Question 1 (Total 42 marks)

You work with a public accounting firm that offers accounting and taxation services to its clients. Recently, the firm introduced a flexible working hours policy for the accounting staff. Under this policy staff need to work 150 hours over a calendar month, but when they work is totally flexible. Staff may choose which days they work and how many hours they work on any day providing their total hours for the month is 150. Much of the taxation work involves preparation of taxation returns for companies, partnerships and individuals. Generally the taxation work requires two appointments with the clients. There are strict requirements from the taxation office regarding the timing of lodging of tax returns. In contrast, the accounting work requires ongoing contact between the accounting staff and the clients and in many cases monthly accounting reports are produced for clients. The partners of the firm would like to introduce the flexible working hours policy to the taxation staff. Prior to implementing the change for the taxation staff they would like to understand the accounting staff's experiences of the flexible working hours policy.

They ask you to conduct a qualitative research to answer the following questions concerning the virtual workplace:

What do staff believe are the advantages of the flexible working hours policy?

What problems have staff encountered with the flexible working hours policy?

What suggestions do staff have to improve the flexible working hours policy?

Required:

You have been asked to write research plan for the research. Your plan should include the following issues and provide a justification for the choices that you have made. Write research plan as a report, with appropriate headings for each section.

a. the three objectives of the research (3 marks)

b. why a qualitative approach is more appropriate for addressing the research objectives (4 marks)

c. the population from which participants will be selected (2 marks)

d. How the sample size will be determined, (how will you determine the number of participants?) (3 marks)

e. How the sample of participants will be selected from the population (once you have determined the number of participants, how will you select them?) (4 marks)

f. How will the data be collected from participants? (4 marks)

g. For each research objective, provide an example question that could be asked of participants that will help in addressing the objective. (provide three different questions.) (9 marks)

h. What steps will be taken to analyse the collected data? (9 marks)

i. What are the possible limitations to applying the findings of the flexible working hours policy for the accounting staff to determine its suitability for the taxation staff?(4 marks)