Research Proposal: Employee Motivation and Performance in Abu Dhabi

This research proposal outlines a doctoral study investigating the relationship between employee motivation, performance, and effective strategic management within the public sector organizations in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The proposal defines key research questions exploring how strategic management impacts employee motivation and performance, examining practices to improve satisfaction and organizational performance. It reviews relevant literature, including Herzberg's theory, and the importance of employee retention and training. The methodology section details the use of interpretivism philosophy, a combination of exploratory and descriptive research designs, and survey and interview research strategies. Data collection methods will include primary and secondary sources, with a focus on survey questionnaires and face-to-face interviews using random sampling. The research aims to provide insights into how strategic management can be optimized to enhance employee motivation and, consequently, organizational performance within the context of the Abu Dhabi public sector. The proposal also includes a timescale and Gantt chart to visualize the project's timeline and milestones, as well as a list of references.

Doctorate Research Proposal
Employee motivation and Performance as a result of Effective strategic
management: An assessment of the Public sector organization in Abu Dhabi, UAE

Contents
Project Title.................................................................................................................................................3
Overview.....................................................................................................................................................3
Key research questions................................................................................................................................3
Relevant literature.......................................................................................................................................4
Methodology...............................................................................................................................................8
Outcomes...................................................................................................................................................11
Timescale..................................................................................................................................................11
Gantt chart.................................................................................................................................................13
References.................................................................................................................................................14

Project Title
“Employee motivation and Performance as a result of Effective strategic management: An
assessment of the Public sector organization in Abu Dhabi, UAE”.
Overview
The organization has become more advanced and modern companies are under a continuous
pressure on how to develop their performance and increase their revenues in order to stay
competitive. The efficiency of the company is based on different grounds, but one of the major
fundamentals for handling change and reaching organizational effectiveness is having efficient
and motivated workforce (Forstenlechner and Mellahi, 2011). The main aim of this paper is to
elaborate the employee motivation and performance as consequences of effective strategic
management. It is essential for the organizations to have the motivated employee within the
organization. The major goal of the today’s manager is motivating employees and having a
motivated workforce. The motivation has huge importance in the business strategy and
managers must at all time motivate their employees by developing challenging tasks and offering
them attractive recognitions for good performance (Dobre, 2013). The public sector organization
in Abu Dhabi, UAE will be highlighted under this assessment for the purpose of emphasizing the
employee motivation and performance.

Key research questions
The key research questions of this research proposal are defined below which will be shown in
the section of the literature review with supporting references.
 To explore how strategic management in the public sector of Abu Dhabi affect the
employee motivation and performance.
 To examine the practices of UAE based organizations apply to improve employee
satisfaction and increasing performance.
 To find out the organizational performance will have impacts from strategic management
of human resources.
Relevant literature
According to Dutta and Kant, (2015), the role of the strategic management is huge in the
organization as it helps in developing and implementing plans that support the objectives and
goals of that organization (Barhem, Younies and Smith, 2011). Strategic management is the
continuous process and it is essential for the business to keep the focus on the strategies of
strategic management as it helps in increasing the growth of the company. It has been stated by
Glamuzina, (2013) that the initial advantages of employee satisfaction are that individuals do not
think of leaving their present jobs. Employee satisfaction is vital for employee retention. The
long-term growth of the organization is dependent on the retention of deserving and talented
employees. It is essential for the organization to have the well educated and experienced
employee in the organization so that they can guide fresher or individuals who have just joined
(Tarique and Schuler, 2010).

It has been analyzed that the employee attrition is one of the chief problems faced by
organizations. Siddique, (2004) argued that training and motivation would not be helpful until
and unless individuals enhance a feeling of loyalty towards their organization (Nohria,
Groysberg and Lee, 2008). However, the policies and regulations of the company affect the
motivation level of the employee significantly but along with that, it is required for the employee
to have self-encouragement (Cherian and Jacob, 2013). In the context of employee motivation
theories, it has been suggested by Carol-Ann Morgan that the applied theory of the workforce is
an effectual means to determine employee satisfaction and to motivate them. For instance,
Herzberg's (1983) theory is most acceptable theory all over the world regarding job satisfaction.
The model recognizes basic hygiene factors such as, pay and conditions that facilitate to remove
the discontent from work, rather than promote satisfaction (Abdulla, Djebarni and Mellahi,
2011). It has been analyzed that the satisfiers are considered as the factor which able to motivate
the staff and provide them encouragement to work and put direct influence on satisfaction,
ultimately enhancing the efficiency of the worker (Çalişkan, 2010).
Figure 1: Herzberg's Model

Source: (Tarique and Schuler, 2010).
The public sector of Abu Dhabi needs to focus on job involvement and organizational
commitment measures because these aspects have a direct impact on employee motivation
(Randeree, 2009). In the context of transportation industry of public sector, each Emirate in the
United Arab Emirates has a road and transportation authority, in Abu Dhabi, it is called
Department of Transport and responsible for exterior transport, marine, and aviation. It has been
analyzed through Obaid, Ali, Saleh, Thani and Minhas, (2015), that due to effective strategy of
strategic management, the future of transport sector of UAE is positive, driven through
government project such as Abu Dhabi’s Surface Transport Master Plan (STMP), 2021Vision
and 2020 which major objective is to develop the strategic infrastructure of the country (Al-
Khouri, 2012). it has been analyzed that UAE is one of the fastest growing countries in today’s
world, offering an advanced transport to people with high level of quality infrastructure facilities
has been a far above the ground decorum in the agenda of the government. The employees of
the public sector organization is highly motivated as the government of the UAE is not having
focus only towards the development of the nation but also considered the job satisfaction of the
employees that is why they give number of facilities to the employee during job period (Cania,
2014). It shall be noted that the country has recorded high level of satisfaction towards roads and
highways jumping from 54% in 2010 to reach 80% in 2011. Moreover, the role of this industry
has a significant role in the growth of the nation; hence an examination into how strategic
management in the public sector of Abu Dhabi affect the employee motivation and performance
is justified. The public sector organization of Abu Dhabi aims to recognize and develop this of
high skills and capabilities and those who have the ability to handle potential concerns.
Moreover, training officers of public organization in Abu Dhabi study and monitor the influence

of training session held on job performance allowing for the training reports accomplished by the
trainees to make sure effectiveness and competences of training plans. The public sector such as
Abu Dhabi International Airport, Abu Dhabi Health Service Company, Abu Dhabi Security
exchanges, Abu Dhabi Sewerage Service Company and many more give proper training to the
employees of the company in which initial training is provided to new employees at the time of
joining the organization to establish them to the nature of the organization businesses in general.
Training policies are modified yearly on the basis of the recommendations and suggestion of
stakeholders, organizational needs along with the international training best practices. It shows
that the human resource management is having the capability to provide high quality of training
to the employees so that they can perform in a better way for the purpose of increment in the
growth of the company (Chen and Huang, 2009).
It has been found that there are certain vital job features such as work redesign and
empowerment of employees have a significant role in making sure more empowerment of
employees. These activities are liable to build more loyalty to the component of employees
toward their company. Daley, (2012), explored that the strategic planning in the public
organization is considered as the tool that facilitates an organization to keep focus on its energy
and make sure that members of the organization are working toward the same goals, and
consider the direction of the organization in response to a changing environment. The
performance of the employees is increasing due to effective strategic planning within the public
sector organization (Liao, Toya, Lepak and Hong, 2009).
It has been found that the strategic planning has become common in entire components of the
globe; though, practices in the area demonstrate that the strategy development procedure itself
has become overwhelming (Collings and Mellahi, 2009). Incongruously, by building an unforced

strategy, a government can finish up wasting money and resource on an effort that will not
deliver desired outcomes. In contrast, if the government of Abu Dhabi focuses on making a more
focused strategy, ensuing attains should outcomes in moving the organization towards its
mission goals. Developing an incorporated system by which the strategic plan becomes an
orientation to evaluate the progress and a system of accountability.

Methodology
Research philosophy
The method of research philosophy is effective that helps the researcher to accumulate the data
regarding the research topic in an efficient manner. Research philosophy has three types such as
interpretivism, positivism, and realism philosophy. Interpretivism philosophy aids in building a
better understanding of the research concerns. Realism philosophy is based on the human beliefs.
On the other hand, positivism philosophy shows the information on the basis of fact and
knowledge. For this research paper, interpretivism philosophy is taken in use for the reason of
accumulating the information to access the perception of the participants.
Research Approach
There are two kinds of research approaches such as inductive and deductive that facilitates
researcher to congregate the data in the relation to the research concern. The deductive research
approach is suitable with the assortment of positivism philosophy. Inductive approach is being
selected for this research to gather the information regarding the research topic which would be
helpful in gaining subjective knowledge.
Research design
Research design entails exploratory, descriptive and causal research designs in which the
exploratory research design reflects the initiating research wherein the researcher is able to attain
the information regarding research concern by taking help of developed hypothesis. Descriptive
research designs provide support to the researcher to get data regarding the research concerns.
While casual research design helps to keep focusing on the casual facts for the reason of making

good bonding between variables. For this research, the combination of the exploratory and
descriptive research is selected to implement the research. The aim and objectives of the
researcher can be attained by the researcher with the help of this combination.
Research strategy
The research strategy is the important part of the research as it helps in relevant information of
the research concern so that the effective conclusion can be drawn. There are various kinds of
research strategy like survey, questionnaire, literature review, experiment, interview and focused
group. The researcher will choose the survey and the interview research strategy to gather the
relevant information about the topic. Survey strategy would assist researcher to collect the
information in less time and cost which amplify the consistency of the research. on the other
hand, the interview will present possibility to recognize the views and insight of each participant.
Data collection method
There should be the proper method of collecting the data as it facilitates researcher to move
ahead in a systematic manner. Primary and secondary are two methods of collecting the data for
this research, the combination of these methods have been considered for this research. The
primary data will be collected with the help of the interview, survey, questionnaire and case
study. On the other hand, the secondary data collection method includes the books, magazines,
newspaper and internet sources. The research will use survey by questionnaire and face to face
interview by which the research will get immediate feedback as well as responses in the relation
of the research question.
Sampling method

Probability and non-probability sampling strategy are two kinds of sampling strategy that helps
researcher to accumulate the certain information from the distinct population. Sampling strategy
refers to the option of participants for the research paper for the purpose of giving the effective
response to the research questionnaire for the aim of accomplishing the research. The random
sampling method is chosen for this research as it is the effectual method which gives the
equivalent possibility to the population to get selected in more proficient manner. In this,
probability sampling strategy is used with random sampling to prefer the participants for survey
questionnaire.
Data analysis
Data analysis is the important Concept for the research proposal as it facilitates researcher to
analyze the data after collecting the information about the research topic. However, top data
analysis methods which could help the researcher to draw the valid and reliable conclusion.
Statistical data analysis method will be chosen for this research study because it is an effective
technique that facilitates to describe the entire data into the table and graph form. The brief
description about the graph and table will be made by the researcher to increase the better
understanding of them. MS Excel and SPSS software will also be taken into consideration for the
purpose of analyzing the data in more significant manner.
Ethical consideration
The ethical consideration is the main element of the whole research and the researcher has taken
prior permission to the participants and there is no pressure on them to get participated in the
survey. The personal information of the participants will be spoiled by the researcher after

analyzing the data which information will be given to the participants on prior basis so that they
can make sure that their information is secured.
Outcomes
The research has provided efficient information regarding the employees of the public sector
organization is highly motivated as the government of the UAE is not having focus only towards
the development of the nation but also considered the job satisfaction of the employees that is
why they give number of facilities to the employee during job period. It has been found that the
public sector of Abu Dhabi needs to focus on job involvement and organizational commitment
measures because these factors have direct impact on employee motivation. The role of strategic
planning is found wider as it has become common in all parts of the world; although, practices in
the area express that the strategy development procedure itself has become overwhelming. It has
been found that the employee motivation is a necessary aspect which is able to satisfy the needs
of the employee.
Timescale
S.
No.
Actions Time
frame
(months)
Details
A Topic selection 3 months The topic will be selected in this step regarding the
research.