Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior

1. Describe some differences between scientific research and some informal research that you have done. Give an example of how your informal research activity could be done using a formal scientific approach.

First, we need to understand the difference between "Scientific" and "Informal" research. Scientific Research is a method based on collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data within a framework. It is Information based on observation or measurement and free from bias or emotions. All aspects of the investigation are described in sufficient detail, so that the study can be repeated by anyone.

Informal research is simply a set of data gathering that lacks the formality and controls that the full scientific method would require. As an executive for a large real estate franchise and Small Business owner I consistently use both all the time in order to analyze things. A good example is every month I review our production and financial numbers with a specific scientific method and approach to ensure all company ratios are in order and nothing looks out of the ordinary before I close month end. During that process, we have sales staff that excel and others that don't if you only look at the numbers. However, sometimes the numbers are not all what they seem and some of our newer sales associates may not have the "official" numbers but by simply talking with them and reviewing what they have done, you can tell that many are on the verge of having an exceptionally successful month number wise. The brief surveys in my conversations are certainly informal but they often yield an intangible that the numbers don't necessarily bring out.

Now, instead of simply having conversations with my sales staff that may not be meeting their goals in an informal way, I could schedule a formal coaching/accountability session each week and have them answer a specific set of questions that I could design in order to track progression. Then institute all the aspects of scientific research so the data can be duplicated and reliable.

2. If you were going to study some aspect of Organizational Behavior, what would it be, and why.

After careful consideration, I think I would focus on how "Stress" affects individuals and groups. In addition to my job, which is very stressful, especially for our sales force who works on commission only...I also coach youth sports in soccer and karate. Through my years of experience of doing both, I have noticed that the biggest obstacle in my informal research observations is that "Stress" plays the biggest factor on how someone succeeds or fails. Everyone has some sort of individual motivation to get them started, but when you add "Pressure/Stress" to any situation, you really notice the character of an individual comes out. They will usually either