Sign In
Not register? Register Now!
Essay Available:
Pages:
3 pages/β‰ˆ825 words
Sources:
4 Sources
Style:
APA
Subject:
Business & Marketing
Type:
Essay
Language:
English (U.S.)
Document:
MS Word
Date:
Total cost:
$ 12.96
Topic:

MGT 423 Case: Action Research and Organization Development

Essay Instructions:

For this assignment, first carefully review the required background materials. Make sure you are highly familiar with the main steps involved in action research and organizational development discussed in the readings. When you are finished reviewing the background materials, take a close look at the four scenarios below.

For each scenario below, think about the reasons why things did not work out well for the company in question. More specifically, think about which standard action research or organizational development step was not taken.

Your task for this assignment is not to explain what steps the organization should take—you would need to go into the company and do some lengthy action research in order to do this! Instead just review the standard action research and organizational development steps covered in the background materials and try to assess which key step was missing in the scenarios below.

Then write a 3 page paper addressing the following for each scenario:

  1. What action research or organizational step was missing and
  2. Why missing this step might have led to failure.

Make sure to discuss at least one of the required readings in your discussion of each scenario, and to cite all three of the required readings in your paper.

  1. Sales have gone down at the XYZ Widget Corporation and nobody in the organization, including the CEO, seems to know why. They decide to hire an organizational development consultant to do some action research. The consultant and the CEO spend a lot of time discussing how to proceed. It is agreed that the consultant will look at many different types of data, including sales data and interviews with most employees. After interviewing a few employees, the consultant decides that the problem faced by this company is almost the same as one of his previous clients who underpaid its sales staff. The consultant writes up a report recommending a large pay increase for the sales staff, which is immediately implemented. However, six months later sales are still down.

HN Motors is a large manufacturer of both cars and motorcycles. Given the new demand for high mileage vehicles, the company has decided to develop a car/motorcycle hybrid that has three wheels and looks like a tiny race car. However, neither the car department nor the motorcycle department wants to take the lead and the project keeps getting stalled. 

Essay Sample Content Preview:

Action Research and Organization Development
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Action Research and Organization Development
Scenario 1
The missing step in this scenario is problem identification. The consultant arrives and begins interviewing some of the employees contrary to the requirement that data should be collected from all the employees.
According to Lurey and Griffin (2013), action research should follow a systematic step by step procedure. In this procedure, data collection is a process of identifying the problem. Interviewing is used in diagnosing the problem. Data collection is done primarily through observation (Lurey & Griffin, 2013). Problem identification begins with the senior management realising the flaws in the company. A consultant is invited to begin interrogating the employees and the managers so as to collect data about the problems that exist in the organisation.
In this scenario, the consultant arrives and begins to diagnose the problem which he or she has not even identified in the first place. Due to lack of data collected to identify the problem, the problem of a previous firm interrupts his mind and he thinks that the same problem could be affecting this organisation. He suggests a similar solution to the company, but because the organisation was not suffering from such problem, the action plan failed.
Scenario 2
In this scenario, the missing step is joint action planning for solving the problems identified. It is quite clear that the manager chose the right consultant who followed all the necessary steps. The manager, however, misses on the last step when they decide to devise the action plan in the absence of the consultant.
After the problems have been identified and feedback provided and discussed with the employees, the whole team that participated in the study should work together in devising an action plan to be taken so as to bring about an organisational change, (Haneberg, 2005). The purpose of this stage is to generate alternative steps to be used in responding collectively to the problems that were identified during the diagnostic stage. Intervention is critical and needs a well-reasoned approach that involves the technical assistance from the consultant who carried out the research. Haneberg asserts that the consultants may finalise the programs with the clients but should not terminate the relationship as their assistance may still be sort through this stage.
In the scenario, the program collapsed because the relationship with the consultant was cut immediately without engaging him in drawing the action plan of how to implement the proposed changes. It might have sounded easy task f...
Updated on
Get the Whole Paper!
Not exactly what you need?
Do you need a custom essay? Order right now:
Order

πŸ‘€ Other Visitors are Viewing These APA Essay Samples:

HIRE A WRITER FROM $11.95 / PAGE
ORDER WITH 15% DISCOUNT!
Order Now