Critique of an Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Critique of an - Article Example Moreover, the authors assert that customers may have a central role to play in the employee turnover in a firm, since satisfied clients may increase the likelihood of employee retention for a firm due to heightened job satisfaction. Slatten, Svensson and Sv?ri (2010: 213) found out that all other factors contributing to the rate of employee turnover are dependent on the employees’ perception of the quality of service that one is capable of providing. The study shows that employee perception acts as the link between antecedents of employee turnover (empowerment, coaching and clarity of one’s role at the workplace), and the consequence that is the likelihood of employees to leave a workplace for another one. The 1076 subjects of the study completed a self-interview questionnaire, all of whom were frontline employees for service firms in Norway (Slatten, Svensson and Sv?ri 2010: 211). The sample was selected by judgment sampling, as 52 percent of the sample was male; avera ge age was 32 years; 61.3 percent were permanently employed and working on a fulltime basis; 74.6 had lasted for approximately 6 years with their employer; and about half had achieved higher education. This sample is only appropriate for demonstration purposes as it is not representative of Norway’s service industry workforce; in addition, the sample size is small and not appropriate for generalization to the whole population (Grant and Cavanagh, 2004: 18). The authors should have adopted a random sample, mainly by a combination of a cluster sample and a systematic sample that is inclusive of all components of the service sector employee population, and is random enough to give each member of the population a chance to be picked in the sample. However, testing the questionnaires on 53 respondents before the study was a proper approach since the pilot study enabled them to identify limitations of the study before incurring financial and time expenses, and make modifications. M oreover, the use of a combination of questions from previous studies gave the authors an increased chance of making corrections on errors made in previous studies and improving on previous study techniques. The variables in this study are qualitative, including satisfaction, perceptions, needs and preferences; however, Slatten, Svensson and Sv?ri (2010: 211) used a seven point Likert-scale to give the qualitative information a quantitative aspect. This involves making numerous assumptions, including the obvious one of assuming that employees had the ability to assign numerical values to their feelings and perceptions (Karatepe and Uludag, 2008: 116). Consequently, the objectivity of the study is reduced as a result of the process of changing quality into quantity, as employees are not homogenous in their perceptions. In addition, there is little difference between the seven levels of Likert-scale, and employees are more likely to be biased in their analysis due to real or perceived differences between them as seen in Chiu et al. (2005: 486). This makes it impossible to generalize the results of the study to include different backgrounds, mainly due to the varied results that are likely since employee perceptions are dependent on a myriad of market factors (Richards, 2009). Slatten, Svensson