Methodology
The survey method, as well as the experimental method, can be used for quantitative research. As a rule, survey research is used to investigate the attitude of respondents and demographic peculiarities of different research groups. Ethical issues are very important for survey design because respondents should be provided with questionnaires, interview questions, or self-completion mail surveys (Cox, 2009, p. 221) about the expected outcomes. For investigation of the attitude of the respondents to the educational reforms, it is necessary to include different types of questions (open-ended, multiple-choice, etc.) into the list to be answered. Written consent should be signed by respondents to notify them and receive their permission to use data collected with the help of surveys and personal data. Survey research can be used in experimental designs (Garson, 2008, p.1).
The experimental strategies used for inquiry should include dependents and independent variables and the relationship between variables (Mcnabb, 2007, p. 212); when one of the independent variables changes, the dependent one changes as well. The sampling methods are not applied to experimental strategies while being applied to survey strategies. The written consent of respondents and their demographic features are not relevant to the experimental strategies unless the experiments involve certain changes in the parameters of the organism as in health care. The quantitative methods are popular in public administration though experiments concern more the attitude and changes that can be attained through changes in the group sample sizes and conditions in which they occur. Reliability and validity are integral components in research because invalid data cannot be used in practice with the same or at least similar results as in the research. The theory should be supported with practical application of findings.
Abbreviated Research Plan
Introduction
The relationships between different organizations can be built on various bases including mere cooperation or direct partnership when the organizational behavior of one company may influence the organizational culture of another. In this respect, it is necessary to trace the tendencies in the violations of organizational rules and policies to prevent violation of mutually adopted organizational rules when two organizations cooperate in the areas related to public administration.
Purpose Statement
The ability of organizations to cooperate without violation of each other’s organizational policies is very important, especially for the areas where people provide services and promote policies and regulations and where no conflicts should arise due to the expected high level of organizational culture in such companies.
Research Questions and Hypotheses
The research should be conducted to investigate the organizational culture in different fields related to public administration and companies that work directly with this sector. In this respect, it is necessary to analyze the organizational culture in two parties concerned (using examples of the effective and ineffective cooperation of organizations in this sector) and explore how the two organizations can influence each other’s organizational behavior in case it was strong/weak, violated/non-violated, and other aspects. The research hypothesizes that a company with strong organizational behavior regardless of the fact whether it is positive or negative is sure to influence another company’s organizational behavior in terms of adoption of the same rules, regulations, and behavioral principles.
Research on Organizational Culture
The importance of the organizational behavior in the company is great because it influences the way the organization operates in terms of partnership, cooperation, and other types of activities that include other companies that either operate in the same sector or can be impacted by the operation of the organization. In this respect, a company with stronger organizational values that can be reinforced through “leadership, selection, and socialization” (Pfister, 2009, p 156) is sure to impact the company with weak organizational values. Analyzing the cases when the rules were violated and collecting data with the help of surveys concerning the employees’ ideas about the reasons of violation and the overall attitude toward the organizational culture including the set of policies, bonus/punishment strategies, and other aspects.
Schein (2010) claims that there are assumptions concerning the behavior of individuals and possible explanations of different patterns of behavior; as such: “People work best when they are given clear rules to cover all situations… and (2) people like immediate feedback and will not obey rules unless rule violation is immediately punished” (p. 322). In other words, it is possible to combine the interviews with observations and standard surveys as suggested by Creswell (2003, p. 15). The variables to be investigated in this case include the number of employees in each organization, the period when the organizational policy was operating and frequency of changes in organizational policy under the influence of employees’ opinions. Besides, it is necessary to investigate the relation of the similarities and differences in organizational polices of the companies to be reviewed with regard to the level of satisfaction expected from employees that can be collected with the help of open-ended interviews bearing in mind possible threats to internal validity enumerated in the study by Shadish, Cook, and Campbell (2002).
References
Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Pfister, J. (2009). Managing organizational culture for effective internal control: From practice to theory. New York: Springer.
Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership (4th ed.). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley and Sons.
Shadish, W. R., Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (2002). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference. Boston: Houghton- Mifflin.
Cox, R. W. (2009). Ethics and integrity in public administration: concepts and cases. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Garson, D, G. Research Designs: Statnotes, from North Carolina State University, Public Administration Program. (2008). Web.
Mcnabb, D. E. (2007). Research methods in public administration and NONP: qualitative and quantitative approaches. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.