Peppercorn Dining
May 30, 2012
Case Analysis: Peppercorn Dining 1.
The consultants’ data collection involves gathering information on specific organizational features, based on personal interviews and observations. They also examined the organizational mission statements, records, rules, regulations and policies in order to gain information about the unit’s structure. Since Erica was a former student manager at the dining unit couple of years ago, she took over the interviews with the employees because it was easier for them to speak with a familiar face than a complete stranger. But here the question arises of whether or not she is going to be objective or bias. While she thought that her familiarity with the people and program would potentially help her with the interviewing process, it actually would most likely hinder her ability to stay neutral and conduct a truly objective data collection process.
Their data collection process begins with interviews with those from whom data will be collected. The problem with the interviews was that they were not structured, there were different questions asked to each employee and there is no means of any comparison whatsoever. The interviewing process needed to be uniformed if the consultants wanted to get a true feel for how the employees felt about their work environment. The OD consultants in this case went in the organization with open-ended questions, which was a problem with the data collection. The process of data gathering is inefficient. In order to have a tangible and analytical data gathering process, the questions asked have to be concrete with answers that can be analyzed one way or the other. Open-ended answers simply will not do.
2.
The first and most obvious technique we should use for the interviews and subjective data would be a content analysis. If we take the answers to the questions, with the assumption that we start asking the same questions to each person, and put them into meaningful categories, we will
Case Analysis: Peppercorn Dining 1.
The consultants’ data collection involves gathering information on specific organizational features, based on personal interviews and observations. They also examined the organizational mission statements, records, rules, regulations and policies in order to gain information about the unit’s structure. Since Erica was a former student manager at the dining unit couple of years ago, she took over the interviews with the employees because it was easier for them to speak with a familiar face than a complete stranger. But here the question arises of whether or not she is going to be objective or bias. While she thought that her familiarity with the people and program would potentially help her with the interviewing process, it actually would most likely hinder her ability to stay neutral and conduct a truly objective data collection process.
Their data collection process begins with interviews with those from whom data will be collected. The problem with the interviews was that they were not structured, there were different questions asked to each employee and there is no means of any comparison whatsoever. The interviewing process needed to be uniformed if the consultants wanted to get a true feel for how the employees felt about their work environment. The OD consultants in this case went in the organization with open-ended questions, which was a problem with the data collection. The process of data gathering is inefficient. In order to have a tangible and analytical data gathering process, the questions asked have to be concrete with answers that can be analyzed one way or the other. Open-ended answers simply will not do.
2.
The first and most obvious technique we should use for the interviews and subjective data would be a content analysis. If we take the answers to the questions, with the assumption that we start asking the same questions to each person, and put them into meaningful categories, we will