Identify Researchable Problems

Post one problem or opportunity statement you plan to research for one of your projects. Explain the criteria you used to make your selection, and justify the statement as an appropriate research focus

MGMT 8705M: Organizational Behavior Performance and Evaluation

Hints

Week 1: Research Problems and Topics

Hints for Week 1 Discussion When you start any project or scholarly writing, the first step is to explore the potential topics of interest. Good places to start are professional business and management journals. The topics in professional journals are wide ranging and show the current focus with respect to business, leadership, and management practices. In this course, you are given a list of themes, topics, and issues as a starting point to select a different focus for each of the three projects. Once you explore your topics and related issues based on the Topic List, you will develop the scope and rationale, which explain the reasoning you went through to clearly articulate the problem or opportunity you will explore in each project. The Assignments during Weeks 1–4 are cumulative and apply to all three projects; you will need to develop the rationale, search strategy, research questions, and frameworks for each of the projects. Remember, by Week 4 you should have defined all three of your projects and collected the majority of the literature in your literature matrix. (See the Week 2 Assignment for details on the matrix.) Below is an example of a possible rationale for a problem or opportunity identification statement. The statement (you will need to develop one for each of your projects) should include your rationale, problem or opportunity, scope, and the gap in the literature. Describe what you think are the main concepts you might include. Please refer to this example for guidance on how to develop your rationale and identification of the problem or opportunity.

Example Theme: Organizational Behavior Topic: Individual Employee Motivation and Behavior Issues: Motivational theories and their application to individual behavior; Impact and influence of reward and recognition on employee performance and job satisfaction

Problem or opportunity statement Motivating sustained behavior change in employees as an outcome of a change effort by applying motivational theories and improving the leadership.

Search Criteria The keywords I used to explore my first project topic were “organizational behavior and behavioral systems.” I also searched on the terms “organizational behavior and motivation” and found 62 articles that were peer reviewed between 2010 and 2018 that matched my search criteria. Since I was specifically interested in behavioral management, I narrowed my search to include the term “behavior management,” but did not find any matches. When I changed it to “behavioral systems” I found the Kelley and Gravina (2018) article.

Rationale Kelley and Gravina (2018) discussed how organizational behavior management (OBM) can be used to implement a value-based purchasing (VBP) program in a hospital in order to improve the balance between cost and quality of care. I selected this article because it is one applied example of how to motivate sustained behavior change in employees as an outcome of a change effort. The focus of one of my Projects in this course will be on improving the effectiveness of online MBA faculty in their adoption and implementation of systematic program and course designs. My plan is to examine OBM models for application in this setting and investigate the impact of motivational factors and leadership on faculty effectiveness and compliance. I will look for case studies in educational settings that have used OBM models to understand the triggers linked to enhanced conformance behavior after a change event in an online education setting.

Reference Kelley III, D. P., & Gravina, N. (2018). A paradigm shift in healthcare: An open door for organizational behavior management. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 38(1), 73–89. doi:10.1080/01608061.2017.1325824 Permalink to article in Walden Library: https://ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx ?direct=true&db=edswss&AN=000423210300005&site=eds-live&scope=site

Notes:

• Clicking on the link above will not work. Please copy the entire link and paste it into the location bar of your browser to access the resource in the Walden Library.

• Please refer to the handout for the diagraming the problem or opportunity listed in this week’s learning resources.

Criteria for “superior” initial post: þ Student provides a thorough and detailed justification of one problem or

opportunity he/she plans to research for his/her project by explaining the criteria he/she used to make his/her selection.

þ Student supports his/her statement by referring to at least one relevant article from a peer-reviewed journal.

þ Student consistently follows APA writing style and basic rules of formal English grammar and written essay style. Student communicates in a cohesive, logical style. There are no spelling or grammar errors.

þ Student demonstrates full adherence to APA style with respect to source attribution, references, heading and subheading logic, table of contents and lists of charts, etc. There are no APA errors. Citations and references support position.

General tips about searching the literature

Academic articles, whether published in peer-reviewed or professional journals, generally center research on a problem, opportunity, or gap. When you look for a research focus in the literature, you typically start by identifying a social problem and then research it by intersecting with relevant keywords. In the context of this course, these might include, for example, design thinking, innovation, management, leadership, or information technology. A good idea is to start by reviewing the abstracts to assess if the articles you find are likely to support your inquiry. Once you find articles that are in alignment with the focus of one of your projects, you should add them to your Zotero list for the project and read them more deeply, focusing on the discussion and conclusions. Use the Notes tab in Zotero to capture your preliminary thoughts about each article, including important concepts covered, findings, and how the article contributes to your project. In some cases, you might even copy a quote from the article to potentially include in your article. Be sure to note the page reference with it so you don’t have to look it up later.

Hints for Week 1 Looking Ahead You should start identifying areas of inquiry for your three projects. Remember that you need to select each project from a different theme on the Topic List for this course. Below is a description of one of the three projects to give you a sense of what is expected in this task.

Example (extract) Theme: Organizational Behavior Topic: Individual Employee Motivation and Behavior Issues: Motivational theories and their application to individual behavior; Impact of leader/member relationship

Problem or opportunity statement Motivating sustained behavior change in employees as an outcome of a change effort by applying motivational theories and improving the leadership relationship.

Rationale For one of my Projects, I plan to examine the issues of leadership impact and motivational theories and their application to individual behavior in the context of organizational behavior management. This is an issue within the sub-topic of Individual employee motivation and behavior, and the theme of organizational behavior. The field of organizational behavior management focuses on the scientific principles that underlie the behaviors of employees in the workplace. Kelley and Gravina (2018) outlined how this field of inquiry has been used in a variety of industries, including health care, manufacturing, construction, and banking. They emphasized improved behaviors related to safety and customer satisfaction. Focusing on behaviors related to customer satisfaction of students (the customers in online MBA courses) the proposed study will yield behaviors by online faculty that can be addressed to improve the quality of the online student’s experience, thereby addressing customer satisfaction goals.

Notes Use the above example to outline all three projects. Be sure to include the rationale for each project.

MGMT 8705M: Organizational Behavior Performance and Evaluation

Topic List

The focus of this organizational behavior and human capital development course is on organizational behavior, motivation, collaboration, and performance and evaluation of individuals and teams. Some of the questions that may be explored relate to how human resource managers motivate and build resiliency in their organizational culture. Students will also consider the influence of organizational structure behavior of individuals and teams, how behavior and motivation are impacted in a global virtual environment, and the impact of expert systems and artificial intelligence on the behavior of employees. You will be completing three projects for this course:

• Research framework (due in Week 5) • Prospectus (due in Week 8) • Proposal (due in Week 10)

For each project, you will choose a different focus area by following the steps below: 1. Select a different theme from the list below for each of your three projects. 2. Within the theme, select a combination of multiple topics and issues. 3. Declare three focus areas that you will use for your three projects. (Week 1) 4. Refine your focus areas by conducting an initial review of the literature.

(Weeks 2–4)

Theme 1: Organizational Behavior Organizational behavior is the study of how individuals and groups behave within an organizational environment. The study of organizational behavior includes perspectives on motivation, leadership, communication, power and politics, and other issues that are involved in the interface between individuals, groups, and the organization, whether it is a business, government entity, non-profit, or any other assembly of individuals that have come together to serve a common purpose.

• Organizational Theories and Application o Organizational perspectives o Traditional versus contemporary theory and practice

o Global versus local organizations o External organizational environment o Diversity and ethics in a global environment o Power and politics in both domestic and global environments

• Group, Team, and Leadership Behavior o Contemporary theories and applications o Promoting effective group and team behaviors o Influencing employee trust, loyalty, and commitment o Adapting to the virtual environment

• Individual Employee Motivation and Behavior o Motivational theories and their application to individual behavior o Impact and influence of reward and recognition on employee performance

and job satisfaction o Impact of leader/member relationship o Impact of generational differences o Impact of social and cultural differences

Theme 2: Organizational Culture and Structure Organizations are impacted by both culture (the system of beliefs developed over time in the organization) and structure (how the organization is designed to achieve its goals). The study of organizational culture includes a survey of how belief systems are formed, sustained, and changed in the organization, and how these belief systems are influenced by internal and external stimuli. The structure of the organization can be intentionally designed to address strategic goals, with consideration for the culture, and can be modified in order to facilitate change. Both culture and structure influence the behaviors we see at the individual employee as well as group/team and leadership level within the organization.

• Organizational Culture (aka Organizational DNA) o Definition and structure of organizational culture o Impact of organizational change on organizational culture and internal

environment o Impact of macro cultures

• Organizational Structure influencing Culture and Employees o Impact of organizational structure on job design o Impact of structure on communication and decision making o Organizational design alignment with strategy o Impact of job and workplace design o Workforce planning

• Leadership Influences on Culture o Role of leader in developing, communicating, and sustaining

organizational culture o Organizational culture that values and facilitates social change o Building a resilient organizational culture o How learning is transmitted through culture o Influence of technology (artificial intelligence, expert systems, etc.) on the

behavior of individual employees and groups

Theme 3: Organizational Effectiveness, Assessment and Evaluation Organizational effectiveness refers to the ability of the organization to achieve its goals, and assessment refers to the practices and systems put in place to monitor and measure effectiveness. Organizational effectiveness measures can be put in place to measure any aspect of organizational behavior and are relevant at the individual employee, group/team, and leadership levels of the organization. This topic includes diagnostics to address potential problems and opportunities faced by the organization and the organization’s ability or readiness to respond to internal and external stimuli.

• Organizational development o HR alignment with strategy o Strategic change initiatives o Assessing culture and leading change o Culture adaptations through stages of growth o Human resource policies and procedures o Leadership and management development

• Organizational performance models o High Performance Work Systems o Knowledge Management o Learning Organizations o Performance management o Process management o Rewards and recognition

• Organizational assessment and evaluation o Methods (qualitative, quantitative, mixed) o Problem identification o Data gathering o Analysis of results o Diagnosis and feedback

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