¶ … measuring the variable of job satisfaction but not job performance. The survey is effective for the former because it is a measure of personal perception; the latter should be measured with FedEx's in-house performance appraisal systems. The disadvantage of the survey is that a worker is being asked his/her own perceptions of his/her own performance -- this is not the best way to measure performance. The Fort Wayne paper used the same approach, again introducing self-reflection bias to something that could have been measured objectively. FedEx in particular relies on objective data to evaluate its employees, so this was a missed opportunity on the part of the researcher. For questions about one's self, the survey method is strong, and thus ties directly to many of the research questions.
The deduction approach to research uses the data to test the hypothesis, but then expands that out to more general conclusions. The advantage of this technique is that knowledge about greater truths can be gained. For example, the FedEx paper found that workers like the telecommuting arrangement. The survey allowed for an understanding of why, and it is believed that these reasons can be extrapolated to a broader population. Fort Wayne had a similar structure with different questions, but again seeks to extend its findings about empowerment to a broader population.
Both surveys relied on convenience sampling. This technique is easier to execute...
Another advantage of convenience sampling is that all the respondents come from the same organization, which makes it easier to compare their experiences. With different organizations, the empowerment or the telecommuting might be too different to allow for reasonable comparison. The downside of convenience sampling is that it is harder to extrapolate those results to the population at large. There might be, for example, firm-specific factors at FedEx may have influenced the results of that survey, such that its findings would not apply to other companies. Self-selection has its own problems, in that there may be biases in the types of people who self-select, and those biases can skew the results.
The survey design in the FedEx study used a Likert scale, which has value in rating non-discrete subjective responses. The survey design is also relatively easy to evaluate the results . The Fort Wayne paper did not outline the survey design. This scale is easy to work with, but also allows for fairly accurate reflection on the part of the survey respondents. They can easily understand the survey as well, which makes this a good technique when working with the average worker at either of these organizations.
With respect to my own paper, the Fort Wayne paper does not outline much about the research methodology. That paper tells what methodology was utilized, but does not provide specific details or rationale, so is…
