Guidelines for  Organizational Field Study (OFS)

Evaluation Form used by Prof to Eval OFS Paper

Form Used by Class and Prof to Eval OFS Presentation 

What's the purpose?

The purpose of the OFS is to provide a hands-on, integrative experience using the four frames to diagnose an actual organization. The project will be conducted in a small group of fellow classmates. Someone in your group will identify the organization to diagnosis.

How do we decide upon our group and its size?

The prof will help create the groups, each with no more than six members. They will be uniformly formed to assure international and experienced students are evenly distributed among the groups. If your group is smaller than other groups in the class, the prof has read over a hundred of the these diagnoses and can gauge the difference in quality/depth of diagnosis as a function of group size.

How much work is involved?

Use a guideline of about eight hours of field study (designing and diagnosing but not analyzing or preparing the paper and presentation) for each individual group member. Who writes the diagnosis is decided by the group. It is helpful to have someone with editing skills to provide a final edit. You will be graded on both the quality of the diagnosis and its written and oral presentation. You can't nor are you expected to do an exhaustive study.  Instead, the purpose is to demonstrate how much you have learned about the value of a multiple frame approach to understanding organizations.

How do we divide up the work?

This decision is up to you. Personal schedules vary. For example, some folks may be able to spend more time at the site. Perhaps these individuals can do other tasks, e.g. analyze data, write-up findings, etc.

How do we get started?

Organize early, discuss and clarify your team's objectives and levels of commitment: use the structural frame. Who does what by when. There are  tensions and dilemmas that can threaten the effectiveness of any  group. Your group needs to meet and discuss early on how you plan to work together. Once you begin to address your mutual expectations, you may find yours differ from others. For instance, consider the following conversations and how you might deal with them:

Learning: "Are all here to learn and to help others learn or are you here to get a good grade?" (E.g.,  "I'm really exciting by this hands-on way to learn about the four frames. I want to help this organization because I know it well and it really needs some help." Or "This is an impossible semester for me, I'm getting married, taking 12 hours, broke my writing hand, have started a new job, and well….I just won't be able to put a lot of effort into our project."

Standards: "Do all agree about standards for grades?" (E.g., "I put off taking this course until this my last semester. I've heard it is a drag and I don't believe in any of this psycho babble and all I want is a passing C grade anyway so I can get out of here." Or "If I don't get an A I will die a slow painful death.")

Performance: "Do all agree about how hard to work?" (E.g., "This sounds like a terrific project, I really can learn a lot and want to do the best diagnosis possible." Or "Let's get it over with and go to the Peanut for a beer. Shall we call the prof to join us?"

What are the first steps?

Get organize and  don't put off the work until late in the semester. Establish timelines and stick to them. To manage a large project at work, you would not begin without a lot of pre-work. Think about the steps in this project and when you want to take them.  In the past, physical distance among group  members and finding mutually satisfactory meeting times seem to bother some groups but not others. There are ways around the problem. For example, I assume that someone in your group can help set up a group webpage to keep each other informed. See, for example, Google "Groups." Blanket emails help. Class time will be set aside to do the diagnosis. Teams in today's organizations are expected to harness efficiently the knowledge and efforts of company employees regardless of their location. Other ideas: 1) an agenda can be distributed before each group meeting; 2) some group members summarize class readings or pick up other responsibilities during the weeks when others are busy completing the project; 3) focus on goals first, then socialize, but do have fun together if you can; 4) discuss early on your team members strengths and preferences in order to decide different roles and ways to share the work load.

Will we need to meet outside of class?

Class time will be set aside for OFS meetings, but depending on how organized you are to take advantage of class time, you may need to plan to meet outside class. Some groups leave early during  OFS class time because they are poorly organized or do not start the OFS soon enough. Read the schedule and unfold your work so dedicated class time is not wasted.

What is this business about peer evaluation?

The issue is one of shared accountability. Since individuals may differ in their commitment to the group effort, how you hold each other accountable is critical. Each person has a substantial part of the grade for the course held in the hands of fellow group mates. (You will evaluate each other's effort and the evaluation will become part of your final grade.) See Important Information,

How do we identify an organization?

Choose an organizational site of interest early on. It may be a business firm, a school, a nonprofit organization, a church, a student organization. For example, past groups have conducted field studies of a local rugby club, a hospital emergency room, a major restaurant, a brewery, the UMKC newspaper and bookstore, a city council, a small public agency, the department of a large local government unit, a small start-up business, a public radio station, a mortgage loan department at a large bank, a department at Sprint, the MIS group at a 13 million dollar/year manufacturing company, a trucking company, the Missouri Repertory Theater, a law firm, an architectural firm, a department at the KC zoo, a manufacturer of concert violins, and many nonprofit organizations. It should be an organization of manageable size, e.g., not the Harley Davidson plant, for example, but perhaps the shipping department. How large a unit? The size of organization studied has ranged from 12-75 people.

You might approach one or more organizations where team members have worked. It is best for one individual to serve as liaison with the organization selected to facilitate communication and minimize confusion.

What do you mean by a "contract" with the subject organization?

You'll need to negotiate an agreement to define the conditions of your work and relationship with the organization. You should write-up an informal "contract"--not a legal document, but a statement of what is expected of the team and the organization. For example, if you wish to interview members of the organization, agreements about access to certain kind of information need to be understood and negotiated. The class schedule tells you when this contract is due. You can use or adapt this Sample contract letter.

Please approach the organization with respect for its people. In the best case, members of the organization should believe your presence was a positive experience for them. Determine with your key contact person what part (if any) of your report you will leave with the organization. Some groups have agreed to provide a presentation of their analysis to members of the client organization (either in person or in writing). Some groups have invited a company official to class when you present your findings. 

Decide with your client group what might happen if your analysis is critical of the organization. In short, it is important that you be clear with the organization about what your group will or will not provide. Be "straight" with them. You are not consultants to work on a problem at the organization nor are you employees trying to fix things. Remember, your task is primarily to conduct an organizational four frame diagnosis, and based upon your diagnosis make some general recommendations about how to make the organization better.

What is an organizational metaphor and what role does it play in the OFS?

Select a metaphor to represent your organization. Metaphor can create powerful images and ideas about an organization. You will gather a lot of data about your organization. Selecting the right metaphor to describe it allows you to present it in a rich and concise way to the rest of us, and perhaps pushing you to think of the organization in a new and creative ways.  Before you pick a metaphor, be sure you know what a metaphor is. This might help: Metaphor Before you pick a metaphor, be sure you fully understand what a metaphor is.

How long is the paper?

Your product is a group paper usually about 3000-5000 words, plus appendices, and,  a presentation of your findings to the class.  Reserve interview protocols, questionnaires, tables of data, interesting quotations, archival data, etc. for the appendix.

What about the presentation?

See OFS Presentation

Tell me about the work plan?

See Work Plan

How do we get information about the organization and decide on the methodology for our diagnosis?

The paper should demonstrate the value of a multiple frame analysis to describe and diagnose the organization. Be sure to comment about the organization from each of the four frames equally. Your paper should include: (1) a short succinct, description of the organization (its current status, key events and stakeholders, nature, noting how the four frames inform the elements of your description); (2) a brief account of your methodology (observations made, individuals interviewed, document studied, etc.); (3) how well you think the organization is doing and how do you know this (what data support your interpretation?); (4) what do you suggest if the organization is to improve or enhance what it is already doing well, i.e., actions to take by frame. Remember, my part of your grade is largely based upon how well you demonstrate your understanding and use of the four frames and how effective you are in presenting your insights.

Draw upon at least three different sources of information. There are a number of ways to collect information: (1) Direct observation of organizational events or behavior. What, for example, does a simple walking tour of the organization say about its culture (the symbolic frame), e.g., use of space, kind of dress, symbols of power? (2) What might you learn if you were to follow someone around for a day? You might hangout at the end of a day to see what happens; (3) Analysis of documents/archival data (annual reports, memos, reports, publicity releases, and so on); (4) Conversations or interviews with leaders, supervisors, clients. When you interview, remember that the validity of the data depends on the extent the interviewee feels he/she can trust you and what the interviewee thinks you will do with the data; (5) Questionnaires make it possible to collect lots of data from a large number of people quickly and provide quantitative data that can be communicated back to the organization and summarized in your final report. You can generate a list of questions that flow from each frame. The questionnaire must assure confidentiality and include a brief statement of the purposes at the beginning. There are a number of rules-of-thumb to follow in questionnaire construction and survey research. Seek my help if no one in your group has experience developing a questionnaire or collecting data this way. One rule of thumb is that in order to have 30 respondents you may need to send the questionnaire to at least 60 people or a 50% response rate.  Choosing questions carefully and developing meaningful scales are critical. Here is a questionnaire that students in a previous course created: (in Word format). Sample OFS Frame Analysis Questionnaire. Modify it for your own use. It is usually helpful to follow a questionnaire with interviews rather than the other way around.

If you decide to use a OFS Frame Analysis Questionnaire, remember the following:

1. use a balanced scale, e.g.,
        1                         2                               3                                     4                      5
Strongly Disagree    Disagree       Neither Agree of Disagree          Disagree      Strongly Disagree

2. not all folks use scales the same way; be careful making too much about an exact average; look for patterns, e.g. differences in answers between levels of the organization or bimodal or extreme patterns.

3. if you can compare worker responses to management, a richer story is often  told.

4. it is best to collect diagnostic information from a questionnaire first, so you can follow-up findings in face-to-face interviews. Open Ended Questions to Ask by Frame when Diagnosing an Organization

5. you can set up a visit with the prof who has diagnosed lots of organization and may be able to help you (with your plan, not the diagnosis or its presentation).

Another guideline is to assure you sample properly to capture a representative group of respondents. How you use your data to explain what you find is very important. Are those  interviewed, fully representative of the organization? Is the sample size large enough that if you find variations in responses, the variation can tell you anything? Can you separate the responses into subsets, e.g. bosses/worker bees? If your sample is not representative, the data may be of questionable reliability. In short, understand the importance of proper sampling and levels of the organization. Worker bees always "see things" differently from managers. Can you capture the differences? Folding the data together will wash out any of these differences.

If each member of your group plans to conduct interviews, a list of questions--also called an interview protocol--serve as a guideline during the interview process. In some instances, you may find it useful to create "open-ended questions" to guide the inquiry with no certain specific line of inquiry expected. You can use this resource: Open Ended Questions to Ask by Frame when Diagnosing an Organization

Are their ethical concerns and certain sensitivities about which we should we aware?

You will be entering a real organization, staffed by real people whose jobs and lives are tied up in what you are trying to discover. You may probe issues that are quite sensitive. So it is important to honor any promises of confidentiality. Most folks you interview will prefer anonymity. Even if names are not used in your final report, be sensitive about how you quote interviewees. Remember, aspects of identify may give someone away. Quotations need to be checked and a specific comment  may need to be aggregated in order to protect identity. You may be given data that is sensitive to not only individuals but to the corporate leaders. If the company shares information with you but asks you not to share or duplicate it, please honor the request. If there is any uncertainty about corporate data that was meant to be confidential, check with your company first.

We trust that no one will deliberately violate the standards of confidentiality. You must also be careful to not do it accidentally. Be cautious about where you leave data files and mindful and cautious about how you store or transport data. We trust that professional standards of conduct will prevail (for, example, dress properly--which may vary by corporate culture--, return phone calls promptly, keep scheduled appointments, let people know if your schedule changes.) Remember, you are representing not just yourself and your group, but the Bloch School and the University.

Attending to ethical and sensitive issues can add to rather than subtract from a rich learning experience for you and for the organization you study.

Explain the grading of OFS

Some  of your grade will be provided by your fellow study group members as they will be asked to grade in your contributions to the OFS. Class members also help grade your presentation (See the peer evaluation and presentation forms for this class on Important Info page.)

The instructor will provide the balance of the grade using these criteria. I will use this form: Evaluation Form used by Prof to Eval OFS Paper

What are common problems found in other students' work?

What goes in the appendices?

Do you expect a certain structure for the paper?

No.

Did you invent this idea of the OFS?

Portions of these guidelines have been adapted from a set of guidelines prepared by Professor Bolman for a similar assignment. The OFS idea has been adapted for this course.

Anything else you can think of?

Feel free to ask me to join your group during your in class planning time or contact me anytime during the semester if have a question not answered here.