Impact Of Technological Convergence On Organizational Revenue – Proposal And Learning Contract

Background of the study

This research aims to find the impact of the technological convergence on the annual revenue of the organization. Luo et al. (2012) stated that convergence culture refers to a state where old and new media intersect and new technology is developed. The convergence of technology results in better outcome and advance result of the organization’s performance. Geum et al. (2012) also describe that from traditional world to contemporary times technology involves old media and new media that not only reduce the space issue but handling of the technology is also become easy. In this chapter, the background of the study, detail of the company, aim of the research, research objectives and research question is also discussed.

The importance of digital or technological convergence is to provide competitive advantage to the organization. Gauch and Blind (2015) illustrate some example of technological convergence among which one is video games that can include television now so that people can the real sensation of being on the gaming field. Another example is the mobile phone that performs the work of clock, calendar, music system, video recorder. Mobile phone can also perform the operation of accessing email and control an entire system. Grubicka and Matuska (2015) also stated that convergence can be obtained through out daily life also like people use multiple media technology at a single time that is listening to music while watching television. Cultural convergence thus refers to a situation where audience becomes user and companies use this technology to generate effective low-cost contents and high profitability. Olawuyi and Friday (2012) also depicts that if an organization can convergence technology effectively and fulfill all the organizational goals and objectives, other company will always intends to purchase the technology for their betterment. This approach thus allows the former organization to attain greater final growth that enhances their annual revenue.

The organization that is taken into consideration is KBR, which is an American engineering, procurement and construction company. They also provide differentiated professional services and technologies within the Hydrocarbons sectors and government related jobs (Kbr.com 2017). The total number of employees at KBR is 34,000 across the world and they offer their services in more than 40 countries (Kbr.com 2017). The mission of the company is to safely deliver the project and assure the benefit of the customer, shareholder and employees. KBR also focuses on being the world’s contractor and employer of choice by innovating capital project and technological solutions. They majorly focus on providing government services, technology and consultancy and engineering and construction solutions. KBR also offer services for test-and-evaluation, defense, space, aviation, field logistics, systems engineering process and operations-and-maintenance. Their services also covers the proprietary technology that is used in oil and gas industry for oil refining, gasification, integrity management; naval architecture and downstream consulting along with proprietary hulls (Kbr.com 2017).  In recent time, KBR supports NASA During Historic Storm, also become best 100 suppliers for China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation (CPCIF) for the petroleum and chemical industry in China (Kbr.com 2017). KBR also formulate facilities Management (FM) & Estates service delivery model to reduce the facilities management costs.

Background of the company

The major problem that several industries follow is to select appropriate third party who can provide them effective solution to perform their business functions. Another problem that Ibanez Colomo (2012) suggest is that not all organization offer all the solution related to an organization and thus, managing authority have to spend a lot of time as well as financial resources in searching for effective company, who can offer them the most accurate, composed and effective technology. Suh and Sohn (2015) furthermore depicts that there are investing in technological solutions from other company not only need greater financial resources but there is always a risk whether or not the solution is suitable according to their business needs and fulfill all their objectives. Thus, KBR provides convergent technological solutions as per as the business needs of company, who purchase their developed solutions. The effective technology is able to fulfill all the business needs and demands of other organization so well that reputed company intends to purchase their solutions and this allow KBR to attain more revenue by establishing good partnership and brand image in the market. This research study aims to find out the impact of technological convergence on the organizational revenue.

The aim of the research is to find the impact of the technological convergence in making more profit for the organization. The research study will also illustrate how technological advancement allows an organization to attain more profitability through a reputed brand image.

H₀: There is an impact of technology on revenue that an organization earns

H₁: There is no impact of technology on revenue that an organization earns

• To critically analyze the existing impact of technology on organizational performance
• To identify the factors that contributes in the development of technological convergence
• To understand how technological convergence help to generate organizational revue  

• What is the impact of technology on organizational performance?
• What are the factors that contribute in the development of technological convergence?
• How technological convergence help to generate organizational revue?

Information technology has impacted the business and contributes an effective role in firm’s survival. In order to support, sustain and growth of a business, information technology provide an integral role. Companies desire to spend a significant portion of revenue in implementing technological advancement. In the year 2010, the total spending in IT technology was $3.4 trillion which is 4.6% higher compared to the year 2009 (Trainor et al. 2014). There are some positive advantages of incorporation on technology on organizational performance:

Chen (2012) stated that the prime reason for incorporating technological innovation and convergence in the organization is to satisfy the customer needs. In this context, government always tries to adapt those technologies that are not only optimized in uses but also fulfill all the demands for the betterment of the society. The satisfaction is mainly witnessed in banking and manufacturing sector as the consumers in these industries intends to accomplish work with accuracy. In recent time, there are many third party providers, who offer customized solution which also enhance their brand image and profitability.

Khan (2012) indicates that the more an organization provides accurate technology, the greater is the customer base. In some cases, there are suppliers, who associated with the organization and in this case, these suppliers also on being getting greater knowledge intends to associate with the organization. However, Li (2013) argued that depending on the technology offered by company and the quality of the services, links of customer and suppliers can be defined. Taken for instance, if an organization offer technology solutions to energy sectors, the competitor in this case is lower compared to a usual sector technology provider.

Rationale of the study

Kleis et al. (2012) highlight that in recent time, the knowledge sharing; self-development concept plays a crucial role in organization. Johnston and Marshall (2016) also stated that employee intends to stay in such company where they can learn new things for their betterment. Different companies also implement incentives benefits for employees, who can find new solution for the business. Developing new technology or opportunities to get learn new things allow employees to carrying out all their daily official jobs/activities without any boredom.

Compared to the traditional demands in contemporary world, frequent changes in technology and its applications lead to the development and adaption of new technological advancement. Kose et al. (2012) also portrays that technology service provider also have to innovate new technology and invest a lot in R&D so that a unique way to accomplish organizational objectives can be obtained. Thus, merging of two or more technology or applications through a single device is the recent trends that many organizations are following.

Chung et al. (2012) also highlight that using more than one technology for obtaining different objectives for a single organization is not only cumbersome but it take a huge maintenance cost. Thus, government or energy sectors intend to control their cost investment in technology and desires to find an optimized solution. Technological convergence provides the opportunity to merge technology and formulate convergent solution that can fulfill their customer’s all business objectives and attain profitability.

There is a direct relation between customer base and annual revenue that is greater the customer bases greater will be the profit attained by an organization. Bornkessel et al. (2014) depict that successful technological convergence attracts more businesspeople. These people then intend to adopt the technological solutions more which furthermore contribute to the organizational revenue of the provider.

Lee et al. (2013) highlight that people intends to buy such products that have a positive brand image. Eren et al. (2013) furthermore stated that once an organization established them in a position, other companies from other territory also intend to purchase solution from their organization. This helps the organization not only to make their presence worldwide but also to obtain greater financial growth.

According to Mackey and Gass (2015), systematic plan for conducting research is known as research methodology and it comprises of data collection techniques and data analysis approaches. Taylor et al. (2015) furthermore stated that research methodology justifies the taken research methods. This chapter describes the research philosophy, research approach, research purpose, data collection techniques, data analysis process, sampling techniques and sample size along with the research ethics that will be followed and a timeframe to complete the entire research work.

Wahyuni (2012) stated that research philosophy emphasizes on the way through which the data is believed to be gathered, evaluated and utilized for the research. Thus, it can also be said that research philosophy provides basic facts, knowledge and concepts for conducting the entire research in a systematic way. There are three different kinds of research philosophies- “realism”, “positivism” and “interpretivism”. Sarantakos (2012) stated that positivism philosophy is a highly structure and it considered larger sample size. Positivism philosophy is used especially for quantitative study. On the other hand realism philosophy is chosen when sample size is not very large and it deals with the objective reality of a particular research study. Lastly, the combination of the “realism” and “positivism” philosophy is interpretivism research philosophy. Positivism research philosophy will be used in order to complete the research study.

Aim of the Research

The positivism research philosophy is selected for obtaining information and data. This research study is based on perspective that is obtained from the research as well as theoretical perspective of the data and thus positivism philosophy will be appropriate so that cross checked data and fact on convergence culture in terms of technology.

Inductive and deductive are the two different kinds of research approach. Goldkuhl (2012) depict that new theories, concepts and model is developed in the inductive approach that is related with the research topic. On the other hand, deductive research approach emphasizes on the utilization of the previously developed research theories and concept to discuss the research. Deductive research approach will be used for accomplishing the research study.

The research topic is to find the impact of technology on organizational revenue and thus, the theories and concept that other research scholar developed on attaining grater profit through technological innovation and convergence. Thus, deductive approach of the research will help to fulfill the research objectives that is to critically analyze the existing impact of technology on organizational performance, to identify the factors that contributes in the development of technological convergence and to understand how technological convergence help to generate organizational revue  with proper utilization of previous models and theories.

The prime objective of the research purpose is to explain how and why the research process is selected. Flick (2015) portrays that research purpose provides accurate structural purpose for obtaining research objectives. Research purposes are of two types- exploratory and descriptive research purpose. Smith (2015) furthermore explains that exploratory research is used when the concepts written in the research is explored for future study. On the other hand, in descriptive research purpose, all the research data and concepts are described for presenting the description of the research objectives. Descriptive research purpose will be considered for completing the research.

The descriptive research purpose clearly describes all the taken theories and concepts with the obtained data and help to obtained all the desired research objectives.  

Smith (2015) primary and secondary data collections are the two ways through which data for the research can be gathered. Bryman and Bell (2015) describes when the research data is directly collected from the research respondents, it is referred to as primary data collection. On the other hand, when the data is collected from secondary sources like peer journals, research papers developed by different research scholars and the method of data collection is known as secondary data collection. In this research study, the primary data collection will be considered in which 12 questions based on technological convergence and its impact on organizational performance will be gathered from the employees of KBR. The primary data will be gathered as it provides the image of the recent scenario of the organizational revenue and another reason is that there are no such research previously made on technological convergence and thus secondary data cannot be considered.

Creswell (2013) stated that there are two ways through which obtained can be assessed- qualitative and quantitative data analysis. In qualitative data analysis technique, the data is evaluated based on theoretical data and concepts. However in quantitative data analysis method is used in case of numerical data. In this research, the data analysis method that will be used is quantitative technique and it will be done through through regression analysis in order to finding the relationship between two research variable of this research- technological convergence and organizational revenue.

Research Hypothesis

In research there are two sampling techniques through which research respondents are selected- “probability sampling technique” and “non-probability sampling technique”. In probability sampling techniques research respondents are selected equally to participate for the research (Fowler Jr 2013). While, in non-probability sampling techniques, research participants does not get the similar chance to participate in the research study. In this research study, both probability and non-probability research techniques will be considered. The employees and staffs are selected based on probability sampling technique; while, the selection of manager of the research study will be done on the basis of non-probability technique.

In this research, the sample size of 103 will be considered, where 100 respondents are the employees of KBR including, staffs, scientists, and computer engineers; whereas, the remaining 3 employees are the managers of same company who are liable to manage the technological convergence culture and evaluate the organizational revenue.

Miller et al. (2012) stated that research ethics is important to follow as it provide the agreed upon terms for conducting the research. Research ethics also provide authority of the research that is been conducted.  In order to conduct this research, the respondents will be asked for their willingness of participating in the research and thus will be provided a consent form. This consent form will be duly signed by the research respondents. Moreover, Data Protection Act 1998 will be followed to protect all the data taken as response for the research. Gathered data will be only utilized for research purpose. The details of the respondents and their response on the research questions will be remained anonymous.

Table 1: Research Timeframe  

(Source: Created by author)

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