Chapter 3 Research Methodology 3.1 Introduction - UM

1 109 Chapter 3 Research Methodology Introduction This Chapter will outline the Research Methodology that was used for the study. First this Chapter will describe the Research design, population, instrumentation that were chosen to address the problem and fulfill the objectives of the study. Second, it will describe how the selected Research design and instrumentation were used to collect the population data. Finally, this Chapter will explain the results of measurement model, reliability and validity issues.

2 110 Research Design To get the most reliable findings, quantitative method has been used for this Research . Malhotra (2007) defined quantitative Research method as a Research Methodology that seeks to quantify the data, and typically, applies some form of statistical analysis . In this regard, Cavana, Robert and Sekaran (2001) argued that to obtain the valid finding about the relationship between variables; researchers should develop planned procedure for gathering and interpreting data.

3 Furthermore, Malhotra (2007) suggested that Research planned procedures represented a quantitative Research . The ideal quantitative Research design is to identify the Research hypothesis (the expected solution to the problem or challenge) (Cavana et al., 2001). In addition, quantitative Research analysis, also known as fixed design, is a deductive approach that used standardized method for collecting data (Meadows, 2003) Deductive Reasoning Quantitative methods tend to be based on deductive reasoning.

4 Cavana et al., (2001) argued that qualitative Research conclusion can be further confirmed by using more quantitative approach. Deductive Reasoning Develop TheoryAccept / Reject HypothesisFormulate HypothesesCollect and Analyses Data (Figure ) 111 Epistemology of the Research The philosophy behind this Research is to build strong training transfer theory. With reference to epistemological background, the positivist supports this Research . According to the positivist (Willmott, 1995) the aim of the Research in the field of management is to generate laws, which govern the ways in which organizations operate.

5 The generation of these causal relationship or laws will enable management to become more scientific and managers to become better able to predict and control their environment. This Research have highlighted different relationships between variables, which would be better able to predict the effectiveness of training. The manager and the trainers would be able to follow this theory and can better manage their training programs. These training programs results the changing in behavior among all employees.

6 Donaldson and Hilmer (1998) argued that a fully positivist approach would not presume to call the approach strategic management but would rather call it corporate development . Therefore, this study is based on the corporate development rather than strategic management. Effectiveness of training provides the bases to the corporate industry to develop their strong foundation and effectively manage their training programs. Furthermore, building strong training transfer theory may be difficult without focusing on positivism approach.

7 Positivist claims that the aim of management Research should be to identify casual explanation and fundamental laws that explain regularities in human social behavior. In other words, I can say that the aim of the positivist researchers is to generation of causal laws. 112 Unit of Analysis The unit of analysis refers to the level of aggregation of the data collected during the subsequent data analysis stage (Cavana et al., 2001). In this study the unit of analysis is the individual employees in Malaysian Banking sector.

8 In other words, the unit of analysis is individual. This study has been focused on the factors effecting transfer of training for employees in Malaysian Banking sector. The target respondents in the study were employees who have attended managerial training. Key Informant The key informants in this Research were those employees in the Malaysian Banking sectors who had attended training program related to banking sector services within one year. The purpose behind maximum one year time period is that the trainee can recall the training experience which trainee had during the training and it s difficult for trainee to memorize the training content after one year.

9 Target Population Target population refers to the entire group of people, events or things of interest that the researchers wish to investigate (Canvana et al., 2001). The target population in this study is 9 banks in Klang Valley in Malaysia. The focus of this study was only Malaysian banks that operate under the policies of Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM). According to BNM, there are total 23 banks operating in Malaysia out of them 9 are Malaysian banks. Therefore, the data have collected from the Malaysian banks only to see the training transfer process in Malaysian banking sector.

10 The reason for not including foreign banks in this study is that the foreign bank may have different training culture, training polices and training evaluation system. The targeted Malaysian banks are: 113 1- RHB Bank Berhad 2- Public Bank Berhad 3- Malayan Banking Berhad 4- Hong Leong Bank Berhad 5- EON Bank Berhad 6- CIMB Bank Berhad 7- AmBank (M) Berhad 8- Alliance Bank Malaysia Berhad 9- Affin Bank Berhad Sampling Method and Subject for the Study A sample is a subset of the population.