BA Dissertation: Employee Motivation and Productivity at Apple

This document is a BA dissertation proposal focused on determining employee motivation practices and their impact on the productivity of an organization, specifically Apple. The proposal outlines the rationale for the study, emphasizing the significance of employee motivation in achieving organizational goals and objectives. The research objectives include analyzing the concept of employee motivation, ascertaining the significance of different motivational practices, identifying various practices used by Apple, and determining the impact of these practices on firm productivity. The literature review covers the concept of employee motivation, the significance of different motivational practices like rewards, performance appraisal, and recognition, and the specific practices employed by Apple. The methodology section details the use of primary research through questionnaires, with a sample size of 30 employees, and discusses aspects of reliability, validity, and ethical considerations. The proposal concludes with a list of references including books, journals, and online sources. This document offers a comprehensive overview of the research design and anticipated outcomes.

BA DISSERTATION
Project Proposal
Student Name:
STU number:
Please complete all sections of this proposal document and submit it via e-mail to your
module tutor
Please ensure that you have read all module content carefully before submitting the
proposal.
Please provide a full list of references at the end of the proposal using the Harvard
Referencing conventions
Proposed Dissertation Title
To determine employee motivation practices and its impact on productivity of
organisation. A study on Apple.

Rationale
Employee motivation is a very crucial topic that assist in determining an organisation’s
strategic process in order to attain their target objectives and goals easily.
At professional grounds this topic is provided by tutor which is needed to be fulfilled in
order to address research criteria easily. This topic will help in analysing overall business
activities of Apple in relation of employee motivation and satisfaction.
Whereas on personal grounds this is core of interest through which an individual can
easily address strategic process of a firm that help them in attaining desired and
productive outcomes.
Objectives
Research objective is a clear and concise statement that assist in describing what are the
expectation which shall be affectively attained by research analytical practices. These kind
of aspects assist in determining the scope of the study on a specific and clear topic.
Research objectives on the topic of employees motivational practices of Apple are
determine below:
• To analyse the concept Employees motivation.
• To ascertain significance of different motivational practices within an organisation.
• To identify various practices used by Apple to improve employee motivation.
• To determine the impact of motivational practices on productivity of firm.
Literature review
The concept Employees motivation
As per the views of Ashley Donohoe, 2018 employee motivation is a positive aspect in
respect of organisation and workers that strive to work effectively. Main objective of
implementing such activities in business process is to engage employee with their job role
in order to attain organisational goals and objectives in effective manner. in respect of job
motivation, organisations implement different approach as employee recognition, praise,
financial rewards and so on through which they can motivate them towards working
responsibilities appropriately. A motivated employee is always inspired to do their work
more enthusiastically in order to getting desired outcomes easily.
Significance of different motivational practices within an organisation
As per the viewpoints of Terry Mullane, 2015 for the management of an organisation, it is
required to analyse various ways through which they can attain potential success easily. It
can only be possible by making proper use of all physical, financial and human resources.
Furthermore, it is also a required need of firm to improve productivity of their workforce
by implementing motivational practices. Therefore, it is required to implement different
motivational practices in firm such as Rewards, Performance appraisal, Employee
satisfaction, Recognition etc. Each and every method has its own importance in respect of
employees and organisation as well.

Various practices used by Apple to improve employee motivation
According to the view point of Stephanie Vozza, 2019 Companies are attaining higher
success through implementation of different business practices that assist them to
improve employee motivation. Apple is a well-established organisation that execute
several employee motivational methods in order to enhance the overall productivity of
their workforce. Some best effective practices that has been used by Apple to improve
employee motivation are Rewards, Performance appraisal, Inspiration and many more.
Apple pay their maximum attention to create a meaningful impact on the productivity of
their organisation through which they can desired outcomes easily.
The impact of motivational practices on productivity of firm
As per the views of Sherrie Scott, 2019 each and every individual need good motivation
that aid them to feel positive towards their job responsibilities. This motivation can be
monetary and non-monetary term but it always has a direct impact on worker’s
productivity. Main objective of implementing employee motivation practices to
encourage employees to be produce quality work as per the basic requirement and need
of firm. On the basis of these kind of approach, an organisation can attain their target
objectives and goals in effective manner.
Methodology
Research methodology is a specific process that helps in analysing, identifying and
gathering several information about a given topic. This process aid in providing a
comprehensive overview with the help of different techniques and approaches as well
(Casey, Schwartz, Stewart and Adler, 2016). It could be classifying in two different
approaches as:
Primary Research
This is one of the effective research which is mainly used by small scale
enterprises. The data collected in this research is relevant and accurate. It is because in
this type of research, individuals gather information in the form of surveys, group
discussion, face to face interview and many more. Primary research is time consuming
process and it incurs high cost. The major benefit of this type of research is that,
individual conducting this research gets instant feedback form its customers. It helps
them to determine their mistakes so that they can overcome them in effective manner
(Etikan, Musa and Alkassim, 2016).
Secondary Research
This research is mainly adopted by large scale companies or corporates. The
information gathered from secondary source such as magazines, past year records,
internet and so on. Secondary research is conducted on wide scale so that the company
can have authentic data about the market. This research incurs low cost and also saves
time of an individual. But the major drawback of this respective research is that the data
collected may not be relevant and inaccurate which can directly or indirectly affect
organisation's outcomes. Along with this, individual has to wait for response from their
customers so that they can formulate their plans as well strategies accordingly (Cypress,

2017).
This research will basically consider information through primary sources in which
questionnaire approach is identified as most appropriate. In it, sampling methods will
assist researcher to collect appropriate information on specific topic. Research population
refers as well defined collection of objective or individuals who are similar characteristics
(Kumar, 2019). Sample is a subset of population which help resercher in testing or
studying results (Cooper, Schindler and Sun, 2006). Population of this research is
employees and sampling size is 30. Main objective of implementing this approach is to
analyse views and opinions of different respondents who will be shortlisted through
random sampling process (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2017). Reliability can be describe as a
degree to which researcher get stable answers by research method (Mackey and Gass,
2015). Parallel forms reliability will help in assisting this research. Validity relates to which
extent survey is able to measure correct components (Leung, 2015). Face validity will lead
to provide higher level of subjectivity. This process also has some limitation as
confidentiality and security of information that can be collected through different
participants. Ethics provide framework and guidelines to researchers while conducting
research (Measor and Sikes, 2013). Research should be honest and should not
discriminate during research. Data or information collected should be appropriate and
correct. Therefore, it is required to keep ethical practices properly while conducting
primary research.
Information security services assist in building trust in participant’s mind which can be
helpful for researcher (Battiste, 2016). Main reason behind implementing questionnaire
approach for data collection is because it is time and cost effective as well as it provides
appropriate result as per research requirement.
References
Books and Journals
Casey, J. A., Schwartz, B. S., Stewart, W. F. and Adler, N. E., 2016. Using electronic
health records for population health research: a review of methods and
applications. Annual review of public health. 37. pp.61-81.
Etikan, I., Musa, S. A. and Alkassim, R. S., 2016. Comparison of convenience sampling
and purposive sampling. American journal of theoretical and applied statistics.
5(1). pp.1-4.
Cypress, B. S., 2017. Rigor or reliability and validity in qualitative research:
Perspectives, strategies, reconceptualization, and
recommendations. Dimensions of Critical Care Nursing. 36(4). pp.253-263.
Battiste, M., 2016. Research Ethics for Chapter Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and
Heritage. Ethical futures in qualitative research: Decolonizing the politics of
knowledge. 111.
Alvesson, M. and Sköldberg, K., 2017. Reflexive methodology: New vistas for
qualitative research. Sage.
Kumar, R., 2019. Research methodology: A step-by-step guide for beginners. Sage
Publications Limited.
Cooper, D.R., Schindler, P.S. and Sun, J., 2006. Business research methods (Vol. 9). New
York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Mackey, A. and Gass, S.M., 2015. Second language research: Methodology and design.
Routledge.
Leung, L., 2015. Validity, reliability, and generalizability in qualitative research. Journal

of family medicine and primary care. 4(3). p.324.
Measor, L. and Sikes, P., 2013. Visiting lives: Ethics and methodology in life history. In
Studying teachers' lives (pp. 221-245). Routledge.
Online
What Is the Definition of Employee Motivation? 2018. [Online]. Available
through:<https://bizfluent.com/about-5387352-definition-employee-
motivation.html>
Why is Employee Motivation So Important for Performance? 2015. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-employee-motivation-so-
important-performance-terry-mullane>.
Why Employees At Apple And Google Are More Productive. 2019. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.fastcompany.com/3068771/how-employees-at-apple-
and-google-are-more-productive>.
Motivation & Productivity in the Workplace. 2019. [Online]. Available
through:<https://smallbusiness.chron.com/motivation-productivity-
workplace-10692.html>.