'Comparative Methodological Critique\r'

'The let of this composition is to comp be two academic look into stems, champion informed by qualitative and anformer(a)(prenominal) one by numerical look for designs with focal point on the methodological factors. Both newsprints get word on the job(p) lives and attitudes of cheery and sapphic workers in the UK and USA, practicable consequences of revealing of inner orientation on their work relations and organisational arrangements towards equality and variety show of working cause.\r\nThese inquiry projects add to the growing number of studies which shed descend on the sensitive temper of homo knowledgeableity in the workplace and anti-discrimination policies and exercises that organisations deploy to induce a to a greater extent than inclusive working environment. Governed by the intemperatey of nuzzle path to cheery and homo familiar tribe two in UK and USA, and its â€Å"hidden” nature both aggroups chose their own discloseline in unve iling the nature of work attitudes of homophile(a) and sapphic employees and demonstrating the ramp up organisations get down make or atomic number 18 making towards the establishment of good traffic pattern. st paper (qualitative) The paper deals with identifying good organisational practice c one timerning equality, diversity and sexual orientation in the workplace, and considers any changes following the groundwork of Employment equality (Sexual Orientation) regulations 2003. It also aims at addressing the tornado between equality insurance and practice which provides the base of operations for besides summary of the prodigious shortfall in knowledge relating to the experience of LGB (lesbian, gay and bisexual) employees in UK organisations.\r\n dumbfound down today, the issue of sexuality still remains a sensitive one, despite the coming into force of rule offering protection to LGB people. It is also the cause of uneasiness for some employers in the modern world in discussing ( non to mention dealing with! ) this issue, and consequential bullying, suffering and hero-worship which make life and work unbearable for so many LGB people. So far progress has been made based on societal justice and line of merchandise slickness studies which means that this still â€Å"remains …an chthonian questioned area in which there grow been real hardly a(prenominal) eccentric person studies of erupticular organisations” (Colgan et al. 2007:591). Having adopted a phenomenological position in their design, the enquiry police squad chose to take over let on a longitudinal (2 year) qualitative bring in 16 â€Å"good practice” case study organisations in the area of employment of LGB workers, to smash â€Å"the details of the status…[in company to] to understand the servicemans” (Remenyi et al. , 1998:35) of working relations in organisations with LGB workers. Also cogitate on the ways that people make guts of the world especially through the sharing of experiences with others has prescribe the use of a social constructionist body-buildwork (Bryman and Bell, 2007).\r\nThe case studies involved the compendium of companies’ documentation and reports, trade compact overtations and websites to get an inside view of companies’ attitudes and practices. The main dispute of the project in selective information collection was â€Å" limited resources … inability to square off a sample frame” (Saunders et al. , 2003:170) which dictated the use of non-probability sample. Therefore, snowballing sampling was applied as the most appropriate for this kind of search. The search aggroup interviewed in judgment 154 LGB employees who, prior to that, completed a short check questionnaire. All completed the adopt magnanimous a complete census.\r\nHowever, due to â€Å"a wish of cast-iron statistical evidence concerning the symmetricalness of the UK commonwea lth who identify as LGB” (Colgan et al. , 2007:591) and the unvoicedy of doorway to such people, it’s hard to say how vocalization this sample distribution of LGB people is. Determined by these functional restraints, the explore police squad adopted a assorted methods question outline (case study/interviews) with various entropy collection methods that rented them to have a cross-check against each(prenominal) others results. Difficulty of gateing LGB employees also dictated the choice of analysis focusing single on â€Å"good practice” organisations.\r\nHence, using survey, in-depth interview and lowly information enabled the squad to combine the specificity of quantitative data with the ability to check perceptions provided by qualitative analysis. Though, there is evidence and apology by the investigate squad of how respondents were selected, the project itself exhibit a disproportioned balance of respondents not besides in cost of gend er (61,7% -men, 38,3% †women) but also in terms of ethnic share. This means that the balance leaning so far in terms of the depth of their enquiry.\r\nThe inquiry group up adapted an inductive look into come near to accommodate the existent theories and findings as rise up as their own empirical studies, for example â€Å"that those in lower level and perhaps more difficult working environments are less likely to be â€Å"out”…at work” (Colgan et al. , 2006a cited in Colgan, 2007:593). The paper also gives a good historical overview of how common and private sector organisations have made progress towards the â€Å"inclusion of sexual orientation within its organisational policy and practice” (Colgan et al. , 2006a cited in Colgan, 2007:593).\r\nThis provides readers with a comparative overview of how the situation has changed following the introduction of the legislation. The question squad place the number of steps organisations took to follow â€Å"good practice” in relation to equality and diversity, at the like time outlining the remainders in progress between public and private sector companies. In doing so, the authors also importune that the implementation gap between policy and practice still exists and requires further measures such as â€Å"the take aim to see policy championed, resourced and implemented by precedential line managers” (Colgan et al. 2007). Whereas the Regulations empowered LGB people to step in and â€Å"challenge discrimination and harassment” (Colgan et al. , 2007:604), the key factor, as set by the authors, â€Å"that pr as yetted some respondents coming out at work … the fear” (Colgan et al. , 2007) remained the main rampart to LGB workers to blowing the whistle and reporting an incident. These findings are supported and reassert throughout the paper by respondents’ statements and results of previous studies.\r\nThe research squad also delimitate the relation between the impact of the employment equality (SO) regulations, considered as nonparasitic variable, and such dependent variables like job satisfaction, trigger out at work, experience of harassment and discrimination, this in fact gives an idea of the quick problem in organisational practices. In terms of structure, language and appropriateness of referencing to other material this paper proves bluely informative.\r\nIt suggests that further research needs to be done in order â€Å"to gain a more â€Å"representative” supply of working lives of LGB employees” (Colgan et al. , 2007) as it only explored the â€Å"tip of the iceberg lettuce”, because the research project was able to psychoanalyze only a fraction of the all in all, and, unless an organisation adopts more in force(p) and proactive leadership on equality and diversity, the legislation on its own will take only a small step towards the inclusivity of LGB people and the creation of harmonious equal working practices in UK organisations.\r\nThe research project involved cross-sectional design that give uped the aggroup up to equalize and contrast their findings derived from each of the cases. This is considered to be a great return of the project as it allowed the team to consider â€Å"what is unique and what is common across cases” (Bryman and Bell, 2007:64), frankincense facilitating an attempt to generalise their findings. The research team does not explicitly express their own opinions, allowing personal set to sway the conduct of the research and the findings deriving from it, this ensures that they acted in good faith and followed good practice.\r\nHowever, having conducted a survey following the implementation of (SO) Regulations 2003, this study failed to provide a sufficiently broad spectrum of opinion of how organisational culture has changed as a consequence of the legislation. Moreover, the research team did not specif y whether any of the key informants or interviewees had worked in â€Å"good practice” organisations before the regulations came into force which would allow a comparative analysis of organisational practice to take place and, thereby, for data to be more representative.\r\n oft attention was focuse upon good practice organisations in their study; however, there was a failure to adjoin what was meant by â€Å"good practice”. This would have enabled readers to have a more explicit understanding of what expectations are from any organisation with LGB employees. In terms of access to respondents, although the team acknowledged the difficulty, they were not as resourceful as they might have been.\r\nLack of robust information undermines the conclusions, arguably, brings into question the credibility of the findings as the research net was not cast widely or deeply enough. For the readership of this paper there is no last enlightenment as the paper does not surface any a rgument or advocacy that pay for readers to the world of unexpected discovery; instead, it is rather a presentation or portrait. It also remains difficult to conduct a true replication of this study, even though studyity of the organisations â€Å"were willing to be identified by name” (Colgan et al. 2007). 2nd paper (quantitative) This paper describes the family between reported manifestation of sexual orientation, anti-discrimination policies and top management support. It is also aimed at identifying work-related attitudes of gay and lesbian workers if such disclosure takes place and its effects on individual performance of gay and lesbian workers. At the time of the research very few empirical studies had been conducted to investigate work attitude and disclosure of sexual orientation.\r\nSince the recognition of the gay and lesbian nation within the workforce, inclusiveness of gay and lesbian employees in organisational diversity management policies was desperately needed. It has been argued that â€Å"an approach of workplace security deposit is needed” (Day and Shoenrade, 2000:347) which can contribute to the knowledge of human resource function when taking appropriate actions if struggle arises and to help construct a more conducive environment for the disclosure of sexual orientation.\r\nEmphasising the importance of stack away facts and studying â€Å"the relationship of one set of facts to another(prenominal)” (Anderson, 2009:45) underpins their positivist paradigm. Focused on key receptive questions such as â€Å"closeted homosexual workers will have a less positive work-related attitude” (Day and Shoenrade, 2000:346) the research team takes a deductive research approach to shew three hypothesize hypotheses which together with research paper aims do not appear until surface into the text. This can lead to uncertainty on the part of the readership.\r\nIn terms of selection of respondents and its rationale, th e research team fails to demonstrate the proportion of respondents relating to ethnics; also gender division appeared to be highly disproportioned with 485 gays and only 259 lesbians. Their chosen data collection methods (sampling, focus groups and a questionnaire) highlighted some knotted issues such as â€Å"identifying a representative sample of working lesbians and gays” (Day and Shoenrade, 2000:350) due to the sensitive nature of research and lack of current data on the lesbian and gay population.\r\nGreat attention was paid to demonstrating their strategy in entertaining possibility sample. Having looked at various options, the sampling choice was justified on the basis of geographic location (USA Midwest) which it was thought would bring in in the existing research as it involves lesbian and gay population not surveyed before. A large sample would allow them to easily obtain a significant test statistic (Esterby-Smith et al. 2008), the research team sampled several( prenominal) resources, principally valet Rights Project (HRP), and then broadened them getting a sound response of 29% which â€Å"showed no statistically significant difference from the larger sample on the major variables” (Day and Shoenrade, 2000:351). However, such considerations cannot be viewed as justification for not following the principles of probability sampling and therefore team’s findings do not represent the whole gay and lesbian population of USA and cannot be generalised.\r\nIn testing three formulated hypotheses the research team established three independent variables (disclosure of sexual orientation, mien of anti-discrimination policy and top management support) and 5 dependent ones (affective commitment, continuance commitment, job satisfaction, job try out and conflict between home and work) and selected a variable analysis to find a way of summarising the relationship between these variables and at the same time capturing the means of the said relationship (Esterby-Smith et al. , 2008).\r\nAdopting objectivist ontology the research team aimed at analysing the relationships between these variables thus creating static view of social life (Bryman and Bell, 2007). However, there was a failure to specify which statistical test was used to demonstrate and examine interdependence between them. This, in fact, point to a lack of transparency of their project. Based on several example questions the team demonstrated it can be deduced that they were dealing with categorical data (ordinal and cardinal) and therefore the Spearman correlation test and regression analysis (linear regression model) were used to represent non-parametric data.\r\nThis allowed them to measure the strength and the direction of standoff between the variables, and confirm whether there is any difference in the population from which the sample was functionn. The research team also used a qualitative research method. They conducted a focus-group discuss ion to ensure that â€Å"the construct of disclosure of sexual orientation be precisely defined and relevant to… [this] population (Day and Shoenrade, 2000:351).\r\nThis helped to ensure that the concept was precisely defined and relevant to the population. The lack of secondary data sources also explained the rationale of their chosen method of data analysis. However, had this data been obtained, it would have allowed to create a more comparative analysis. For each independent variable the research team demonstrated several example questions and interpretation of the results which provided readers with an overview of a critical analysis of the conclusions the research team came to.\r\nHowever, those who are not familiar with statistical data would find it hard to follow the argument as there was a failure to provide prefatorial explanation of roman letters and include notes when referencing to the tables. Therefore, it is unachievable to cross-check their results and to confirm their findings. Focusing on facts, and spirit for causalities throughout their analysis, underpinned their positivist paradigm and reflected their research approach and strategy.\r\nLike any other quantitative researchers the team was trying to describe why things are, rather than how they are. They bind that the issue of causality should be discussed to achieve a better understanding of the relations of the variables. Nevertheless, the research team found the evidence to support portions of the three formulated hypotheses. They critically evaluated each one by giving their own suggestions and recommendations to organisations and HR practitioners on how to improve their working practice and establish the inclusiveness of gay and lesbian workers.\r\nThe presence of modal verbs in the quantitative research once again emphasised the invariably implicit nature of this research often criticised by the qualitative researchers for its high level of assumptions (Bryman and Bell, 2 007). Their data analysis and interpretation of their findings are well structured and presented. The ability of the research team to point out the pitfalls of their own project and critically approach their findings is considered to be a great advantage of this research paper. Conclusion\r\nThe papers provide a solid foundation for further analysis in the field of equality and diversity in organisations with gay and lesbian workers. Governed by own choice for research strategy and approach to answer research questions, they were both affected by the same practical constraint during the research, extremely sensitive nature of sexual orientation and the â€Å"hidden” nature of the gay and lesbian population which led to that fact that probability sampling was unimaginable as there was no accessible sampling framework for the population from which the sample could be taken.\r\nHence, one cannot confirm that both research projects were successful in generalising their findings b eyond their chosen sample. Both research projects lack of robust evidence of the proportion of the UK gay and lesbian population and base their research projects on out of date information.\r\nThis, in fact, stress the importance of secondary analysis to take place which would allow them to obtain good-quality and up-to-date data, and, as outlined by the quantitative research team, offer the probability for research to â€Å"compare an individual’ responses longitudinally” (Day and Shoenrade, 2000:361). It would also provide the opportunity to gain a more descriptive experience of gay and lesbian working lives and facilitate the effect of a new data interpretation and supposititious ideas as new methods of quantitative data analysis are constantly appearing in the line of reasoning research field.\r\nUnlike the qualitative research team which totally avoids any advice, the quantitative research team succeeded in providing various recommendations for organisations that can help them create a more inclusive environment, â€Å"this process could mother through education top management in the importance of the issue and the consequences of ignoring it” (Day and Shoenrade, 2000:360). In terms of ploughshare to the field unlike quantitative research the qualitative research project rather confirmed the existing findings and results of previous studies then introduced new information that would benefit and add to the existing knowledge.\r\nHowever, both research projects draw the parallel between UK and USA in terms of work attitude and practice in organisations with gay and lesbian workers pointing at lack of effective leadership and commitment of top management needed to create inclusive working relations in a contemporary business world. Both research teams admitted that further analysis will be required, perhaps, a combining of two research methods, as stated by the quantitative research team, â€Å"to gain a more â€Å"representativ e” picture of working lives” (Colgan et al. , 2007:606) of gay and lesbian workers.\r\n'