PROBLEM STATEMENT:

For decades, it was thought that playing music in our places of work would boost morale and productivity. In the 1970s, Alfred Kinsey developed a 90-minute music at work labelled Stimulus Progression, which was released by Muzak, the background-music merchants. Muzak originally set out to rally workers with 15-minute cycles of slowly climaxing music.

The BBC piped what was considered to be an uplifting light music show Music While You Work into factories during the war, but work music fell out of favour among everyone but mechanics and maverick surgeons. Now, it seems, office music may be making a return. PRS for Music, which gathers royalties for the industry, granted 27,000 licences to workplaces to play music last year 8% more than in 2015 (Usborne, 2017). Anecdotal evidence is rife of the widespread streaming of Spotify playlists across desks.

According to Usborne (2017), a number of firms in the digital agency space and start-ups have several Spotify accounts and music licenses. A number of these firms play calmer music when harmony is required in the business and faster-tempo songs when people are lagging. Are we set for a new era of employee productivity?

ABC Ltd (not the real name) is a major South African-domiciled Telecommunications and Information Technology company, employing close to 17 000 individuals across the country. The company began its operations in the early 1990s and has grown in leaps and bounds over the years to become a multinational concern with operations across a number of developing countries in Africa and Asia. Operating at the forefront of the knowledge economy, the companys rapid growth and success has been fuelled primarily by its strategic focus on a highly-skilled and innovative workforce, majority of whom are under 30 years of age. Secondly, management has always viewed customer satisfaction, retention and loyalty as critical ingredients to the companys future growth and profitability.

However, in the last few years, in the midst of rising competitive pressures and regulatory constraints within the maturing South African telecommunications industry, ABC Ltd has experienced a marked decrease in organisational commitment, increased staff turnover, and loss of talent. This has resulted in a deterioration of the quality of its services and increased customer dissatisfaction. Coincidentally, a recent employee survey highlighted an unexpected observation roughly 55 per cent of employees under 30 years of age cited freedom to listen to music at work as important for sustained performance at work and a morale booster in the stressful work environment. This revelation suggests that music is part and parcel of the life of many ABC employees both at home and at work. The survey also revealed that for a third of the employees, an ideal company to work for in the future is one that would offer its employees, among others, an opportunity to devote a few working hours every week to nested activities of professional interest. Citing google and a few other global tech companies as examples, 60 per cent of employees expressed a desire for ABC Ltd to adopt a more experimental, employee-focused, laissez-faire culture.

These and other findings from the survey suggest a mismatch of expectations internally and a rift between what appears to be a top-down, static corporate culture characterised by enforced adherence to rigid procedures and a more youthful bottom-up, aspirational and pragmatic organisational culture, which embraces a blend of creative angst and modern practicality. In summary, the growth and success of ABC Ltd in this evolving environment, will depend on its ability to inspire the energies and contributions of all its diverse employees to its cause through a new strategy which takes into consideration elements of the emerging organisational culture.

REQUIRED:

The management of ABC Ltd suspects that the findings from the survey have implications for the companys strategic direction and wants a detailed follow-up investigation to be conducted to determine the likely impact of allowing music to be played in the workplace. You are part of a team of business researchers that has been contracted by ABC Ltd to undertake an empirical investigation into the impact of workplace music on employee affective commitment and organisational commitment.

The team has been given six months to conclude the investigation and to submit a report of the investigation to the management of ABC Ltd. The following objectives of the investigation have been assigned to the investigation team:

To measure the impact of workplace music on employee affective commitment at ABC Ltd;

To determine the impact of workplace music on organisational commitment at ABC Ltd;

To determine the impact of workplace music on staff turnover and loss of talent at ABC Ltd; and

To draw conclusions from the empirical study and offer practical recommendations on how to enhance employee affective commitment and organisational commitment at ABC Ltd.

Please outline how you would go about conducting the investigation with reference to the following:

1.1 Suggest a title for this study. (2)

1.2 State the aim(s) and the significance of this investigation. (3)

1.3 State FOUR (4) Research Questions that your investigation will attempt to answer. (4)

1.4 Motivate a research philosophy, a research approach/paradigm and a research design to buttress the study/investigation. (5)

1.5 Using appropriate academic sources, discuss the methodological choices you would make with respect to the following:

Sampling Methodology: (6)

- The reasons why sampling would be necessary in this investigation.

- Identify the target population and explain how you would select an appropriate sample for this investigation.

- Explain, with reasons, whether your sampling strategy would be probability or non-probability.

- Specify, define, and substantiate your choice of a sampling method for this investigation, highlighting, among others, why your chosen sampling method is the most suitable for this investigation.

Method of Data Collection (5)

- Discuss how your philosophical stance in this investigation would inform the collection of data.

- Discuss the data collection instrument(s) and/or method(s) you would employ in this investigation to achieve the objectives of the investigation. Your discussion should highlight the rationale for choosing your data collection method(s).

Method of Data Analysis (5)

- Discuss how your philosophical stance in this investigation would inform the analysis of the data collected.

- Briefly discuss the method(s) of data analysis you would employ. Highlight, where necessary, the steps involved in the data analysis process for each of your research questions in 1.3.