The framework, methods, procedures, instrumentation, sampling, and data analysis in this research are presented in this chapter. It explains the quantitative research processes used to explore the employability of salesperson.
Research Framework
The conceptual framework of this research is constructed according to the previous research purpose, and literature reviews. The details refer to Figure 3.1.
Through the literature review, the researcher has the understanding to which degree employability was defined by different researchers, and stated in many different ways.
The researcher intends to examine the salesperson employability skills from the point of view of the salesperson. By this research, the researcher explore further into which items of employability the salespersons think highly of, and especially, for those who wish to become a salesperson, having better understanding of which items of salesperson employability skills they should develop as a priority.
Figure 3.1. Research framework
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Research Methods
A quantitative method approach was employed for data gathering in this research for the questions. A quantitative questionnaire with some items taken from the Employability Skills Framework developed by ACCI/BCA (2002), Employability Skills 2000+ developed by the conference Board of Canada(2001), and Employability Skills developed by Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, Kathleen (1993).
The questionnaire is used to explore the level of importance of salesperson’s employability skills. The test used a Likert-type scale. Subjects were based on a five-point Likert scale: 1 = not important at all, 2 = less important, 3 = NA/neutral, 4
= important, 5 = very important. The subjects were instructed to refer to their working experiences in Taiwan as a salesperson and to fill out the questionnaire.
Besides, to test the validity and reliability of this questionnaire, HR experts examined the questionnaire and modified in order to meet the demand of this research, and an internal reliability analysis was performed on overall items in the questionnaire to instruct the reliability.
Research Procedure
The research was carried out through eleven stages and the detailed information is presented below:
1. Identifying the research topic: the research topic was firstly proposed by the researcher. The research topic was discussed and finalized.
2. Identifying the research purpose and research questions.
3. Reviewing the relevant literature: to better understand the relevant research
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finding in this field, reviewing the relevant literature is required.
4. Establishing research method: to adopt a quantitative approach, in order to answer the research questions.
5. Developing the questionnaire: based on the employability skills framework (ACCI/BCA, 2002), Employability Skills 2000+ (the conference Board of Canada, 2001), and Employability Skills (Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, Kathleen, 1993), the researcher developed the questionnaire.
6. Conducting HR experts reviewing: considering of the validity of the instrument, HR experts were invited to examine the questionnaire and advised it.
7. Delivering the questionnaires: the distribution period is from April, 20th, 2009 to May, 10th, 2009.
8. Collecting the questionnaires: the deadline of collecting the questionnaire is May, 10th, 2009. After the deadline, returned samples would be regarded as invalid.
9. Coding and analyzing the data: the researcher screened the received questionnaires. SPSS (Statistics Package for Social Science, version 17) was used to do analysis of the data.
10. Writing the research findings and conclusions: based on the result of data analysis, conducting the writing of research finding, and proposed the conclusions.
11. Proposing the thesis.
This section describes the procedure of this study, and the procedures are as Figure 3.2 shows.
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Figure 3.2. Research Procedure Identifying the research purpose &
research questions
Coding and analyzing the data Reviewing the relevant literature
Conducting HR experts reviewing
Collecting the questionnaire Delivering the questionnaire Developing the questionnaire
Establishing research method Identifying the research topic
Proposing the thesis Writing findings and conclusions
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Instrumentation
Development and questionnaire, and Validity and Reliability presented in this section.
Development of Questionnaire
The researcher in this study developed the questionnaire based on the employability skills framework (ACCI/BCA 2002), employability skills 2000+ (The Conference Board of Canada, 2001), and Employability Skills (Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory as suggested by Kathleen, 1993). The employability skills framework includes 8 main categories, such as communication, teamwork, problem solving, initiative and enterprise, planning and organizing, self-management, learning, and technology; Employability Skills 2000+ was categorized into three main dimensions, including fundamental skills, personal management skills, and teamwork skills, in total 56 items; Employability Skills (Kathleen, 1993) includes three dimensions, including 19 items.
In the research, the researcher referred to previous studies and formed the questionnaire. As a result, a salesperson’s employability skills include 32 items. A completed questionnaire is presented in Appendix A for detailed information. The subjects in the study were instructed to indicate the importance of employability skills they think highly of. The items of employability level were measured by a five-point scale - 1 = not important at all, 2 = less important, 3 = NA/neutral, 4 = important, 5 = very important. Examples as to how to correctly fill in the questionnaire were given.
In order to increase the validity and reliability of the questionnaire, the items of categories shuffled and presented in random in order to prevent speculation of question purpose or response set from the samples.
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Validity and Reliability
In order to increase the validity of the questionnaire, HR experts invited to review the questionnaire, and items could be added or deleted if necessary. The researcher also reached content validity by discussing the items and its meaning with HR experts. The HR experts are professors who have been in teaching and educating for many years. The HR experts have published many scholarly journals, including peer-reviewed articles. In the questionnaire, previously, there were 30 items. One of the participant experts suggested the items should be advised. After discussing with advisor, the researcher added the items of Internet marketing ability and financial management related skills. Kurlan (2006) established 21 core competencies for sales, and through his research, he proposed that salespeople definitely need to become more internet savvy, and Internet competence should be salesperson’s competency number 22. On the other hand, a good salesperson not only sells the product, but receives the account receivables to close a deal completely. As a result, based on previous studies, the two items were added into the questionnaire. After completing HR experts review, two salespeople were invited to review the questionnaire and aid to modify the Chinese writing. The finalized questionnaire items are listed in Appendix A.
After collecting the samples, an internal reliability analysis was performed on each item. The questionnaire items were found to demonstrate generally stable reliability. The value of coefficient α was up to 0.910, indicating high reliability of subjects’ responses regarding salesperson’s employability skills. The details show in Table 3.1 and Table 3.2.
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Table 3.1.
Reliability Statistics
Cronbach's Alpha N of Items
.910 32
Table 3.2.
Reliability of Scales
Item Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted
1 Basic computer skills .910
2 MS Office application skills .910
3 Internet marketing ability .908
4 Collaboration with others .909
5 Team conflict resolution .907
6 Data collection ability .905
7 Ability of data analysis .906
8 The ability to acquire new knowledge .905
9 Willingness to learn .906
10 The ability to change oneself .906
11 Learning attitude .906
12 Emotional Quotient .908
13 Career planning .911
14 Interpersonal skill .908
15 The ability of conflict resolution .906
16 Ability to plan .905
17 Leadership .906
18 Creativity .907
19 Ethics .908
20 Loyalty .908
21 The sense of responsibility .906
22 The attitude of working .907
23 Oral presentation skill .906
24 Listening attentively .906
25 The ability to coordinate .905
26 Independent thinking .907
(table continues)
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Table 3.2. (Continued)
Item Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted
27 Problem solving ability .906
28 English proficiency .912
29 Chinese proficiency .909
30 Marketing knowledge .907
31 Marketing skills .906
32 Financial management related skills .909
Sampling
According to research purpose, the respondents are those who are working as a salesperson. The researcher attempts to have a better understand from the view of the salesperson, to explore the importance of ranking of employability skills to them. And through the literature review, the researcher attempts to compare the result of the research with the previous studies, and bring up a comparison.
The researcher adopted snowball sampling method for the selection of samples.
The distribution period of this questionnaire is from April, 20th, 2009 to May, 10th, 2009. And the deadline of collecting the questionnaire is May, 10th, 2009. After the deadline, return subjects were regarded as invalidation. In total, the researcher sent out 370 copies of questionnaire, and 251 copies of questionnaire were collected by May 10th, 2009. The return rate is 67.8%. Five copies of the samples were found to be invalidated; therefore, in total 246 copies of questionnaire were used in this research.
The Table 3.3 below shows a view of the sample population and their demographic.
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Table 3.3.
Data of Variables by Entries and Values (n = 246)
Variable Entries Percentage (%)
1 Gender Male: 148 3 Education Graduated school or above: 54
College: 159
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Data Analysis
The distribution period was fixed before delivering the questionnaire. The data for this research was analyzed using SPSS (Statistics Package for Social Science) for Windows. The 32 items in the questionnaire were coded using a 5-point Likert scale.
The demographic variable, such as gender, age, education background, major, domestic production, position, years of current position, and years of working experience of subjects can be referred in Table 3.4.
In this study, the researcher attempts to answer the questions as below:
1. Speaking of employability’s importance, what is the ranking of salesperson employability skills from the perception of salespersons?
2. Do different genders of salespersons view salesperson employability skills differently?
3. Do salespersons with different ages view salesperson employability skills differently?
4. Do salespersons, senior salespersons, and sales managers view salesperson employability skills differently?
Descriptive statistics including mean and percentage were used for data description in this research. All items were processed with arithmetic mean ranking, in order to answer the question of No.1: what is the rank of employability from the perception of salespersons. The researcher used independent samples T-test to approach the question No.2 and No.3 questions: do male and female view salesperson’s employability skills differently; and do salespersons with different ages view employability skills differently. One-way ANOVA analysis was used to approach the question of No.4: Do salespersons, senior salespersons, and manager salespersons
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view salesperson employability skills differently.
Table 3.4.
Coding System Using in SPSS Data Analysis (n = 246)
Categories Entries 5. Domestic Production 1 = Agriculture
2 = Industry
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