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Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Research Proposal
Melissa Hawkins
December 5, 2010
McDaniel College
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Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Executive Summary
XYZ Salon has had a noticeable decrease in pre-booked appointments which is a main
source of revenue. The owners of XYZ Salon have been struggling to determine why the loss has
occurred and how they can overcome this obstacle. Hawkins Consulting Firm has been contacted
to help solve this issue. As a result of this challenge, Hawkins Consulting Firm has designed a
study on motivation and reward systems to overcome the management dilemma. Employee
motivation and reward systems were chosen based on the fact that client pre-books are the direct
result of the stylist/client interaction process. The purpose of the study is to determine if client
pre-booking rates can be increased by increasing employee motivation to have clients pre-book
their next appointments. This study will address these issues by conducting a posttest-only
design experiment. The study will be a cross-sectional communication study that will manipulate
motivation through three treatments: no treatment, praise, and praise and a monetary reward. The
goal of this manipulation is to determine if there is a relationship between motivation and
rewards and to use this relationship to overcome the decrease in client pre-books.
Problem Statement
The majority of income obtained by XYZ Salon is received through pre-booked
appointments versus walk-in appointments. The stylists at XYZ are commissioned based and
only receive a salary for customers on which they perform hair treatments. Recently XYZ Salon
has noticed a significant decrease in the amount of pre-booked appointments resulting in
significantly lower sales revenues. The owners of XYZ Salon want information regarding why
the pre-book rates have dropped and what can be done to raise and maintain pre-booking rates.
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Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
The purpose of this study is to determine if increasing employee motivation will increase client
pre-booking rates.
Research Objectives
The purpose of this research is to determine whether or not increasing employee
motivation through the use of a reward system will increase client pre-booking rates. More
specifically, the research will:

Determine if a relationship exists between rewards and employee motivation

Discover what rewards motivate employees

Develop a cost effective method to reward employees

Develop a measurement tool to record motivation
In order to reach these goals, reward must be defined. Next, the reward must be
associated with the desired outcome to see if this paring will produce higher pre-booking rates.
The information provided from this study will allow XYZ Salon to enhance profitability for the
business and the staff members by increasing client pre-booking rates.
Literature Review
“A Review of employee Motivation Theories and their Implications for Employee
Retention within Organizations” is a reflective article that detailed several historical theories of
motivation. Ramlall’s (2004) purpose was to analyze theories of motivation and to use them to
reduce employee turnover. According to Ramlall’s article employee turnover is extremely costly
to businesses and because of this cost it is important to find ways to reduce employee turnover
rates. The author believed that “motivation may impact employee commitment in an
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Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
organization” (Ramlall, 2004, p. 53). It is logical to conclude that an employee that felt
committed to and organization would be less likely to quit. Ramlall cited Maslow’s Need
Hierarchy Theory as tool that provided managers a system to motivate employees. People need
psychological reminders that they have met the need of security. Praise and rewards are
recognized as contributors to this belief. Furthermore, these two items fulfill affiliation and
esteem needs (Ramlall, 2004). This knowledge is imperative to the current research proposal
because it demonstrates that rewards and recognition are important to employees. Additionally, it
recognizes that when motivational strategies are used higher job performance occurs (Ramlall,
2004). Job performance in the current research proposal is directly related to motivation and if
history stands true, client pre-booking rates should increase as a result of increased motivation.
“Increasing Intrinsic Motivation with Performance-Contingent Reward” is a research
study that was designed to determine if offering rewards for employee performance would
increase intrinsic motivation towards job performance. The author conducted this study in order
to dispute conflicting views that researchers held regarding this topic. The author argues that
many discrepancies occur about incentive programs because most are conducted in a lab and not
a realistic study (Lopez, 1981). In order to avoid this conflict the author conducted research at a
real telephone company. Using a pretest/posttest design the author tested if intrinsic motivation,
work performance and feedback changed as a result of offering a performance contingent reward
(Lopez, 1981). The findings supported that author’s hypothesis that as a result of offering a
reward intrinsic motivation, perceived personal control over performance, and perceived
feedback would significantly increase (Lopez, 1981). The findings by the author directly support
the methods being used for the current study.
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Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
“The New Employee Reward System” focuses on reward programs put in place by
businesses for their employees. The author points out businesses tend to focus on the
organizational performance as a basis for success rather than recognizing their human capital
assets (Gibson, 1995). The author cites research conducted by the Consortium for Alternative
Reward Strategies (CARS) that found that providing rewards for employees not only improves
performance but rather they tend to have high return on investments. The author argues for
business leaders to develop reward plans in relation to organizational goals. By having rewards
and goals contingent on each other the performance goes up and the business is more successful.
Furthermore, the CARS study showed that for every dollar spent by the organization on reward
programs, over two dollars was gained in return (Gibson, 1995). This article demonstrates that
rewards do motivate employees.
“Force Versus Choice, or Force and Choice? An Integrative Model of Expectancy
Theory” is a detailed article that depicts the two views of Vroom’s Expectancy Theory. The
article argues that the two views should be viewed as compliments of one another versus
opponents. The two main views are the choice models and force models. The author argues that
while both theories give an idea as to why people are motivated towards goals, they cannot
answer all questions involved with goal accomplishment. However, by combining the two
theories, researchers better explain why people with the same goals exert different amounts of
effort to achieve those goals (Kopf, 1992). Expectancy force “hypothesizes that the more force
toward high performance, the more highly motivated the individual will be toward high
performance, the more effort they will exert, and the higher the performance will be” (Kopf,
1992, p. 133). Expectancy choice hypothesizes “that when faced with a choice between
alternative behaviors, the individual will choose the behavior which he/she anticipates will
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Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
provide the most pleasure or avoid the most pain” (Kopf, 1992, p. 134). The current study, like
the article, will combine force and choice expectancy theories. Each of the participants have the
same goal which is to have clients pre-book their next appointments. However the motivation to
complete this task varies amongst stylists. Combining force and choice allows us to combat
differing motivating factors.
“Focusing Company Reward Systems to Help Achieve Business Objectives” provides an
overview of several well known organizations and incentive/reward plans that they put into place
to improve performance. Performance in this article was defined as alignment with
organizational goals. The article then gave several guidelines on how to create efficient and
successful reward plans for the reader’s business. The author recommends that business leaders
need understand that there is no one “best” approach to reward programs. However if they focus
on more than compensation for management, not getting locked into traditional reward systems,
have an adaptive reward program that is simple to understand, and remember that money is not
the only type of reward to give, they will better motivate their employees and in turn work
performance will increase (Tomasko, 1982).
Importance and Benefits
As a direct result of this study, XYZ Salon will learn what motivates their employees.
Furthermore, the salon will be able to put a system into place that allows them to increase
profitability by guaranteeing future business. Secondly, by learning how and what motivates
XYZ employees, the leaders of XYZ will be more likely to be successful at implementing new
programs because they will know how to get employees excited and exert effort towards
program commitment.
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Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
The study will also be conducted in the field versus a laboratory setting allowing us to
generalize our results. External validity is also made higher because our sample directly
represents our population. We are using the entire population of XYZ Salon to conduct our study
and know the results will accurately reflect the group we have chosen to study.
Research Design
A true experimental design will be conducted using a posttest-only control group design.
This type of design has been selected because it allows for a control group and randomization of
sample. Having these two features increases internal validity and the ability to generalize the
results to the subject population. The sampling method being used is non-probability sampling.
The entire population of XYZ Salon will be selected through convenience sampling. Then all 60
employees of XYZ will be randomly selected into three groups of 20 participants each. The
selection will be done using simple random selection. The experiment will be a cross-sectional,
communication study conducted over 90 days. Each group will be monitored for 30 days. The
first to be monitored is the control group. The control group will receive no reward for any client
pre-books. Pre-book is operationally defined as any client of an XYZ Salon Stylist that schedules
his or her next hair service appointment before leaving the business. The second group will
receive praise as a reward for every client pre-book. Praise is operationally defined as a card
given at the end of the XYZ employee’s shift congratulating them on the pre-books made that
day and verbal recognition by a manger for getting clients to pre-book. Verbal recognition is
defined as a manger telling a XYZ Stylist good job or great work on having your clients prebook. The third group will be monitored over the last 30 day period and given praise as well as a
monetary incentive for each client that has pre-booked. The monetary incentive is operationally
defined as receiving an additional $5.00 in cash at the end of a XYZ Stylist’s shift for each client
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Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
that has pre-booked his or her next appointment. The data that is collected will be whether or not
a client pre-booked an appointment. Each group will be compared at the end of the study to
determine which had the highest success rate.
The type of data being recorded is nominal and ratio. The descriptive statistics
being used are measures of central tendency and measures of variability. The nominal data,
which is gender, will use the measures of central tendency. The unit will be the mode. The
amount of clients pre-booking will be evaluated with measures of variability in order to improve
interpretability because incorporating standard deviation shows the variability amongst the data.
In order to maintain the highest ethical standards an informed consent will be given that
acknowledges the risks and benefits to the participants. Participants will be told that they do not
have to be part of the study if they choose not to and have the opportunity to leave the study at
any time. Some deception will be used in order to try and control for participant bias. We will
tell employees that we are studying clients pre-book in hope to prevent the participant from
acting how he or she believes the observer wishes. Once the study is over all participants will be
debriefed and given a full explanation of the study. The need for the deception will be addressed
and the results of the study will be shared with all participants.
Data Collection
Data will be collected at the end of business day at XYZ Salon. Observers are
documenting how many clients that had appointments that day pre-booked their next hair
appointment. The rater sheet will have an allotted space for each XYZ Stylist and the number of
clients the stylist had that day. The XYZ stylist will be identified as male or female using a
nominal scale. The client pre-book will be recorded using a ratio scale.
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Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Data Analysis
The independent variables of the study are no treatment, praise, and praise and monetary
compensation. The dependent variable is the client pre-booked appointment. The data is ratio
which means a parametric test will be used to analyze the results. The specific statistical test that
is being recommended is Pearson correlation coefficient. This has been suggested because the
research is trying to determine a relationship of association between multiple variables.
Nature and Form of Results
There are two types of descriptive statistics that will be presented. The gender results are
nominal data and will be presented using a bar chart. This will provide a clear image of the
amount of men versus women stylists. The client pre-book results are ratio data and will be
presented using a box plot.
Expected Outcomes/Deliverables
As a result of the study, the expected outcome is that by emplacing an effective reward
system at XYZ will motivate XYZ employees to get their clients to pre-book their next hair
service. By learning what treatment has the most success, XYZ can develop a reward program to
continue to give incentives to employees to pre-book their clients increasing overall profitability
of the business and the employees. Utilizing this information XYZ Salon will be able to use
motivation as means to help correct and potentially prevent future financial difficulties.
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Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
References
Gibson, V. (1995). The new employee reward system. (cover story). Management Review,
84(2), 13-18. Retrieved from MasterFILE Premier.
Kopf, J. (1992). Force versus choice, or force and choice? an integrative model of expectancy
theory. Human Resource Management Review, 2(2), 131-142. Retrieved from Business
Source Premier.
Lopez, E. (1981). Increasing intrinsic motivation with performance-contingent reward. Journal
of Psychology, 108(1), 59-65. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete.
Ramlall, S. (2004). A review of employee motivation theories and their implications for
employee retention within organizations. Journal of American Academy of Business,
Cambridge, 5 (1/2), 52-63. Retrieved from Business Source Premier.
Tomasko, R. (1982). Focusing company reward systems to help achieve business objectives.
Management Review, 71(10) 8-12. Retrieved from Business Source Premier.