“Survey Questions” – What does this refer to? I thought you did interviews.
It would have been good to know what the interview questions used were. What did
you ask them and why?
Who were the participants? Do you know anything about their roles, demographics
etc.? How did you find them?
Findings
This is generally clearly presented but again brief and unfocussed.
In the opening section (4.2), should some of the literature appear in the literature
review?
In general it is not clear whether you are presenting findings from interviews, surveys
or literature – particularly as we do not know what you asked interviewees.
You do not seem to have explicitly addressed the fourth RQ.
This is an odd section because you stated earlier that you interviewed ten people but
have presented virtually nothing in the way of findings from these interviews.
Discussion
This is clear but most of it is just repeating the literature review. It should be an
analysis of your finding (which were not really presented) in relation to the literature.
The recommendations are interesting but do not follow from the rest of the project.
Second Marker’s Comments
The abstract to this project was well written and captures the objectives, methods
and key findings of the study.
Coursework feedback
4 © Henley Business School, October 2013
In the introduction, attempts were made to establish the role of HR in managing
health and safety in the workplace. A plethora of issues were touched upon here
however, the justification of the role of HR in wellbeing was at times vague. The
problems defining section was not well written and the ‘problem’ your project
aimed at address was not clear. Also, reference was made to ‘HRM’ – as if it were a
person which may not be accurate and perhaps the student meant the HR
department or managers in organisations. The focus of the study seems rather too
broad and the gaps being addressed were not clear. Perhaps, defining workplace
wellbeing could have helped better in this introductory stages. Also, it may have
helped to contextualise your study here – is this in large corporates? a region specific
study? Is it in a specific industry context? The objectives seemed too broad and
could have been better phrased e.g. objective 2 – I don’t think it’s possible in a small
study of this nature to evaluate if organisations cater to employees cater for
employee wellbeing.
The literature review chapter covers a wide range of studies from different contexts.
A lot of emphasis was placed on workplace wellbeing standards and strategies etc.
However, the link between these and the core objectives of the study could have
been better. What wasn’t quite clear still is the specific gap your study address and
the contributions it is hoping to make to the literature. Also having seen that your
study focused on big retail firms, it may have helped to introduce industry specific
literature on this subject matter.
The methodology chapter was clearly written and the justifications for the selected
methods seemed clear. The shortcomings of the chosen methods and their
implications for the study could have also been highlighted in addition to the overall
limitations of the study based on how the methods were executed. E.g. 20 minutes
interviews is not very useful for an in-depth exploration of how HR helps workplace
wellbeing. Also how was the thematic analysis deployed in this study? There were
still a few significant but unanswered questions posed by this chapter.
Your findings presented key initiatives for managing employee wellbeing in your
chosen firms. However, given claims that interviews were conducted and thematic
analysis was carried out, it would have helped to present a table of key themes and
different code levels which is a standard if this method was adopted. Also specific
excerpts from the interviews could have been presented in evidencing these findings
claimed by your study. It was therefore not clear what key findings emerged from
your primary data as you also seemed to present a lot of findings from ‘secondary’
data which were journal articles and not company reports and other relevant forms
of secondary sources that could have helped amplify issues within the companies
your study focused on.
The discussions, conclusion and recommendations were rather short and did not
critically engage with the literature well enough. Attempts were made to link back
to the key objectives of the study but in the absence of a clear research gap and well
executed methodology, these chapters had very little basis upon with credible
discussions and conclusions could be placed.
Moderators Comments
This is a well-written project.
Its research questions remain very broad which leads to a weakness in the project
overall.
Title of doc (or code)
© Henley Business School, September 2013 5
Literature is not treated critically.
Primary research has been conducted but very little data is generated and the results
produced are very basic. There is very little discussion of methodology and seems to
be very limited understanding of basic methodology.
Interviews were conducted but there is no use of detailed qualitative data
What data do the charts show? Results from interviews or surveys or both?
Overall this is a weak project and I confirm the mark given.
Sample Solution