MSc International Business Management Project: HR Practices at IBM, UK

This research project investigates the influence of HR management practices on employee commitment within IBM UK. The study aims to analyze how HR strategies affect employee engagement and commitment, crucial for organizational success. The research employs an interpretivist philosophy with an inductive research design, utilizing both primary and secondary data collection methods. Primary data will be gathered through online questionnaires, while secondary data will be sourced from articles, journals, and books. The research design incorporates survey methods and questionnaires for quantitative data, supplemented by descriptive analysis. Data analysis will involve statistical tools like SPSS and MS Excel. The project seeks to identify the factors affecting employee commitment, evaluate effective HR practices, and recommend strategies to improve HR practices at IBM, ultimately enhancing employee commitment and organizational performance. The research also addresses ethical considerations, including informed consent and data privacy, ensuring the study adheres to ethical guidelines and relevant regulations. The project is expected to provide valuable insights for aspiring HR professionals, contributing to a deeper understanding of the relationship between HR practices and employee commitment.

Research Ethics Form
1.
Research Title: Role of HR management practices on employee commitment: in the context of
IBM, UK
2.
Project Summary
Employee Commitment is one of the most important aspects in the modern day business
practice. Maintaining employee commitment is the work of the Human Resource Management
team in an organisation. The present study takes an opportunity to analyse and investigate how
HR management practices influence the commitment of the employees working in an
organisation with the reference to IBM which is one of the leading IT organisations operating in
the UK. The research will delve deep into the internal HR practices of the organisation IBM to
take insights and deduce the movement of employee commitment with reference to HR practices.
The present research will involve effective data collection and analysis method that underpins
the research and helps to come out with suitable data for making effective decisions and to
achieve the organisational objectives.
3.
Is the Project Funded: Yes, but constrained funding since this is an academic project.
4.
What is the Purpose of the Project?
The project focuses on demystifying the role and influence of HR practices on the improvement
of employee commitment in IBM UK. Hence, the key purpose of the project is to analyse the
role of the HR in engaging employees and gaining employee commitment for the company. In
the modern day business context employee participation is extremely important so the project
aims to discuss the key aspects of HR practices that enhance employee participation and
improves employee engagement. It is extremely important for an organisation to ensure that the
employees are satisfied and in a state of content which would only influence them to take part in

the organisational activities and HR practices underpin that purpose in the best possible manner
(Srivastava and Dhar, 2016). The research questions and objectives developed for the present
study are:
1. What are the factors affecting commitment levels of the employees in achieving
organisational success?
2. What are some of the best HR practices to enhance employee commitment level in the
organisation?
3. What is the role of best HR practices in uplifting the commitment of the employees?
4. What HR strategies could be implemented to increase employee commitment?
Research Objectives
 Assess the factors affecting commitment levels of employees in company’s success at
IBM UK.
 Examine the HR practices for enhancing employee commitment at IBM UK.
 Evaluate the role of best HR practices in improving employee commitment.
 To recommend strategies to improve HR practices at IBM to improve employee
commitment.
5.
What are the desired outcomes of the project?
The researcher intends to understand the scope of HR practice in an organisation like IBM that
allows him to improve his internal and external HR skills and also get effective insight on the
subject of employee commitment. As discussed earlier this is something that helps organisations
in the modern day business to grow thus, as an aspiring HR professional one needs to effectively
understand the role and impact of employee commitment in an organisation. So, the desired
outcome at the end of the project would be find out a proper and direct relationship between the
two variables of the research and also understand the concepts essential to the research separately
in order to make significant progress in the respective field. The researcher has implemented
number of key methodological tools in order to focus on gaining ideas on how to use research
tools which will work as a secondary outcome from finishing the project thus, providing clear

knowledge as to how to go about a project in the best possible manner.
6.
Explain the research design
The present study has used research tools which are appropriate for the present study. The
present study uses an interpretivist research philosophy which helps the researcher to analyse the
data collected in the best possible manner. The interpretivist philosophy helps to merge logical
and scientific reasoning in assessing the research study and accordingly helps to gather data.
The study will follow an inductive research design as it provides effective subjective information
on the research matter allowing effective synthesis of the data.
Data collection is one of the most important aspects in the research. Present research will deal
with both kinds of data collection namely primary and secondary. In the primary data collection
method the organisation will deal with quantitative data by distributing online close ended to
semi close ended questions. On the other hand secondary data or descriptive data will also be
collected (Gould-Williams, 2016).
7.
Outline the principal method
Every researcher has to be careful about the way they go about the research study for which the
choice of tools used in the research has to be absolutely specific. For the present study the
researcher has merged descriptive research design with exploratory approach which would help
to investigate as well as explore the research matter in the best possible manner.
The primary tool used for data collection involved survey methods and questionnaire for
quantitative data and descriptive information will also be used from different renowned
secondary sources like articles, journals, books et cetera relevant to the subject matter.
Simple non-probability sampling is used to select sample for the quantitative data gathering
process. Since the study would be done on a sample of the workforce present in the organisation
IBM the researcher will have to specifically choose workforce from the HR department which
would definitely not be random in nature (Bratton and Gold, 2017).
Since the study is using both kinds of data this will use both statistical tools like SPSS and MS
Excel software and descriptive analysis strategy for data analysis. The use of statistical tools

largely helps to analyse the information gathered effectively in the form of tables and graphs that
allows proper inference of the conclusion and also helps to write a cohesive end to the research
to provide insights for the future research possibilities.
8.
Are you proposing to use an external research instrument, validated scale or published
research method?
Yes: Published research methods are used in the present research. The common research
methodological tools are used to select, gather, process and synthesise data to achieve the
expected outcome.
No
9.
Will your research involve consulting with individuals who support or concern of
extremism related material like terrorism, armed struggle or political or religious or other
forms of activism considered illegal under UK law?
Yes
No
10.
Are you dealing with secondary Data?
Yes
No
11.
Are you dealing with primary data involving people? (Interview, questionnaire et cetera)
Yes
No

12.
Are you dealing with Personal or sensitive data?
Yes
No
13.
Is the project solely desk based? (i.e. no lab work, no off campus activities et cetera which
may pose threat to the researcher)
Yes
No
14.
Are there any other ethical issues or points which have not been discussed by the previous
questions?
Yes
No

References
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Gould-Williams, J.S., 2016. Managers’ motives for investing in HR practices and
theirimplications for public service motivation: a theoretical perspective. International Journal
of Manpower, 37(5), pp.764-776.
Srivastava, A.P. and Dhar, R.L., 2016. Impact of leader-member exchange, humanresource
management practices and psychological empowerment on extra-role performances: the
mediating role of organizational commitment. International Journal of Productivity and
Performance Management, 65(3), pp.351-377.