Working in groups of THREE you will prepare an empirical management research report. Your project should cover any of the three parts of management studies; individual, groups or the organisational systems:
1) Agree on a topic area to focus on. Examples include
2) Establish a proposal for getting your work done.
• An indication of who will be doing what
• General plans for coordinating meeting and communicating
• Any preliminary deadlines (milestones)
3) Develop a framework and methodology for doing the analysis and making comparisons. This typically
Includes:
• Developing an operational definition of the construct(s) (e.g. specific behaviors you will look for, outcomes you will consider, relevant policies and practices, etc)
• Specifying the unit of analysis (e.g. individuals, teams/groups, projects)
• Developing a methodology for collecting data and information (e.g. surveys, interviews, review of archival data, other sources)
4) Collect data and information
• Identify similarities
• Identify distinctions
5) Analyze then discuss your results and prepare conclusions
• Use theories and principles to explain your findings. This includes considering ways in which your findings support or refute theories and principles
• Specify the factors that you think account for similarities and / or differences from one setting to the next (e.g. culture, nature of work, environmental factors, technology, individual differences)
• Consider what one organization might learn from the other
• Develop recommendations for change and improvement
6) Prepare and submit and present your project