Research Proposal: Investigating Leadership and Revenue Drop at NAB

This research proposal investigates the causes of revenue decline at the National Australian Bank (NAB), focusing on the impact of poor leadership and management practices. The study, conducted by an HR department employee, aims to explore the relationship between ineffective decision-making, corruption, and organizational performance. The proposal outlines a mixed-methods approach, including questionnaires and observations, involving 200 employees, including top management, HR officials, and executives. The research will analyze factors such as employee motivation, engagement, and organizational culture to provide recommendations for improving leadership and management practices, ultimately aiming to enhance NAB's financial performance. The literature review covers employee motivation, engagement, and leadership styles, while the methodology details the research design, sample, data collection methods, and ethical considerations. The proposal aligns with the industry partner's needs and seeks to provide actionable insights for NAB's top management.

POOR LEADERSHIP IN TOP
MANAGEMENT REDUCES FIRM
PERFORMANCE
Student Name
Student Number

 National Australian Bank offers financial
services
 Operates in Financial services sector
 A workforce of 35,000 employees
 A turnover of 27,704 million dollars pa
 I belong to the HR department
 NAB is witnessing revenue drop due to poor
leadership and management issues (Daly
and Gebremedhin 2015)
Industry Partner

 Effective Leadership and Management practices can result in
positive performance
 NAB is experiencing a declining state of revenue figures in last
few years
 Female directors less than male, irrespective of diversity
 Teamwork is crucial but not more than efficient management and
leadership strategies
 Collaboration of teamwork with the guidance of leadership
practices can ensure productive performance
 Focus on the current role of leaders and top management for
assessing the relation with final performance
 Relation between performance with leadership and top
management practices reflects criteria and contribution
requirement
 NAB witnessed a traumatic period by loosing chairman and CEO
with the revenue drop of 10.6 percent in 2019
Research Problem

 To investigate the causes behind the revenue
drop at NAB
 To investigate the link between poor
leadership practices, ineffective decision-
making practices, corruption and the poor
performance of NAB
 To present recommendations for NAB
leadership practices and top management
Research Aim

 What are the potential causes of revenue
drop at NAB?
 How does ineffective decision-making, poor
leadership and corruption leads to poor
performance at National Bank of Australia?
 What is the solution for the improving poor
management and leadership practices in
alignment with revenue growth?
Research Questions

Factors causing poor organizational
performance:
 Employee dissatisfaction
 Poor organizational culture
 Ineffective role allocation
 Poor leadership decision-making (Solaja, Idowu
and James 2016)
 Breach of rules, norms and work standards
 Employment condition and unethical practices
 Unclear job roles and responsibilities
 Independent variables: Factors affecting
performance (Warrick 2017)
 Dependent variable: Organizational performance
Literature review

Linking employee motivation with final
performance:
 Catalyst influencing individual and team
involvement
 Motivation is stimulated by individual or team
needs
 According to Maslow’s need hierarchy theory,
employees performances based on five levels of
needs
 According to the Herzberg theory, motivation
depends on descriptive and contextual factors
(Alshmemri, Shahwan-Akl and Maude 2017)
Literature review

Achieving employee engagement:
 Encouraging participation in decision-
making
 Clarity in goals and responsibilities
 Continual mechanism for feedback
 Productive organizational environment
 People-focused leadership practice
 Collaborative approach (Huang et al. 2015)
Literature review

 Amongst three Research Philosophies,
Interpretivism, Positivism and Realism, Realism
will be selected
 A mixed approach for investigating in-depth
knowledge about causes for poor performance
at NAB with the research on current leadership
and management practices (Fletcher 2017)
 Amongst three types of research design,
Analytical, explanatory and exploratory,
Analytical research approach will be chosen for
evaluating the factors for poor performance
Research Design

Research method:
Mixed approach for the research study
Rationale:
 Identifiable dependent and independent research data in alignment of
the identification of causes and link of organizational practices and
performance
 Collaborate more than two stands in a cohesive conclusion, which is
restricted in qualitative and quantitative study alone
 The research questions demands integrated approach in investigating
causes and link between dependent and independent variables
 Existent literature reflects a major support in identifying dependent and
independent variables but lacks the standard link
 Sample size for this research will be 200 employees in which, 50 top
management officials, 20 HR officials and 130 executives as well as 50
HR officials from the industry
Research Design

Description of the Sample:
- NAB executives, HR department, top management and
industry HR officials
 NAB employee portal and yellow pages
 Organizing HO meeting with NAB employees and seeking
appointment for industry officials
 250 people including in-house employees and industry
officials
 Probability sampling method with respect to internal
stakeholders (NAB employees) and industry officials with
equal chances of selection
 Random sampling technique will be chosen for observing
and assessing a pattern for the given population
Research Design

 Research paper will include questionnaire and observation methods
 Data from questionnaire approach will be assessed through the tool of
SPSS and by converting the responses in percentages and graphs
 Data from observation method will be assessed through thematic
analysis
 Questionnaire potential questions: (for in-house employees)
 What motivates your commitment and involvement in your role?
 What need or goals you are satisfying?
 Are the available resources for your individual performance sufficient?
Observational checklist:
 Employees’ participation in decision-making
 Existent organizational diversity and inclusion policies
 Leaders’ influence over employee engagement
 Affect of top management’s decision making process on sub-ordinates
 Standard HR and leadership practices in financial service sector
Research Design: Research
Tool(s)