Student Name : Russell Ralph Williams

UWIC ID number : 20023761

ICBT ID number : ICBT ID UWIC/MBA/MT/12/13

Subject Name : Research Methodology

Subject Code : 7004

Assessment number : One

Statement of Originality of submitted work

I Russell Ralph Williams

bearing student UWIC ID number 20023761 &

ICBT ID UWIC/MBA/MT/12/13

of batch number 12

hereby confirm that the work presented here under

Research Methodology Assignment 1 (Subject ID 7004)

in this reports and in all other associated material; is wholly my own work

and I agree to assessment for plagiarism

Signature : ………………………………………

Date : ………………………………………

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Table of Contents

E x e c u t i v e S u m m e r y ....................................................................................................................................... 3

A b o u t H S B C ( T h e W o r l d s L o c a l B a n k ) ...................................................................................3

I n t r o d u c t i o n ......................................................................................................................................................... 4

D e f i n i t i o n o f B u l l y i n g / A b u s e o f p o w e r ............................................................................4

B u l l y i n g i n a n o r g a n i z a t i o n .............................................................................................................4

T h e n a t u r e a n d e x t e n t o f t h e w o r k p l a c e b u l l y i n g a t H S B C ..............................4

R e s e a r c h O b j e c t i v e ........................................................................................................................................ 5

I m p o r t a n c e o f c o n d u c t i n g r e s e a r c h o n b u l l y i n g a n d a b u s e o f p o w e r i n

H S B C ............................................................................................................................................................................. 5

R e s e a r c h A p p r o a c h ........................................................................................................................................ 7

...................................................................................................................................................................................... 7

L i t e r a t u r e R e v i e w ...................................................................................................................................... 8

M e t h o d o l o g y d e s i g n F o r u m ( C r e a t i n g r e s e a r c h i n s t r u m e n t s ) ......................9

P r e v a l e n c e F o r u m ( Q u a n t i t a t i v e F i e l d T r i a l ) .............................................................1 0

V a l i d a t i o n o f H y p o t h e s i s b a s e d o n p o s i t i v e r e s e a r c h o u t c o m e ....................1 1

R e f e r e n c e s .......................................................................................................................................................... 1 2

A b o u t H S B C ................................................................................................................................................... 1 2

I n t r o d u c t i o n - A b o u t b u l l y i n g a n d B u l l y i n g i n a n O r g a n i z a t i o n .............1 2

I m p o r t a n c e o f c a r r y i n g o u r r e s e a r c h o n b u l l y i n g ..................................................1 2

L i t e r a t u r e r e v i e w ....................................................................................................................................1 2

M e t h o d o l o g y d e s i g n F o r u m ...........................................................................................................1 3

P r e v a l e n c e F o r u m ...................................................................................................................................1 3

L i t e r a t u r e R e v i e w P l a n .......................................................................................................................... 1 4

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Execut ive Summery

About HSBC (The Wor lds Loca l Bank)

The roots of HSBC dates back to 1865 in which two individuals named Thomas Sutherland and

Scot realised potential in banking facilities in Hong Kong and China. The main reason for this

formation was centring to finance the growing trade between Europe, India and China. Since its

beginning HSBC was achieving many milestones some of which been the first bank to be

established in Thailand. First public loan issued in China. The institute that was established in

1865 has spread its financial arm today across 87 countries and territories. HSBC today is one of

the largest financial services organisations building a strong brand in the world.

As the bank spread its financial arm it marked its presence in the Perl of the Indian ocean in

1892. HSBC today is the second oldest bank in Sri Lanka. In 2012 HSBC created another mile

stone celebrating 120 years of banking in Sri Lanka.

Since 1892 HSBC in Sri Lanka has grown and today accounts to a work force of 1700

employees and catering to customer needs and demands in 16 branches. The organization is

currently led by Mr. Nick Nicalaou cascading various management styles and models in striving

to take HSBC Sri Lanka to further new heights.

Having a back ground of the bank is to provide an overview of the organization. In the

following context I would speak to you about the prevalence of Bullying and the abuse of power

in my organization and the recommendation that could be proposed based on a thorough

research.

Being employed at HSBC since 2004 and been in different levels of the management hierarchy

of the organization. I have been able to understand as to how prevalent work place bullying is in

my organization and the consequences faced by both parties namely the employer and the

employee. The research assignment to be carried out below would constitute the methodologies

of various literature reviews and personal experiences that would collaborate and provide certain

aspects that the senior management would be able to physically carry out and be able to

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implement certain guidelines to mitigate workplace bullying and abuse of power in HSBC Sri

Lanka. This aspect could be further carried out globally within HSBC based on the positive

outcome of the research.

Introduct ion

Prior to elaborating the effect of workplace bullying and abuse of power lets understand the

definition of bullying and what’s workplace bullying.

Def in i t i on o f Bu l ly ing / Abuse o f power

The internet consists of many various definitions of bullying however the one that I feel more

appropriate is as given below.

“An intentional act of aggression, based on an imbalance of power, that is meant to harm a

victim either physically or psychologically.”

The reason I believe this is more appropriate to our assignment is that we often believe or pursue

that bullying is just bugging an individual and it does not have a major effect on the given person

however research’s has reviled that bullying does cause various health risks and could go to the

extent of musculoskeletal problems and suicide.

Bul ly ing in an organ iza t ion

Workplace bullying contains a greater degree of damage to both organization and the employee.

This often reflects use of abuse or misuse of authority. When a victim is been bullied in an

organization he or she losses or underestimates its right to dignity at work. This is mainly since

the victim feels defenseless.

The na ture and ex ten t o f the workp lace bu l ly ing a t HSBC

Workplace bullying is prevalent in all organizations and the rule of thumb applies to HSBC as

well. However based on personal experience levels bullying in HSBC is prevalent in all aspects

of the organization. However prior to coming in to a conclusion on this as well as to assess the

degree of damage and effects this has on the organization and employer a thorough research

under the below guidelines needs to be carried out and upon its outcome respective actions

would need to be addressed by the senior management.

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Research Object ive

To determine the prevalence of bullying and abuse of power in HSBC Sri Lanka (workplace

environment) further to investigate the association and prevalence of bullying and abuse of

power among college aged students, the effects both the victim and HSBC faces and the factors

that encourage bullying and abuse of power.

The outcome of the research would further provide insight on the below topics

Does bullying contribute for high staff turnover

Does bullying increase cost to income ratio

Does bullying reduce productivity at workplace

Importance of conduct ing research on bul ly ing and abuse of

power in HSBC

The importance of carrying out a research on bullying and abuse of power in HSBC is mainly to

ascertain the drawbacks and repercussions it consists to its organization as well as to the

employee. Furthermore the workplace is the second home of any employees career lifespan. The

reason I speak about this is from 24 hours a rough 9-10 hours are spent in the office and another

1-2 hours are spent on the road and a rest of 8 hours is taken on your bed which leaves an

employee to be with his/her family for about 4 hours so correctly speaking the workplace is your

second home. Thus if this second home is a health hazarders environment immediate action

needs to be taken to understand the consequences and find a remedy if bullying or abuse of

power is the cause for such drawbacks. In order to understand this Let’s look at this in two

aspects to evaluate the importance of the above topic.

Organization Aspect – Although bullying is not been legislatively approved in the courts of law

in Sri Lanka as an offence it’s the organizations duty to have guidelines and controls to eliminate

bullying in an organization. The main reason for this is when bullying persist in an organization

this leads to High levels of absentisam, High staff Turnover, Lower productivity and High

expenses. Thus having rules and guidelines implemented to control bullying is a mandatory in

any organization. From my organization point of view even though guidelines are there on

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harassment there are no guidelines on abuse of power or bullying thus one golden rule that we

should consider is to implementation of such guidelines that would restrict undue action by

bullies however this needs to be proven by actual statistical data and research to come to a

conclusion.

Employee Aspect – When an employer becomes a victim for bullying he or she loses here

dignity at the workplace this reflects in the employer not been motivated to work towards the

organizations goals further employee separation or isolation could occur as result no team

engagement thus less productivity and low levels of customer service.

Considering the above aspects and when an organization is geared to achieve it primary goals of

meeting shareholder expectations such bullying or abuse of power hinders the organization

meeting its goals since certain employees are not doing their core duties and further hindering

other individuals as well which results in the organization incurring additional expenses and not

meeting the primary organization objective.

The below example would better evaluate as to why bullying needs to be controlled or

eliminated in HSBC.

HSBC recruits employees mainly looking at the age range of 20-27 this is mainly since

employees tend to better perform in this age group as opposed to other age groups. The main

reason for this selection is the candidates are eager to find a job and also they are less of having

commitments. HSBC spends closed to around LKR100,000-125,000 per candidate this includes

advertising, selection, screening, conducting examinations, 4 stages of interviewing and a one

week induction programme. Once a candidate has completed this recruitment process he or she is

then put in to a department in which a vacancy exists. Here some senior Bankers exercise undue

power or bully the person and the newcomer gets affected and does not have the capacity to

tolerate the criticism and leaves the job. The company losses the investment made towards the

employee in a matter of weeks. Due to this, several complications arises. Work been stagnated,

Employees not concentrating on their core task but spending time on bullying others, bullied

victim could spread a bad sense about the organization which could result in bad reputation.

Victim could be involved in other stress associated illness and the organization could be

categorized as not a friendly place to work.

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Considering the above it’s mandatory that HSBC do research to ascertain the extent and

prevalence of bullying in the organization and take appropriate steps to eradicate it. Further the

hypothesis selected could only be positively validated by solely conducting a research on the

given topic.

Research Approach

Considering the importance of Bullying on the given topic the below steps are proposed to carry

out the research. The project is planned to be executed under 3 main forums.

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Li tera ture Rev i ew

A detailed study was carried out in obtaining and asserting information pertaining to workplace

bullying and the abuse of power. Based on the research carried out I noticed that not much

research are been carried out locally, however some local articles reflects concerns on bullying.

The article published by R. Cooray in 11 June 2011 reflects that Human resources department

should ideally consist of a counselor who would work on the best interest of the victim. With due

respect to the writer I would like to criticize this statement that its not only Human resources

department that should have such employees but such individuals should be trained at all levels

of the organization so that individuals who act as bullies too would be aware that bullying and

abuse of power is a negative aspect and obtaining self-satisfaction from such scenario is not

worth while considering the consequences it carries.

Diagnose and Eliminate Workplace Bullying by Baron Christopher Hanson July 13, 2011 The

process shared by the above publisher is a worthwhile capture to any organisation. This

resembles the process to eliminate bullying and the characteristics of a bullying individual. And

further more a point structure to ascertain or analyze a bullying circumstance.

Age-related Workplace Bullying by Lynda Moultry Belcher, Demand Media Published. The

comments shared by the above individuals article is acknowledged by me cause bullying is a age

related topic and from my personal experience I have noticed that this is more prevalent in

college aged employees. The reason to this is since they are at times too immature or trend to act

as they know the whole work flow of the organization. In such instances the senior staff tends to

bully or miss use their power to nag on such employees.

The article shared in the below website provides a comprehensive assessment of consequences

both the employee and the employer faces due to bullying. As I fully acknowledge the article

published by the writer I would further like to emphasis that the organization culture too plays a

key role when it comes for bullying. Considering my organization the culture been built is

positive that even though bullying exists in the organization its not considered as a main

hindering factor in employee commitment and productivity. The reason for this is each employee

and mainly new recruits consists of a mentor who could be approached by the employee directly

for any type of discomfort as an example when an individual is been bullied and the employee

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shares this with the mentor he or she takes appropriate action promptly by escalating this to the

concerned party and his or her request is always positively or constructively taken in to act by

the individual.

Methodo logy des ign Forum (Crea t ing re search ins t ruments )

Having grasped knowledge on workplace bullying and the abuse of power via various articles its

now to reflect as to how the above literature reviews would be applicable to our organization. In

order to ascertain this requirement I have selected a questioner to be shared among all the

employees at HSBC Sri Lanka. One might wonder as to why rather than obtaining a sample of

candidates as to why the entire employee base has been selected for this research. In simple

bullying and abuse of power is a subject that should not be considered lightly thus obtaining

feedback from all employees would provide more accurate statistics. In a percentage manner I

plan to cover 99.5% of the employee base of 1700 employees. Apart from accuracy on

practicality prospect this is possible since 99.5% of the employees has an office computer

assigned to them. Thus thorough the use of Information Technology a web based programme

could be developed this would then be automatically linked to each individuals personal

computer via the company intranet site that would pop up when he or she access the computer in

the morning. The process would need the help and support of the stakeholders and Human

Resources Department providing clearance to carry out a survey and IT team help to develop the

web based questioner. The survey would take only 10 minutes for a user to complete which

would enable us to obtain a more accurate survey result to ascertain the prevalence of bullying

and the abuse of power in my organization. The survey is planned to be run for a time period of

One month which would further improve participation levels. This is considering if staff has

gone on leave or overseas training these individuals would then not be missed out. The

information once populated could be filtered under department levels which would further guide

us to see as to which areas would consist of high levels of bullying and abuse of power.

The survey questioner should consists of information which will represent age group,

management level, department level further the questions should be easy to answer such as

providing the users a scale to ascertain the impact. Further all information collated should be

anonymous and should secure confidentiality of the employer.

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Preva l ence Forum (Quant i ta t i ve F i e ld Tr ia l )

Based on the feedback that would be carried out in the methodology design forum the outcome

could be filtered to our desire. Since the survey proposed is to be done electronically it should

obtain maximum response as well and it’s the most cost effective mode to conduct a survey to

the entire group of employees. A similar process is been carried out in our organization annually

to understand the employee pulse this specific survey is been carried out right across the group of

HSBC and collates the information to understand what an employee feels of the organization the

response rate on this is around 95%. Based on the survey results the management takes steps to

act on same promptly. Considering the above aspect I believe the methodology been considered

to collect data is the best suitable and most accurate mode to conduct the proposed research. In

my organization thus I have not opted for any analysis to evaluate the correctness of the sample

size since I have considered and justified to use the entire organization as a whole. The Chi-

Square or T Test mechanism has not been utilized.

The research would provide an outcome somewhat like the below.

The extent of prevalence of bullying in HSBC – This could be further broken down to

department wise.

The Gender which is mostly affected due to bullying

The Age group in which bullying is highly represented

The effect of bullying in HSBC

Influencing factors on bullying

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Validat ion of Hypothes is based on posi t ive research outcome

Based on a positive research and literature review reflections the hypothesis given below would

reflect positive or be true on the context that Bullying and abuse of power in HSBC prevails .

Does bullying contribute for high staff turnover

As per the literature review been studied all reviews reflect staff absentisam due to bullying and

abuse of power in an organization this would be the same outcome if a research is carried out and

reflects a positive outcome.

Does bullying increase cost to income ratio

As reflected that to recruit and train a candidate HSBC spends around LKR100,000-125,000 if

the staff turnover is high due to employees leaving promptly due not been able to absorb the

stress of been bullied the organization would incur high levels of expenses thus increasing the

cost to income ratio.

Does bullying reduce productivity at workplace

All literature reviews referred reflects the productivity levels falling down and this would be the

same outcome in HSBC as well provided that the research reflects a positive outcome.

Further note that if the outcome of the research reflects a negative outcome it evaluates that

bullying and abuse of power does not exist in HSBC.

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References

About HSBC

http://www.hsbc.com/1/2/about/history/history

http://www.hsbc.lk

Sited on 30th June 2012

In troduc t ion - About bu l ly ing and Bu l ly ing in an Organ iza t ion

http://www.realpsychology.com/content/gps-parents-and-teachers/definition-bullying

http://www.lni.wa.gov/safety/research/files/bullying.pdf

Sited on 30th June 2012

Impor tance o f carry ing our re search on bu l ly ing

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/07/diagnose_and_eliminate_workplace.html

http://books.google.lk/books?

id=h8qYxAhmhUAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q

&f=false

Sited on 1st July 2012

Li tera ture rev i ew

http://sundaytimes.lk/110612/BusinessTimes/bt07.html

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/07/diagnose_and_eliminate_workplace.html

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/agerelated-workplace-bullying-20425.html

http://stopbullyingsa.com.au/factors.asp

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Sited on 1 July 2012

Methodo logy des ign Forum

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/07/diagnose_and_eliminate_workplace.html

Sited on 1 July 2012

Preva l ence Forum

http://www.bmj.com/content/318/7178/228.full

Sited on 1 July 2012

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Literature Review Plan

The below articles were read to further get information on bullying and to construct the given

asingment.

Place Visited

Date of Visit

Name of the book or journel refered version Authors Name Title of The Article

Main area read

Internet 30/06/2012 Victimology Janet K Wilson Bullying Page 29-30

Internet 01/07/2012

WORKPLACE BULLYING IN SOUTHERN EUROPE: PREVALENCE, FORMS AND RISK GROUPS IN A SPANISH SAMPLE

Bernardo Moreno-Jiménez,Alfredo Rodríguez Muñoz,Denise SalinMaria Eugenia Morante Benadero1

WORKPLACE BULLYING, RISK GROUPS AND NATIONAL DIFFERENCES Page 96 -100

Internet 01/07/2012

INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESSCOPY RIGHT © 2011 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business ResearchVOL 3, NO 5SEPTEMBER 2011

Dr. Rubina Hanif and Aneeza Bashir(Corresponding Author)

Prevalence and Forms of Workplace Bullying among TelecommunicationPersonnel in Pakistan

Page 634-637

Internet 02/07/2012

A study of Demographic Variables and their influence on teachers perception of bullying behaviour in a suburban new jersey high school Brian Purzak Literature review Page 13-17

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