Working in groups of THREE you will prepare an empirical management research report. Your project should cover any of the three parts of management studies; individual, groups or the organisational systems:

1) Agree on a topic area to focus on. Examples include

2) Establish a proposal for getting your work done.

• An indication of who will be doing what

• General plans for coordinating meeting and communicating

• Any preliminary deadlines (milestones)

3) Develop a framework and methodology for doing the analysis and making comparisons. This typically

Includes:

• Developing an operational definition of the construct(s) (e.g. specific behaviors you will look for, outcomes you will consider, relevant policies and practices, etc)

• Specifying the unit of analysis (e.g. individuals, teams/groups, projects)

• Developing a methodology for collecting data and information (e.g. surveys, interviews, review of archival data, other sources)

4) Collect data and information

• Identify similarities

• Identify distinctions

5) Analyze then discuss your results and prepare conclusions

• Use theories and principles to explain your findings. This includes considering ways in which your findings support or refute theories and principles

• Specify the factors that you think account for similarities and / or differences from one setting to the next (e.g. culture, nature of work, environmental factors, technology, individual differences)

• Consider what one organization might learn from the other

• Develop recommendations for change and improvement

6) Prepare and submit and present your project