A CASE STUDY OF SODEXO
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This research evaluates the management styles at Sodexo and the impact that such style shave on Personnel motivation. Sodexo is a popular international company whose services fall under the hospitality and catering sector. A total population of 25 respondents will be targeted in this study excluding any person in management with a 100% response rate. Questionnaires will be used to acquire information from the target participants. The study offers valuable insight into the wide array of management styles and the impact such management styles would have on employees’ motivation. The study’s result should indicate that for a business remain sustainable; the management should ensure that objectives and goals inclined towards employee motivation should be implemented for the organization's success. The management should be trained in contemporarily motivational theories and encouraged to apply them to motivate and help personnel to be fruitful. Based on the inferences to be attained from the research, it should be certain that Managerial Techniques have an impact on personnel inspiration at Sodexo.
Introduction
This research assesses management styles at Sodexo and the impact such styles have on the motivation of employees. Acts of misconduct, technological changes, unethical behavior, and globalization have intensely changed the management’s perceptions, particularly about the particular roles of the manager and his/her subordinate.
Rationale/Background of the study
Lately, Sodexo has been facing some challenges attributable to the various managerial styles the company adopted. Several employees have staged their frustrations and raised concerns about the management styles. Several employees have also conveyed their degree of de-motivation owing to these managerial styles. The pace of globalization and trends in technology and provision of services has resulted in new challenges for the management (Bendl et al. 2015)
Development of enterprises needs efficacy of managerial practices and different tactics of management to ensure the enterprise’s success through employee motivation. Management as a discipline requires working through and with stakeholders particularly employees. Managers ensure that organizational goals are achieved through practices such as controlling, leading, planning, and organizing. Motivation is a practice that accounts for a person’s intensity, persistence, and direction of efforts aimed at the attainment of goals (Mathe, Hervé, Pavie, and O'Keeffe 2012, p. 60.). Personnel are motivated through various methods and factors within organizations. Identifying and adopting the most applicable methods and factors is essential to management as an integral part for the business’s success.
This problem formed the background of this research. The researcher aims at conducting primary research to establish the implications that management styles have on employee motivation at Sodexo. The researcher intends to use the study to gain more knowledge in this field with the aim to progress professionally and in his/her career ambition. The researcher also aims to use this study to explore the most effective management styles that would guarantee staff motivation and increased productivity at Sodexo.
Aim of the Study
The study aims at investigating, identifying, and critically analyzing various techniques used by management within catering organizations.
Study objectives
The study’s objectives include: to identify various management styles utilized in Sodexo through secondary and primary research techniques, to evaluate the impact that managerial styles have on Sodexo’s personnel, and to recommend possible improvements and appropriate styles in Sodexo’s management to foster success.
Literature review
Solutions to the issues pertaining employee commitment, attachment, morale, and loyalty do involve not only the provision of motivators, but also the removal of de-motivating factors such as unsuitable managerial styles for the business’s context and unsuitable to current employee aspirations (Williams, 2013). Everyone has varying goals and could be motivated provided that there exist an affirmative correlation between performance and efforts. Also, a person could be motivated if effective performance guarantee an attractive reward, such incentive will serve an essential necessity. Moreover, where aspiration to fulfill such needs is strongly sufficient such efforts will be deemed important (Daft, 2013).
Personnel are more satisfied with management that is supportive and considerate than with management that is either critical towards employees or indifferent towards subordinates (Yukl 2005). Inspiration to of an individual to work is dependent on the association concerning instrumentality, valence, and expectation/anticipation. Expectation is the belief that hard work will lead to satisfaction of certain level of job performance. The belief that hard work and successful will lead to rewards is known as an instrumentality. Valence is a person’s value on rewards (outcomes) (Vroom 2006).
Study design and methodology
For this dissertation, the case study technique will be used. This will help to relate closelyto an actual situation and closely investigate motivation within personnel in a certain environment. The case study technique will be relevant in presenting a vivid relationship between the company’s success and personnel‘s work satisfaction. Quantitative and qualitative data will be used to gather necessary primary information for the study. Since questionnaires serve as an effective method of data collection, questionnaire techniques will be used. Moreover, questionnaire technique provides data that is easily applicable in various mathematical techniques. This will permit the researcher to transform raw data into important information to be presented in informative tables and graphs. The study will proceed using closed questions to assess the impact that managerial styles have on staff motivation at Sodexo.
For this research, the sample size was set at 25 workers (across age groups, both male, and females) who will be randomly selected for the survey from the entire Sodexo’s staff population excluding those in management. The potential participants will be staff members who have worked for Sodexo for at least one year. The study proposal is intended to be descriptive. Based on Zikmund (2003), a descriptive research gives solutions to ‘when, what who, how, and when’ queries. No incentives are to be given to the incentives, and the research will be based on the willingness of the participant to volunteer to be part of the research.
Ethical considerations
Similar to other research, this research has various limitations that could be inevitable. However, most ethical considerations to be encountered have solutions to overcome them. For instance, this study’s limitations is that the study focuses on hospitality and catering industry hence information gathered could not be generalized to other sectors or industries. Nevertheless, the various ethical considerations can be addressed accordingly as follows.
About consent, the researcher will seek permission fromSodexo. Also, permission will also be sought from potential respondents (personnel) before they are engaged in the research. To deal with deception, the researcher does not intend to use any deception. To ensure such a solution, clear information and details will be given about the research criteria and process. Moreover, the potential respondents will be informed that participation is voluntary and will be fully anonymous. To curb deception, the research will also be conducted honestly with the researcher’s presence during actual data collection to eradicate bias and misunderstandings.
There will also be debriefing sessions for the respondents during which they can seek clarification on concerning issues about the research. These debrief will help the respondents be at par with the research. While dealing with withdrawals of respondents from the research activities, it will be communicated that any respondent who would like to withdraw his/her involvement regardless of the reason will be free to do so anytime during the research. Confidentiality is another ethical issue that decreases the willingness of potential respondents to take part in research. To solve confidentiality issues, anonymity and confidentiality will be retained throughout the study for all the participants.
Some kinds of research require protecting the participants, particularly where there are legal matters that could raise controversy and harm/retaliation to respondents. However, this research poses no physical risk to the participants. At times, the researcher may be asked to give advice to the respondents. For this study, the researcher has no intentions to give advice to the participants. However, any organization-related issues that will be raised or asked by a participant, the respondent will be directed to the firm’s representative.
Research taking place in public areas is subject to disruption. To avoid disruption, necessary steps will be taken such as using tents to prevent walk-through or visual distractions during sessions. Moreover, Data protection will be ensured by processing data from the research guided by the Data Protection Act of 1998. Since the research does not entail animals, there is no ethical concern on animal rights that will require being addressed. Also, protection of the environment is not an issue to deal with in the research since the study does not interfere with the environment.
Resources
The research will be primarily based on primary sources of information to acquire data such as questionnaires, books guiding on various managerial techniques and their impacts on worker’s inspiration, magazines, and a computer/laptop to help in storage of data and further research on the Internet.
An appropriate questionnaire containing different kinds of questions will be developed to gather information. The questionnaire will contain three sections. The first section will be on the leadership style; the second section will focus on employee motivation while the third section will entail demographics. The management style questions on the first section will be based on Avolio and Bass’s (2006) MLQ. MLQ refers to the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. MLQ was created to assess a wide array of management and leadership styles ranging from managers who transform subordinates into managers to management that give contingent rewards to employees, and passive management. Motivation questions section will be from WMS.
For this research, the questionnaire will use focus group questions consisting of twenty-six questions to measure the major traits of management and will scored/coded on a scale of 0 to 4. The motivation section will consist ten items that will be adapted to a seven-component scale to ensure appropriate data interpretation and coding. Demographic items will be founded on past empirical and theoretical research. Finally, data analysis will be completed using SPSS, and the validity of results will be proven through appropriate statistical means.
Reference:
Avolio, B. J., & Bass, B. M. (2006). Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire: Sampler set, manual, forms, andscoring key (3rd ed.). Menlo Park, CA: Mind Garden, Inc.
Avolio, B. J. and Avolio, B. J., (2011). Full range leadership development. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Bendl, R., Bleijenbergh, I., Henttonen, E., Mills, A. J., Öztürk, M. B., Tatli, A., and Özbilgin, M., (2015). Global Diversity Management. The Oxford Handbook of Diversity in Organizations.
Daft, R. L., (2013). Management. Place of publication not identified: South-western.
Mathe Hervé, Pavie, X., and O'Keeffe, M., 2012. Valuing people to create value: an innovative approach to leveraging motivation at work. Singapore: World Scientific.
Trochim, W. M. K. (2006). Research Methods Knowledge Base. [Online]. Available from:
http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/qualval.php. [Date Accessed 15 February 2016].
Vroom, V. H., (2006). Work and motivation. New York: Wiley.
Williams, C., (2013). Effective management. Australia: South-Western.
Yukl G.A. (2005). Toward a Behaviorial Theory of leadership, Organization Behavior and Human Performance.Vol.6, pp. 414-44
Zikmund, W. G., (2003). Business research methods. Mason, OH: Thomson/South-Western.
