George Weston Limited: Motivation's Role in Employee Performance

This research proposal investigates the relationship between employee motivation and performance, focusing on George Weston Limited (GWL) as a case study. The proposal outlines the research aim, which is to determine the role of motivation in enhancing employee performance at GWL. It includes a literature review discussing motivation theories, incentives, and rewards. The research questions address the role of motivation, the impact of incentives, and the motivation strategies used by GWL. The hypothesis proposes a positive relationship between employee motivation and performance. The data collection approach involves primary data through questionnaires and secondary data from literature. The proposal details the sampling method (probability sampling) and the planned data analysis techniques (content analysis and statistical analysis). Ethical considerations are addressed to ensure data integrity and participant confidentiality. The proposal concludes with a time plan, conclusion, references, and appendices.

Research Proposal
Role of motivation in improving employee performance: a comparative case study of George Weston
Limited Company

Research Proposal 1
Contents
Abstract............................................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Literature review..............................................................................................................................4
Research aim....................................................................................................................................5
Research question........................................................................................................................5
Hypothesis...................................................................................................................................5
Data collection approach.................................................................................................................5
Primary data.................................................................................................................................5
Secondary data.............................................................................................................................5
Sampling......................................................................................................................................6
Data analysis................................................................................................................................6
Ethical consideration...................................................................................................................6
Variable identification.....................................................................................................................7
Time plan.........................................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9
Appendix........................................................................................................................................11
Appendix 1.................................................................................................................................11
Appendix 2.................................................................................................................................12

Research Proposal 2
Abstract
In the present era, there is tremendous rise in the competition among business areas due to which
the companies try to develop competitive advantage. Thus, they try to manage the effective
human resource within the organisation that helps the company to maintain effective employees
and to improve the performance of companies. The research will be conducted on the role of
motivation in enhancing the performance of George Weston Limited company employees. The
company is a Canadian food processing as well as the distribution company that came into
existence in the year 1882. The research focuses on the concepts of motivation and its related
theories. In addition, the role of motivation is evaluated in improving the performance of
employee within George Weston Limited Company.

Research Proposal 3
Introduction
The purpose of the paper is to prepare the research proposal, which will be the base of the
research that is conducted by company. The research will be conducted on the role of motivation
in enhancing the employee performance considering the case study of George Weston Limited
Company. This has been found that organisations in the current competitive business
environment company have been giving due priority with the motive to enhance the performance
of organisation by making the investment of huge amount in human resource development.
George Weston Limited Company is dealing with the issue in managing the employee
performance in the competitive environment. This issue, which is faced by the organisation, can
be eliminated with the help of motivation.
The employees who are working at the supervisory level failed to maintain the level of
motivation among the employees. In the research, the opinions of different researcher have been
evaluated in regards to the outcome that are linked with the motivation of employees as well as
the performance. In the competitive world, it is essential for the company to maintain the
performance for maintaining the competitiveness. Thus, this is the reason due to which the
research is important to be done. In addition, the finding of the research is based on the survey
that will conducted and the views of different authors. The findings reflect the positive impact of
motivation on performance that offers a reason to conduct the research.

Research Proposal 4
Literature review
Motivation
The concept of motivation is considered as the psychological feature that helps the employees
within the organisation to meet their personal as well as the organisation goals. According to
Hennessey, Moran, Altringer & Amabile (2015), motivation among the employees can be done
with the help of monetary as well as non-monetary terms. In the human resource management,
the incentives by the organisation induce the personnel to get the effective job performance and
the way it contributes the larger efforts. The motivation is classified as the intrinsic as well as
extrinsic, where this has been found that intrinsic motivation refers to the behaviour that is driven
by the internal rewards. However, on the other hand the extrinsic motivation is the behaviour that
is driven due to the external rewards that include money, fame, grades, and many others.
Further, Bouzenita & Boulanouar, (2016) opinion says that Maslow’s hierarchy of need and
Herzberg’s two-factor theory will be required to understand the need of employees and to
achieve it by motivating them. These theories help the company in motivating the employees in
effective manner so that they can contribute in improving the performance. Thus, this has been
found by the author that theories work as a strategy for the company to enhance the performance
of the employees by motivating them. Agreeing to this, Hur, Moon & Jun, (2016) physiological
or basic needs of the person are the driving forces that directly influence the performance within
the organisation.
Considering the view of Nielsen, et al (2017) this has been found that incentive and rewards to
the employees are major factor that motive the employees to perform within the organisation.
The investment that is done by George Weston is related to the incentive programs. The rise in
rewards and incentive program aim is to encourage the employees with the motive to enrich and
share their knowledge in their performance. The rewards can be in the form of monetary as well
as non-monetary terms. The non-monetary terms include the promotion to employees, flexible
working environment, shift timing, and many others. On the contrary, the study that is conducted
by Gerhart & Fang, 2015, financial incentives generally lead to the positive related of employees
with their performance. The major financial incentives that company generally offer include
 Pay and allowance: - A good salary to the employees of company is basic pay, dearness
allowance, house rent allowance and many others are sources through which a person can
meet the needs (Management Study Guide, 2018).
 Productivity linked incentives: - There are incentives that linked with wage and are
possible because of increase in productivity at individual as well as group level.
 Other benefits: - Companies offer many other benefits also which include commission,
Bonus, retirement benefits.
Team-based rewards reflect that far better increase in the performance in the contrast to the
individual rewards. Money is considered as one of the essential source that contributes in
meeting the needs of people.
Agreeing to this Almatrooshi, Singh, & Farouk, 2016, says that incentive is one of the positive
motivational influences on a person that supports in improving the performance. Thus, it can be

Research Proposal 5
said that incentive and reward are the measures that are taken by the management with the
motive to enhance the performance of its employees.
Research aim
The aim is to determine the role of motivation in improving the performance of employee in
respect to the George Weston Limited company. The objective that is used by the researcher to
accomplish the aim is discussed below:
 To evaluate the role of motivation in enhancing the performance of employee within
organisation
 To analyse the factors like incentives and rewards that affects motivation among the
employees
 To determine the strategy of motivation that is used by George Weston to enhance the
performance.
Research question
 What is the role of motivation in enhancing the performance of employee within
organisation?
 How factors like incentives and rewards affect the motivation among the employees?
 Which strategy of motivation is used by George Weston to improve the performance?
Hypothesis
H0: There is positive relationship between employee motivation and employee performance
H1: There is no relationship between employee motivation and employee performance
Data collection approach
The data for the research is obtained by the researcher with the use of the different sources that
majorly include the primary as well as the secondary data that shows the type of data that is used
by the research for conducting the study. The data collection method is considered as one of the
feasible tools that are used by researcher to accumulate the reliable as well as the accurate
information that can be used with the motive to meet the aim and objectives of research
(Silverman, 2016).
Primary data
The primary method is used by the researcher with the motive to obtain the data. The data is not
present anywhere or in any previous research that has been done in past. In the research, the
quantitative method will be selected by the research as the research strategy. The data through
this research strategy is obtained from questionnaire.
The motive to test the assumptions made in the research, the researcher will select the
questionnaire that is considered as the data collection tool (Mackey & Gass, 2015). The research
as selected the questionnaire as primary data is collected because it is found that it is easy to
compile and analyse. This method is considered, as the cost-effective as research need collection
of large amount of information from the employees of company.

Research Proposal 6
Secondary data
The secondary data include the information that is obtained from the literature. It has been found
that the information that has been taken by the organisation is linked to the topic of study that is
relationship between the employees motivation and employee performance. The secondary data
analysis is essential as it helps the researcher to meet the aim and objective of research.
The data sources that will be used by the researcher in obtaining the data include books, journal
articles, online database, and many other (Saks and Allsop, 2012). The information will be
obtained from all the sources is majorly used by researcher to formulate the literature review that
is used to support the description of research findings.
Sampling
The method of sampling is majorly used by the researcher to select the respondents from the
large group of the population. This method is used by the researcher with the motive to capture
the observation with the help of the statistical method (Pozzebon, 2017). The procedure as well
as the method is exercised to reflect the secondary information that can be obtained with the help
of different types of charts as well as graphs. There are majorly two types of the sampling
technique which can be is used by the researcher is probability as well as non-probability
sampling. These techniques of sampling will be used with the motive to select the appropriate
sources for the primary sources (Taylor, Bogdan, and DeVault, 2015). In this research strategy,
researcher will select the probability sampling technique in the research with the motive to attain
the valuable information. In the probability sampling method, the researcher will make use of the
random sampling with the motive to eliminate the biasness among the participants. In the
research, the equal opportunities will be offered to the participants so that they can share their
views.
For this study, the researcher will select the sample from the employees who are presently
working for the company located in Canada. The sample size for the research will be 50
members. The survey will be prepared through the questionnaire and it will be distributed to all
the companies in area. (Refer Appendix 1)
Data analysis
The data analysis is considered as the important component methodology that is important with
the motive to get the accurate as well as valid outcome. Once the information will be polled by
researcher, the researcher will determine the fact and figures with the help of content analysis
method. In the analysis, the researcher will make use of the content analysis because of the
qualitative nature of the research topic. In conducting the research, the research will summarize
the outcome from the questionnaire to get the accurate as well as authentic information. In
addition to this, the researcher will make use of the statistical analysis method with the motive to
show the facts from questionnaire through chart, graphs, as well as table that will be related to
the issue of research (Lewis, 2015).
Ethical consideration
In the research, the ethical consideration is linked with the relating strategies as well techniques
that will be used by researcher to eliminate the chances of ethical problem. Further, secondary
data will be captured by company from different sources that include books, journals, website, as
well as articles (Mackey and Gass, 2015). The researcher ensures that there will be no ethical

Research Proposal 7
breach due to that the research is implemented by the researcher in terms of the references as
well as in-text format. The aim of citing the sources is to avoid the ethical concern regarding
manipulating and plagiarism. The researcher has kept the privacy as well as the confidentiality
related to the employees of the company who are participating in the survey.
Variable identification
In the research study, the independent variable is employee motivation and dependent variable is
employee performance because employee performance is totally depended on the motivation
among the employees within the organisation.
Time plan
Time Plan For Accomplishing The Project (Gantt Chart)
(Refer Appendix 2)

Research Proposal 8
Conclusion
In the end, this can be said from the analysis that research will be done on role of motivation in
enhancing the performance of employees within the organisation. The organisation that has been
selected for the case research is George Weston. In the competitive world, it becomes essential
for the companies to generate the competitive advantage in the market as this helps the company
to deal with the competitors. Thus, the research view different authors view on the concept of
motivation and factors that affect the motivation, which includes incentive and other reward. In
the present world, companies apply different strategy that includes the theory of motivation that
helps in understanding the needs of customers present in market.

Research Proposal 9
References
Almatrooshi, B., Singh, S. K., & Farouk, S. (2016). Determinants of organizational performance:
a proposed framework. International Journal of Productivity and Performance
Management, 65(6), 844-859.
Bouzenita, A. I., & Boulanouar, A. W. (2016). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: An Islamic
critique. Intellectual Discourse, 24(1).
Gerhart, B., & Fang, M. (2015). Pay, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, performance, and
creativity in the workplace: Revisiting long-held beliefs. Annu. Rev. Organ. Psychol.
Organ. Behav., 2(1), 489-521.
Hennessey, B., Moran, S., Altringer, B., & Amabile, T. M. (2015). Extrinsic and intrinsic
motivation. Wiley encyclopedia of management, 1-4.
Hur, W. M., Moon, T., & Jun, J. K. (2016). The effect of workplace incivility on service
employee creativity: the mediating role of emotional exhaustion and intrinsic
motivation. Journal of Services Marketing, 30(3), 302-315.
Lewis, S. (2015). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five
approaches. Health promotion practice, 16(4), pp.473-475.
Mackey, A. and Gass, S.M. (2015) Second language research: Methodology and design. New
York: Routledge.
Management Study Guide. (2018). Motivation Incentives - Incentives to motivate employees.
Retrieved from: https://www.managementstudyguide.com/motivation_incentives.htm

Research Proposal 10
Nielsen, K., Nielsen, M. B., Ogbonnaya, C., Känsälä, M., Saari, E., & Isaksson, K. (2017).
Workplace resources to improve both employee well-being and performance: A
systematic review and meta-analysis. Work & Stress, 31(2), 101-120.
Pozzebon, M. (2017). Beyond positivistic qualitative research. Revista de Administração de
Empresas, 57(4), 415.
Saks, M. and Allsop, J. eds. (2012) Researching health: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed
methods. California: Sage.
Silverman, D. ed. (2016). Qualitative research. California: Sage.
Taylor, S.J., Bogdan, R. and DeVault, M. (2015) Introduction to qualitative research methods: A
guidebook and resource. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

Research Proposal 11
Appendix
Appendix 1
Survey
Q1. How far you are satisfied with the incentives provided by company?
 Agree
 Disagree
 Neutral
Q2. Is the management is interested in motivating the employee?
 Agree
 Disagree
 Neutral
Q3. What type of incentive motivates you more?
 Financial
 Non-financial
 Both
Q4. Do you think that motivation in terms of incentive and rewards affect your performance?
 Influence
 Does not influence
 No opinion
Q5. What changes would like to improve in management for motivating employees?