Business Research Proposal Healthy Sector in the Country

Question: Discuss the Business Research Proposal for Healthy Sector in the Country. Answer: Background and significance The Ministry of Health (MOH) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the primary healthy sector in the country. One third of the employees represent the nurses. The MOH is the federal health sector controlling 65 primary health clinics and 14 hospitals that belong to six Emirates namely- Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Um Al Qaiwain, Ras Al Khaimah, and Al Fujairah (Al Shemeili et al. 2016). Abu Dhabi has its established health system. There is a rapid change in the health care system of UAE. The cornerstone of the productive and successful health care organization is its human resource (Wollin and Fairweather 2012). Therefore, recruitment policy plays a significant role in employee satisfaction, which in turn determines the organizational progress (Brownie 2015). As per the reports of Hamidi and Akinci (2015), the MOH in Abu Dhabi is struggling to maintain effective health care system. It is wrestling to meet the demands of a good health system. It is evident from Joslin et al. (2010) there is a lack of motivated, trained and supported people in the health organization. Additionally, Abu Dhabi is challenged with a weak knowledge base, negative work environment, and inadequate investment. In any industrialized setting, the mission and vision of the organization can be achieved through the employees work (Al Shemeili et al. 2016). Doctors and nurses play a crucial role in serving health needs of people. The role of nurses is far more challenging as they practice in the different setting such as hospitals, outpatient departments, clinics and rehabilitation centers. Nurses sometimes also have to assume the responsibility of the clinicians, which makes them a crucial and significant part of health organization (Wollin and Fairweather 2012). To retain the qualified health personnel, it is necessary that they experience job satisfaction. Identification of the major factors contributing to job satisfaction is the primary challenge of heath care industry. These factors will help in developing effective recruitment and retention policy of health workers. Consequently, it will end the problem of high turnover rates, the higher expectation from remaining and exhausted nurses as observed in Abu Dhabi (Brownie et al. 2015). The challenges faced by the workforce in the Abu Dhabi health system significantly relates to nurses rather than doctors (El-Salibi 2012). The health care offered to critically ill patients is challenged by continuous changes in the health care, use of advanced and complicated equipment, low job satisfaction, low remuneration, low staff numbers, low opportunities available and long working hours (Fares et al. 2014). As per the reports of (Hajat et al. 2012), high patient to nurse ratio correlates with low mor ale among the staff, geographical maldistribution and skill imbalances. Therefore, the impact of recruitment policy on the productivity of the employees is a significant area of research. It is also a least understood phenomenon that if there is a significant difference of available opportunities to experienced employees at MOH to fresh graduates. Tziner et al. (2014) recommend that the MOH must develop a strategic plan to improve the employee recruitment policy. It must increase its investment in human resources, which is necessary to strength the UAE national health system. The problem, which justifies this research proposal, includes recruitment policy in the MOH. Abu Dhabi is facing crisis related to the decreasing morale and productivity of the health care professionals. Literature review This section deals with the review of research articles and discussion of concepts an facts relevant to the subject of the research study. According to Fares et al. (2014), the MOH at Abu Dhabi is heavily reliant on foreign trained graduates who belong to different countries. They consist of 82% of the total employees of Health Authority Abu Dhabi (HAAD). The remaining 18% of the employees are the nationals. As per the reports of (Hajat et al. 2012), it correlates with low morale among the staff, geographical maldistribution and skill imbalances. Exploratory studies by Wollin and Fairweather (2012) indicated that in Abu Dhabi the MOH is experiencing a crisis of workforce shortage, despite the excess recruitment of expatriates. The other reasons behind the shortage of workforce include long working hours and low remuneration resulting in increased absenteeism among the old employees which is also the source of exhaustion. Other challenges include professional and geographic mal-distribution. The challenges due to migration include outdated curricula, accreditation of educational curricula, brain drain, lack of re-licensi ng of health professionals, lack of financial and non-financial incentives, limited opportunities for continuing medical education programs and career development (Abdulrahman et al. 2015). Other concerning factors include gender discrimination and poor relationship with higher authorities (El-Salibi 2012). This in turn is affecting the morale and productivity of the existing employees. It is further decreasing the opportunities for the fresh graduates in Abu Dhabi. Brownie et al. (2015) analyzed that there is a decline in students opting for the medical profession as they see a lack of continuous education opportunities and growth. This is indicative of the fact there are fewer opportunities for existing staff as well as fresh graduates. The data collection and the interviews conducted in HAAD revealed that at a county level there exists poor staff retention strategy. Al Naqbi et al. (2014) and Abdulrahman et al. (2015) agreed with this analysis and are contended with the data. The information obtained from the key informants revealed that HAAD is not self-sufficient and in order to meet the country demand it may have to demand more on the foreign trained graduates. This in turn is affecting the morale and productivity of the existing employees. It is further decreasing the opportunities for the fresh graduates in Abu Dhabi. There are increasing fresh graduates struggling for employment due to the lack of coordination between the MoH and the ed ucational sector. There is a need of recruiting effective human resource managers. In 2013, the MoH announced that the Human Resources and Nursing Departments will participate in the upcoming Healthcare Recruitment and Training Fair at the Abu Dhabis National Exhibition Centre. It aims to attract highly qualified medical staff, economists, finance managers, and business analysts from the students participating in the exhibition (Hamidi and Akinci 2015). According to the Director of the Nursing Department, the objective is to replace low-skilled workforce with highly qualified and skilled graduates by taking advantage of the exhibition. It aims to increase the percentage of locals engaged in the profession. The studies by Wu et al. (2015) highlighted that the MOH is planning to increase the number of posts for specialists and consultants, who are seeking better employment opportunities and career development. As per these studies, the Ministry is working hard to bridge the manpower gap by establishing strong coordination between academic institutions and the labor m arket. The same is observed in the studies of Brownie, (2015) and Al Shemeili et al. (2016). There is the increase in participation of UAE leading institutions from both government and private sectors in the regional training and recruitment programs to provide the Emiratis with promising employment opportunities. There is an increasing effort from the HAAD in setting standards for continuing professional development. The privileging framework issued by HAAD will specify that there will be strict monitoring of Privileges to the employees in the MOH. However, it was found that there is particular emphasis on the policy makers and (Brownie 2015). Hamidi and Akinci (2015) recommends that the there is a need to develop a system to tackle out-migration and create financial and non-financial incentives. The HAAD must develop a national HRH plan, and rectify any HRH imbalances. Al Naqbi et al. (2014) believes that there is a need of revising an educational curricula as well a development of career advancement programs. There is a literature gap pertaining to employees other than th e medical professionals in terms of the impact of the recruitment policies. There is an outdated and incomplete data on the health workforce strategy and existence of recruitment challenges for both nationals and expatriates. Research design, methodology and methods Research methodology is the essential part of the research proposal. It assists in proceeding with the research in scientific and organized manner (Berger 2015). It helps the researcher in understanding various research methods. In this section, the researcher will explain the research design and methods, which will be suitable for this study along with its significance. Further, sampling procedure, data collection method and sources for secondary data will be detailed in brief. For this study, a qualitative methodology will be applied. It is believed to be justified as the research aim is to understand the impact of recruitment policy on the morale and productivity of the employees in Ministry of Health. According to O'Leary (2013), the qualitative analysis provides a whole concept from the participants viewpoint, which is necessary for a researcher to develop the data-based model to explain the changes. Bahn and Weatherill (2012) believes that the data obtained by the qualitative analysis is subjective in nature, and it helps to gain rich information based on which one can address the research problems. The research will be performed in the hospitals of Abu Dhabi (name withheld for confidentiality). The study of research includes three types of investigations which are- exploratory, descriptive and hypothesis testing research (Shuttleworth 2013). According to Berger (2015) the exploratory research design provides a clear concept about the subject as the researcher has no concept initially regarding the selected topic. The exploratory research design helps in conducting the whole research with a scientific viewpoint. The descriptive research study is entirely based on pre-existing theories, relevant ideas and concepts, and the researcher has to relate the present topic with these theoretical models (O'Leary 2013). However, in the hypothesis testing research, the researcher initially fixes a hypothesis and further analyzes the same based on pre-existing principles. It helps in thorough analysis of the research subject (Merriam and Tisdell 2015). In this study, the researcher aims to use descriptive approach for analyzing previous theories and use the same as a medium for future research. For this research, this study design is believed to be justified. According to Shuttleworth (2013), it provides the clear understanding of the pre-established theories, concepts and helps to obtain all the relevant information related to the present topic. The qualitative study includes analysis of both primary and secondary data. The primary data will be collected by interacting with research participants. Further, the secondary data will be tested based on the primary data collected. The secondary data represents the information collected from websites, published journals, blogs, news articles, and books. The researcher can extensively analyze the empirical data obtained from the qualitative method (Berger 2015). Finally, the conclusion will be drawn depending on the analysis of both primary and secondary data. Sample The sample for this study will comprise of 50 participants. All the participants will be from the medical background including registered nurses, physicians, and lab technicians. The criteria for selecting the respondents include a minimum of 5 years experience and the sampling method used is "purposive sampling". The participant's sampling includes "Maximum Variation Sampling (Merriam and Tisdell 2015). The participants will be interviewed when they are on leave or off duty or after the shift hours. The location may be the hospital or any other place as per the preferences of respondents. The interview will mainly focus the health workers to describe their experiences at the time of recruitment and problems faced in the organization. The age range of 28-45 years is selected for the respondents. The duration of the interview with each of the participants will consist of one hour. It will assist the researcher in better understanding the ongoing circumstances (Berger 2015). Data collection method The interview with the respondents will be conducted to obtain the primary data. The data collected will be ensured of its validity and reliability (Bahn and Weatherill 2012). The secondary data is collected from websites, news articles, published journals, blogs, and books. The secondary data helps in building concept based on the theories established by the previous researchers (Merriam and Tisdell 2015). This primary data is subjective in nature, and it helps to address the research questions in depth by obtaining rich information from all sources (Bahn and Weatherill 2012). This empirical data represents the real life experiences and emotions of the participants and lot many aspects can be analyzed by observing the participants facial expression and body language (De Vaus 2013). The interview questionnaire will be of open-ended format (Maxwell 2012). The questions are designed in a way so as to focus on how the recruitment policy is creating an impact on employees rather than why. While interacting, the keywords will be captured such as a medical rounds instead of checkup. Using these during interaction with respondents will make the communication easier. This interactive process is known as the biographical-interpretive method by (Easterling 2012). The key factor in the interview process is the active involvement of the researcher, and there will be no bracketing process used during the interaction. The discussion will be mainly informal in nature and will be stopped soon after the saturation is reached (Pickard 2012). Data analysis plan The collected data will be analyzed by an open coding process, in which data will be divided into discrete portions. Further, a close examination will be performed to identify the number of similarities and differences, based on which more categories can be formed (Corbin and Strauss 2014). This process is to make the data more conceptualized and reduce it to concepts. This step will be followed by axial coding a process in which the discrete categories of data will be weaved back together to establish a meaningful link. The final step is called selective coding will ultimately extract the core and comprehensive data including all the concepts (De Vaus 2013). The data analysis is a crucial part of the research as the respondents may not always provide a correct feedback regarding their organization. It gives rise to data accessibility issues. The busy schedule of the participants may affect the accuracy of the information. Timescale The total duration for completion of this research may be approximately six months keeping in mind the busy schedule of the health workers. (See the Appendix for the Gantt chart) Gnatt chart November 2016- April 2017 Phase of research Nov Dec Jan Feb March April Taking consent from the hospital administrators and health workers Secondary data collection Sample collection Primary data collection Data analysis References Abdel-Razig, S. and Alameri, H., 2013. Restructuring graduate medical education to meet the health care needs of Emirati citizens.Journal of graduate medical education,5(2), pp.195-200. Abdulrahman, M., Qayed, K.I., AlHammadi, H.H., Julfar, A., Griffiths, J.L. and Carrick, F.R., 2015. Challenges Facing Medical Residents' Satisfaction in the Middle East: A Report From United Arab Emirates.Teaching and learning in medicine,27(4), pp.387-394. Al Naqbi, S.A., Hamidi, S.A., Younis, M.Z. and Rivers, P.A., 2014. Determinants of Employee Satisfaction with Services of Human Resource Departments in the Fujairah Medical District (FMD) of the United Arab Emirates.Journal of Health Management,16(2), pp.271-287. 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