different
from the each other as human behaviour is considered as complex. There are different challenges
in company that could impact the behaviour of staff members directly or indirectly. It is
necessary for manager to analyse specific task firstly, identify skills needed and collect team that
could be complement and also match skills of the each other. Behaviour of employee is based on
external and internal factor. There are different factors given below which mainly impact on the
employee behaviour:
Workplace culture- It is prone to office politics and cliques that mainly divert the energy
of people away from mission. In this, discourage the destructive rivalry and selfish opportunism
through making the liabilities by discipline. In order to promote the cooperation place, respect
for the people is necessary.
Management style- If manager yells at staff members in from of the other employees then
this seems like the nothing is done as per the expectations. From this, the productivity of
company can be reduced. It is necessary that manager should adopt the better management style
that help in motivate the other employees to be work harder and focus on attaining the objectives
(Hanaysha, 2016).
Leadership- The leaders and the managers of the organisations plays an important role as
they help in determining the behaviours and their attitudes at the work place. The strict rules and
the regulations are too followed and subordinated should listen their leaders and work
accordingly in an organisation. The leaders have to set the goals and task of the organisation and

subordinates have to follow them strictly and the leaders should also listen to their subordinates
and help them in solving the problem which help in boosting up the confidence of employees and
can work efficiently in a proper manner.
Relationship at work- There should be good relationship of the employees at the work
place which help in building the good environment. It is not possible to sit ideal in the
organisation having good relations help in sharing the issues regarding the problem and help in
creating the good communication and share their views and the ideas in an easy manner so that
there is effectiveness and efficiency in the work done by the employees. It helps in creating the
healthy and the positive environment at the work place where employees are able to do work
with the coordination and achieve the task (Hillary, 2016).
Job Responsibilities- Employees have an ability and should be allowed to do the work
according to their capacity and needs. They should do the work in which they can perform well
and can give growth to the organisation in the future. Employees should not be overburdened
with the responsibilities and they should give the work according to their capabilities and
maintain a proper communication with them so that they can share the issues easily. Employees
should be motivated enough so that they can upgrade and enhance their skills properly on a
regular basis (Younis, Sundarakani and Vel, 2016).
Employee behaviour impact on the profitability of Unilever firm in international environment
On the basis of opinion Bidhan L. Parmar, Adrian Keevil & Andrew C. Wicks (2020) it
has been stated that employee behaviour develops the positive and negative impact on
profitability of Unilever company in the international environment. The main focus of this
organisation is to hire the well talented and the experienced employees which mainly focus on
attaining the objectives within given period of time. This will help in enhancing the profitability
and also productivity of business. From this, employees can able to deal with the international
client and also conduct the international business operations. Workplace environment mainly
impact on motivation of employees, engagement and productivity level (Jermsittiparsert and et.
al., 2019). If the working environment of company will not be better than this impact on the
performance level of staff members effectively. Quality of workplace environment mainly
impact motivational level and also the sustain of staff within the organisation. On the other hand,
bad employee’s behaviour negatively impacts on profit level of Unilever company. If the
behaviour of employees will be bad towards company or the other employees, then this develops

the negative impact on the organisational productivity. The better human resource system based
on helping the values and these systems make the effective impact on attitude as well as
behaviour of staff members that helps in attaining the overall objectives of company and enhance
performance level. Other than this, job performance behaviour of staff members has found
related with commitment of employees positively towards job. The differences in culture should
be regarded as well as identified through staff members to adapt them along with operate across
culture successfully. Under umbrella of company culture, all the employees are work together
and based on the mutual understanding and also security of each other rights (Kim and et. al.,
2019).
Different issues arise related to employee’s behaviour and its impacts on business profitability
As per the viewpoint of Judd Lowe (2020) Bad behaviour of employees is not good for the
organisational performance as well as productivity level. The common problem of employee
behaviour is that individuals do not enjoy their work. It is necessary to trying to do something
innovative and new each day. Sometimes, issue is arising with that ability of team harm to
provide to its customers at workplace. The behaviour of employee mainly constitutes less friction
or the unsatisfactory performance of staff members. In context to this, problems of staff members
are inevitably surface in many workplace and the companies are immune. Issues are the genuine
for an instance attendance related problems or failure about providing positive outcomes. the
poor employee behaviour develops the negative impact on performance level of employees along
with the profitability of an organisation (Lee and Jung, 2016). When discussion about the issues
with staff members, come to table with the ways or ideas through which the issue can be
rectified. Do not present consequence without providing the recommendations on way to solve
this first. If staff member has statement some offensive statement or loud with other employee,
then it requires refresher course on the harassment at workplace or review policy in employee
handbook. If this is more of performance related issue and the staff member is neglecting to
finish specific requirements or tasks of job, remind job description and also position
expectations. In context to this, staff member is not being versed in specific aspect of job and
also requires the training in that specific area. it will appreciate being provided the improvement
related suggestions instead just being told that it is not working as per the expectations. The staff
members will be appreciate being provided suggestions for make improvement instead of just
told that they are not working up to the expectations.

DISCUSSION ON PRIMARY AND SECONDARY RESEARCH
This is the necessary part of an investigation as it helps in gathering relevant and accurate
information on specific subject area in better manner. This plays the essential role to an
investigator through making this easier to provide the favourable outcomes effectively. In
conducting the research methodology, there has been research onion used. Research onion was
mainly developed through Saunders et. al., 2007 in order to explain different stages by which an
investigator should be pass when developing better methodology (Li and et. al., 2018). Research
onion is extension of research methods tree. The different stages included in research onion
mention below:
Research philosophy
The research philosophy refers to the over- arching term that mainly related to knowledge
development and also nature of the knowledge. Basically, this is set of the beliefs that mostly
guide the action. There are interpretivism and positivism two different research related
philosophies (Shen and Benson, 2016). The positivism research philosophy seeks out factors of
the social phenomenon in systematic manner. Other than this, interpretivism research philosophy
is based on the quantitative approach that helps in provide the detailed information.
Justification: In conducting this research, there has been positivism research philosophy
used as this is related to the quantitative research philosophy and also provide the authentic and
reliable information regarding specific subject area (Ling, Lin and Wu, 2016).
Research Approach
The research approach mainly related to plan and process for investigation that span steps
from wider assumptions to data collection methods. Inductive and deductive are two different
approaches of research (Schaltegger, Burritt and Petersen, 2017). The inductive research
approach is beginning with observation and end of research by providing positive outcomes.
Other than this, deductive research approach is mainly beginning with hypothesis proposition
and end of research outcomes.
Justification: Deductive research approach is more effective as this provides the authentic
and reliable understanding regarding the particular subject area. This approach provides the
information from general to specific (Long and et. al., 2017).

Research Strategy
This is defined as overall plan to conduct an investigation. It mainly guides an investigator
in planning, implementing and also monitoring study in detailed manner. The research strategy
mainly provides the more guidance while the research methods can be seen effective tool to
perform particular task. There are different research strategies for an instance surveys,
interviews, focus groups, observations and others.
Justification: In the current investigation, there has been survey research strategy used as
it is helpful in collect the information and data from large number of respondents. This is useful
for legitimate and useful approach to an investigation that has advantages in helping to explain
the concepts in detailed manner (Mathieu and Babiak, 2016).
Research Choice
The most necessary research choice is based on difference among the quantitative and
qualitative data (Qiu, Shaukat and Tharyan, 2016). This suppose selection from chosen methods,
instruments and the techniques. Qualitative and quantitative are the two different research
choices. The qualitative research method mainly relied on data that obtained through an
investigator from first hand observation, focus groups, and others. The quantitative method is
related to collect the numerical data and analysed by using the statistical methods.
Justification: In the present investigation, there is quantitative research choice used. The
reason to use this method is that it provides the facts and figures regarding the particular area.
This method is mainly emphasizing the objective measurement and analysis of data collection
through using the survey or questionnaire (Mohammed, Saheed and Oladele, 2016).
Sampling
Sample is group of the people, items and objects which are taken from large number of
population for purpose of measurement. It should be the population representative to assure that
generalise findings from research sample to population as whole. The main purpose of sampling
is that it saved money through permitting the investigators to collect similar answers from
sample that would receive from population (Obeidat, 2016).
Justification: There has been random sampling method used and through this 40 sample
size chosen from the whole population. The reason to use random sampling is that it is part of
sampling technique under which each sample has equal probability of being selected.

Data collection methods
Data collection is process that mainly enable to answer the research questions and examine
the positive outcomes. this is helpful in providing the answers to the different questions in
detailed manner (Osborne and Hammoud, 2017). There are primary and secondary different
methods of data collection. The primary method consists different sources such as interviews,
questionnaire, focus groups, observations and others. Other than this, secondary sources mainly
include the books, internet sources, scholars etc.
Justification: In conducting the present investigation, there has been primary and
secondary both methods of data collection used. The primary method has been used in creating
questionnaire related to the specific subject area. On the other hand, the secondary method has
been used in doing literature review part by attaining the research aim and objectives in an
effective manner (O'Donohue and Torugsa, 2016).
Data analysis
It is related to analyse the data that collected through use of primary and secondary data
collection method. In this present investigation, there has been thematic analysis method used
and analyse the data that collected through primary method by developing questionnaire. MS-
Excel has been used to develop the graphs of questions and themes mentioned in questionnaire
(Ogbari and et. al., 2016).