Case Study 1.1: Organizational Science in the Real World

1. How could research help this small organization? What would you hope to gain as the manager?

Research may help to identify the cause of the turnover, disconnect and dissatisfaction. I would hope this research would lead to ways in which to improve customer satisfaction and firm performance performance. Finding the root causes will allow the manager to make appropriate and succinct alterations to current processes. Research may also lead to suggestions for ways to improve current processes such as new technology, increased job training or pre-validation of customers.

2. What dependent variables should you, as the manager, consider researching? Why?

Dependent variables we would consider researching:

• Areas of concern - employee and customer concerns would help to determine areas of concern.
• Technology limitations - is technology limiting performance? If so, this can be easily fixed.
• Productivity - Is operational flow diminshing productivity? If so, what can be done to decrease bottlenecks?
• Satisfaction - How satisfied are my employees? What are ways that this can be improved?
• Organizational structure - Are employees being properly supervised, is the employee to supervisor ratio out of whack?
• Workflow - How much time does it take to complete a transaction and what paperwork is required for each transaction? Are there ways to improve the workflow to reduce down time
• Attrition Rate - What is causing employees to become dissatisfied with their jobs and eventually leaving the company.
• Standard Operating Procedures - What are the internal processes to carry out routine operations? Do these need to be revised to improve operational effectiveness?

3. Think about the research designs discussed in the Appendix on Research Designs used in the OB at the end of the book. Which one(s) do you think would be appropriate for the manager to use? Would there be any benefit to using multiple methods, and if so, in what order would you conduct the research studies?

As a whole, we all agreed that the mixed methods would be the most beneficial method as there is a need to gather qualitative and quantitative data as well as test solutions backed by research. This method allows the combination of multiple strategies in order to best resolve the issues. Additionally, the Action research method would also be useful because the problem is affecting the entire organization and needs to be intercepted and handled swiftly.