Student Name UWIC ID number ICBT ID number Subject Name Subject Code

: Russell Ralph Williams : 20023761 : ICBT ID UWIC/MBA/MT/12/13 : Research Methodology : 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

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T a b l e o f Co n t e n t s
Executive Summery ................................................................................. 3 About HSBC (The Worlds Local Bank) ................................................. 3 Introduction............................................................................................ 4 Definition of Bullying / Abuse of power ............................................. 4 Bullying in an organization ................................................................. 4 The nature and extent of the workplace bullying at HSBC .................. 4 Research Objective ................................................................................. 5 Importance of conducting research on bullying and abuse of power in HSBC ....................................................................................................... 5 Research Approach ................................................................................. 7 ............................................................................................................. 7 Literature Review ................................................................................ 8 Methodology design Forum (Creating research instruments) ............. 9 Prevalence Forum (Quantitative Field Trial) .................................... 10 Validation of Hypothesis based on positive research outcome ............ 11 References ............................................................................................ 12 About HSBC ........................................................................................ 12 Introduction - About bullying and Bullying in an Organization ........ 12 Importance of carrying our research on bullying ............................. 12 Literature review ............................................................................... 12 Methodology design Forum ................................................................ 13 Prevalence Forum .............................................................................. 13 Literature Review Plan ......................................................................... 14 2

E x e c u t i v e S u mme r y
About HSBC (The Worlds Local 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 3

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.

Introduction
Prior to elaborating the effect of workplace bullying and abuse of power lets understand the definition of bullying and whats workplace bullying. Definition of Bullying / Abuse of 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 researchs has reviled that bullying does cause various health risks and could go to the extent of musculoskeletal problems and suicide. Bullying in an organization 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 nature and extent of the workplace bullying at 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. 4

Research Objective
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

I mp 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 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 Lets 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 its 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 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. Considering the above its 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.

R e s e a r c h A p p r oa c h
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.

Literature Review 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 8

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. Methodology design Forum (Creating research instruments) 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.

Prevalence Forum (Quantitative Field Trial) 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 its 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 ChiSquare 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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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 me
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 Introduction - About bullying and Bullying in an Organization 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 Importance of carrying our research on bullying http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/07/diagnose_and_eliminate_workplace.html http://books.google.lk/books?id=h8qYxAhmhUAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summ ary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Sited on 1st July 2012 Literature review 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 Sited on 1 July 2012 12

Methodology design Foru m http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/07/diagnose_and_eliminate_workplace.html Sited on 1 July 2012 Prevalence Forum http://www.bmj.com/content/318/7178/228.full Sited on 1 July 2012

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L i t e r a t u r e Re v i e w Pl a n
The below articles were read to further get information on bullying and to construct the given asingment.
Name of the book or journel refered version

Place Visited

Date of Visit

Authors Name Janet K Wilson

Title of The Article Bullying

Main area read Page 29-30

Internet 30/06/2012 Victimology WORKPLACE BULLYING IN SOUTHERN EUROPE: PREVALENCE, FORMS AND RISK GROUPS IN A Internet 01/07/2012 SPANISH SAMPLE INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS COPY RIGHT 2011 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research VOL 3, NO 5 Internet 01/07/2012 SEPTEMBER 2011 A study of Demographic Variables and their influence on teachers perception of bullying behaviour in a suburban new Internet 02/07/2012 jersey high school

Bernardo MorenoJimnez, Alfredo Rodrguez Muoz, Denise Salin Maria Eugenia Morante Benadero1

WORKPLACE BULLYING, RISK GROUPS AND NATIONAL DIFFERENCES

Page 96 -100

Prevalence and Forms of Workplace Bullying Dr. Rubina Hanif and among Aneeza Telecommunication Bashir(Corresponding Personnel in Page 634Author) Pakistan 637

Brian Purzak

Literature review

Page 13-17

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