Research Project: Discrimination Effects on H&M Employee Performance

This research project investigates workplace discrimination and its impact on employee performance within H&M. The study explores various types of discrimination, including age, gender, and disability-based biases, and their negative consequences on employee productivity, morale, and organizational outcomes. The methodology employs a quantitative approach, utilizing questionnaires to gather primary data and secondary data from literature reviews. The project examines the research questions such as types of discrimination, negative effects on employee performance, and strategies to manage discrimination. The findings, presented through frequency analysis and graphs, are discussed in relation to existing literature, leading to recommendations for H&M to address and mitigate discrimination. The research concludes with a reflective analysis of the researcher's experience throughout the project, offering valuable insights into the complexities of workplace discrimination and its management.

RESEARCH
PROJECT
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Executive summary
Main purpose behind doing this research project is to identify the different types of
discrimination and their effect over performance level of employees in the workplace of H&M.
In order to attain this purpose, researcher developed some objectives and questions that helped
them in accomplishment of research aim. Along with this, literature review has been completed
by researcher by using secondary sources for addressing each research questions in effective
manner. Under research methodology, researcher followed number of research methods which
are positivism philosophy, deductive approach, quantitative research etc. All these are effective
in collecting of quantitative information from questionnaire. For the section of results and
findings, researcher made frequency and developed effective graphs that are useful in presenting
of results of findings. Discussion was completed for discussing and interpreting primary data,
and linking this data with secondary data that are gathered for literature review. Conclusion has
been done by summarising entire information of report in briefly. Under recommendation
section, some suggestions were given to the company that are related with the research topic. At
last, reflection was completed by identifying experience of researcher for performing this project.
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Contents
Executive summary..........................................................................................................................2
Introduction/ background to the research area.................................................................................5
Research Question.......................................................................................................................5
Sub-questions of research ...........................................................................................................5
Research aim and objectives .......................................................................................................5
Rationale and importance for choosing the topic .......................................................................6
Literature review..............................................................................................................................7
What types of discrimination that can occur in the workplace? .................................................7
What are the negative effective of discrimination on employee’s performance at workplace of
H&M? .........................................................................................................................................8
What strategies may be use for managing discrimination at workplace of H&M? ....................8
Research Methodology..................................................................................................................10
Research Approach ...................................................................................................................10
Research techniques .................................................................................................................10
Data collection methods ............................................................................................................10
Research Philosophy: ................................................................................................................11
Qualitative and quantitative research ........................................................................................11
Primary and secondary sources of data collection: ...................................................................11
Sampling....................................................................................................................................11
Data analysis approach .............................................................................................................12
Timeline of research activities.......................................................................................................12
Research Instruments ................................................................................................................14
Ethical issues: ............................................................................................................................16
Research reliability and validity ...............................................................................................16
Results/Findings.............................................................................................................................17
........................................................................................................................................................20
Discussion......................................................................................................................................21
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................26
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Recommendations..........................................................................................................................27
Reflection.......................................................................................................................................28
References......................................................................................................................................29
Appendices.....................................................................................................................................31
Questionnaire ............................................................................................................................31
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Introduction/ background to the research area
Workplace discrimination meaning is treating someone negatively due to their personal
characteristics. These characteristics are race, gender, age, religion, sexuality, disability etc. All
these have negative impact on employees at workplace (Cho and et. al., 2016). There are
different types of discrimination that can happen or occur in the workplace of an organisation
such as age discrimination, disability discrimination, gender discrimination and many others.
These types of discrimination have negative impact over performance of employees. These
impacts are lower productivity, poor confidence, reduced performance etc. This turn to impact on
business performance and productivity in negative manner. H&M is a chosen clothing retailer for
this research. It was founded in 1947 by Erling Persson and headquartered in Stockholm,
Sweden. Company specialise in selling of clothing for women, men, teenagers and children. In
the workplace of H&M large numbers of employees are working with the aim of achieving long
term goals and objectives. Some employees have issues about the discrimination, in order to
reduce such issues, company have to use number of ways for managing discrimination at
workplace.
Research Question
a) What are the types of discrimination and their impact on employee’s performance at
workplace of H&M?
Sub-questions of research
a) What types of discrimination that can occur in the workplace?
 What are the negative effective of discrimination on employee’s performance at
workplace of H&M?
 What strategies may be use for managing discrimination at workplace of H&M?
Research aim and objectives
Research Aim:
Main aim of this research is “To study about the types of discrimination and their impact
on performance of employees at workplace. A study on H&M.
Research Objectives
b) To explore different types of discrimination that can occue in the workplace.
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c) To analysis negative effective of discrimination on employee’s performance at workplace
of H&M.
d) To determine ways for managing discrimination at workplace of H&M.
Rationale and importance for choosing the topic
Main reason behind choosing the topic is to explore number of discrimination that can take
place in the organisation. This research is essential at academic as well as practical way.
Academically, this research support students by enhancing their learning and understanding
regarding the types of workplace discrimination and their impact on employee’s performance. At
practical level, this study support in analysing of ways for handing discrimination at workplace.
Along with this, if this study is publish will helps societies, individual and organisation by
enhancing their knowledge about the discrimination that can happen in the workplace (Derous,
Pepermans and Ryan, 2017).
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Literature review
Literature review is an essential part of the research because it help researcher in
gathering of information from secondary sources such as articles, books, magazines etc. All these
sources help researcher in collecting of secondary information about the discrimination that can
happen at workplace and its negative effect on performance of employees. Purpose of literature
review is to recognize gaps or conflict in past research. Literature gap of current study is the
impact of all types of discrimination on employee’s performance at workplace. In order to fulfil
this gap, research questions will be used. This will also support researcher in accomplishment of
research aim and objectives in systematic manner (Dwertmann and Boehm, 2016). Research
questions will be explained as below:
What types of discrimination that can occur in the workplace?
According to the Benstead (2018), Discrimination is known as unjustified treatment with
different categories of people on the basis of race, age, sex, religion, gender etc. This is the
negative activity that exist within an organisation and responsible for bad results only. This
diminishes the working ability of employees within an organisation that creates the negative
perception about policies and practices. This will also reduce the level of motivation that does
not allow to perform with full capacity in direction of accomplishing organisational objectives.
There is different type of discriminations which are defined below:
Disability based: This includes the discrimination with disable people within an
organisation. It includes payment of less money or bulling at workplace due to presence of some
physical disability.
Gender based: This is the most common one where discrimination is done between male
and female within an organisation. This can be done through various ways such as less amount
of salary, unequal opportunities etc.
Age: This includes the discrimination between the personnel of an organisation on the
basis of age. For ex., two persons are working on same position and have same amount of
experience but the one who is elder in age is preferred for promotion. This kind of situations is
covering under age based discrimination.
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What are the negative effective of discrimination on employee’s performance at workplace of
H&M?
As per the opinion of Harness (2019), Discrimination is the negative activity and only has
negative impact over the performance of all employees of an organisation either who suffered or
the one who not. The main impact of discrimination at workplace is creating negative vibes
where no one can work with positive attitude. It promotes bad office politics and creates negative
working culture. The impact of discrimination at employee performance will be ascertained upon
different areas. The chance of its occurrence in multinational organisation like H&M is high due
to presence of employees from different cultures. Any type of discrimination either age based or
gender has impact over all different areas associated with employee performance. Firstly, it
diminishes the level of trust among employees. The level of distrust impacts the performance as
nobody is ready to support each other and wants to complete their own targets. This reduces the
level of creativity in employee’s performance that resulted into deliverance of poor results and
non-attainment of organisational objectives. Secondly, this impacts the engagement level of
employees. The low of level of engagement decreases the level of motivation that resulted into
poor performance not in accordance to the provided standards. In last, this will also impact their
perception towards organisational policies and practices. This simultaneously motivates in the
usage of unethical practices in completion of work where they not able to attain high level of
performance.
What strategies may be use for managing discrimination at workplace of H&M?
According to the view presented by Mazzotta (2019), H&M is multinational organisation
and having the business functions at worldwide level. It is the duty over the management of an
organisation is to manage the level of discrimination so positive culture will be built within an
organisation where employees work properly. The different strategies that will be used to
manage discrimination include:
Adherence of legislation: The management of an organisation must focus over the fulfilling
different legislations prevail at various nations so they can perform the functions as per their
standard. This will provide the opportunity to create an obligation over the management of
different departments so they can adhere the policies in deployment of their functions.
Building separate team: The top management of an organisation is must needed to create
separate team that focuses over the completion of the activities on the basis of standards and
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polices. This ensures that all the employees are treading equally as per the different laws exist in
various nations. This help to improve the performance too.
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Research Methodology
Methodology is significant part of the research because with the help of this, researcher cans
easily collect and analysis information regarding the field of study (Fisher and et. al., 2017).
There are number of useful methods that will be suitable for doing current study. This is an
important part of the research project as it support researcher in collection as well as analysation
of information about the study (Ali, Yamada and Mahmood, 2015). There are different methods
that will be suitable for current investigation is described as below:
Research Approach
Approach of the research are classified into certain parts such as qualitative, quantitative or
mixed. These are main research approaches, but for performing current study over workplace
discrimination, quantitative approach has been applied because it facilitate in collecting of
numerical data without consuming additional time. Qualitative approach is not suitable for doing
this research because it require maximum resources and take more time of investigator
(Gunderson and Lee, 2016). There are mainly two approaches of research which are inductive
and deductive. By doing present study, deductive approach is more suitable because it assist
researcher to gather quantitative information without taking additional time. On the other hand,
inductive approach is not much useful within an investigation because it is completely based
qualitative data and also requires maximum resources. Therefore, deductive approach is more
valuable for doing current study in effective manner (Chavez and et. al., 2015).
Research techniques
Research techniques are the part of collecting primary information or data regarding
specific topic. There are numerous techniques of collecting primary information i.e. modelling,
focus group, observation, questionnaire, interview etc. These techniques are valuable in
gathering of primary information but for collecting data about the workplace discrimination,
questionnaire will be used. This technique of primary data collection helps investigator by
providing consistent and quantitative information without taking additional time and resources
(Heilman and Caleo, 2018).
Data collection methods
Primary and secondary are two types of data collection method that will be used within a
study. Questionnaire is used by researcher for gathering primary information about the
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discrimination that can happen in the workplace. On the other side, magazines, articles, books
etc. sources will be applied by investigator in gathering secondary data for literature review.
Therefore, in the current study, both types of data collection methods will be used for gathering
primary and secondary information (Hernandez and et. al., 2016).
Research Philosophy:
This section of research methodology has two philosophy which named are
interpretivisim and positivism. Within an investigation, positivism philosophy is more suitable
because it facilitate in gathering and analysing of quantitative information easily. Interpretivisim
is another form of philosophy that will be not used for conducting current investigation because
it require qualitative data and also take additional time in process of data collection (Combs and
Milosevic, 2016).
Qualitative and quantitative research
Qualitative and quantitative are two effective types of research that helps researcher in
collecting of data from different sources. For collecting information regarding the types of
discrimination and their employee’s performance at workplace, quantitative research has been
followed because it support researcher to collect reliable information by using questionnaire.
Qualitative is another form of study that is not appropriate according to the present study because
it is not a statistically representative type of data collection (Ferguson, 2015).
Primary and secondary sources of data collection:
Primary and secondary are two main sources of data collection that will be used by
researcher for gathering data about the workplace discrimination. Questionnaire has been used
for collecting primary data, whereas books, magazines etc. sources will be applied for gathering
secondary information. Therefore, according to the current investigation both primary and
secondary sources of data collection have been used. Within a research project, data was
collected through questionnaire because it is effective method in collecting of quantitative
information regarding the types of discrimination and their direct impact over employee’s
performance (Moll and et. al., 2018).
Sampling
Sampling refers to the systematic process by which respondents are selected randomly
from total population. In order to select sample, there are basically two techniques such as
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probability sampling and non-probability sampling. Both techniques are essential but according
to the existing topic or research, probability sampling has been followed. This technique assist
researcher to select large number of sample from total population. By using probability type of
sampling 70 employees of H&M will be selected on random basis. Another reason for selecting
such type of sampling as it support investigator by saving its time and by providing valid
outcomes from the respondent’s side. No-probability is another kind of sampling that will be not
appropriate according to the study because it take maximum time and nor provide valid
outcomes (Munsch, 2016).
Data analysis approach
Data analysis is a systematic process of analysing information by using research approach.
There are two approaches by which researcher can easily analysis information such as deductive
and inductive. Present research is based on quantitative data and for analysing and interpreting
quantitative information, deductive approach has been used. This approach support researcher in
analysing of information within any difficulty i.e. time. Along with this, in order to interpret
quantitative data, content analysis will be used because it facilitate is making of themes over
each close-ended questions. This turn to help researcher in analisation of data within limited time
period (Park and et. al., 2017).
Timeline of research activities
Timeline is significant part of the research because it support researcher in completion of
each activities within a set or allotted time period. For this part of the study, Gantt chart will be
applied because it is an effective graphical presentation tool that support in managing of time of
each activities. There are some benefits of using Gantt chart of research project such as easy to
schedule the activity, easy to understand each task, visual and clear representation of time
frames. Therefore, by understanding advantages of Gantt chart, research will used this in current
study (Rosenblat and et. al., 2017). Along with this, there are two approaches or types of time
horizon which are cross-sectional and longitudinal. Both approaches are effective in measuring
time period of research activities but according to the investigation, cross-sectional approach will
be followed. Main reason behind using cross-sectional approach as it helps researcher in ending
of project writhing specific time duration. Different number of activities according to the project
with their starting as well as ending time period will be shown as below:
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