Analysis of Organizational Change Outcomes

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An Analysis of Understanding Change in Organizational Outcomes-Article in Journal of Management

Problem Addressed by the Study

The study suggests that experimental research designs are not suitable for examining change in organizations because they require a lot of resources, are badly timed, and due to ethical reasons (Arvey, 2011).

Sexual harassment is a strong instance of this issue since it can be both legally and ethically wrong to hold back harassment learning and related organizational interventions from a portion of the population to be utilized as a control group (Arvey, 2011). Thus, organizations often investigate sexual harassment involvements by making surveys to evaluate the incidence of these behaviors before and after the execution.

Survey responses though are prone to several subjective factors that affect the soundness of their interpretation. Surveys are especially influenced by response distortion, communication customs and memory ability of the subjects, measurement, reactivity, and phrasing of the questions (Arvey, 2011).

In addition, interpretation of survey results can be perplexed by risk of internal and external accuracy presented by historical influences, maturation, non-response preconceptions, etc. Despite the fact that various approaches have been advanced for reducing these threats to validity of surveys such as the internal referencing method, these approaches cannot take care of all the potential influences of personal factors on survey responses. As a result, additional measures are required before valid findings are drawn from survey investigations.

This article discusses methods that can be employed to examine whether a change in the average of a variable is a real change or a result of subjective influences on survey responses (Arvey, 2011). These approaches have been examined in relation to sexual harassment in the US military during seven year duration. In particular, the study sought to find out whether the reported drop in incidences of sexual harassment in the military resulted from behavior change or it was just caused by change in the responses of the subjects.

Stakeholders in the Research

The stakeholders in this study are researchers and organizations in general. Researchers will benefit from the research as they will know the effectiveness of surveys in generating valid responses from subjects and the methods they can employ to ensure that such responses are not affected by respondent’s subjective factors. This will ensure that whenever surveys are used to generate information they will generate accurate information and data from which valid conclusions can be drawn.

The other group of stakeholders in the research study is the various types of organizations (Waldo, 2008). The idea of change is very important in organizational settings and these entities usually administer surveys to measure incidences of various change variables.

However, the validity of these surveys cannot be guaranteed because of the subjective influences on subjects’ responses. Thus, evaluating the effectiveness of the various methods available for reducing this subjectivity would help in ensuring that change surveys yield only valid results (Waldo, 2008).

The Data Collected and How it was Measured

The data for this study was based on a 2008 survey administered to members of the US armed forces. The data questionnaires were given to respondents who consisted of members of the US Department of defense who had been actively engaged for at least the last half year. The study employed a non-standardized stratified random sample in a bid to obtain adequate sample sizes for the targeted populations. The study subjects involved both men and women unlike in past studies where samples included women alone.

To measure the sexual harassment variable, the study used the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire. This form of questionnaire has been employed extensively in the assessment of the prevalence of inappropriate gender connected behavior in the past few years (Antecol, 2003).

The questionnaire comprises of a four-factor model. The four variables covered were sexist behavior, unsolicited sexual attention, offending behavior, and sexual duress. The study measured the responses based on a four-point Likert scale. The responses ranged from never to very often.

Quantitative vs. Qualitative

This study was quantitative in nature. The research employed quantitative techniques to analyze the responses to the study variables. This entailed calculation of means, standard deviations, as well as correlation coefficients between the variables that were being investigated. Other measures used were covariance, variance, and standardized root mean square. For levels of significance, the study utilized the F-test.

Hypothesis

The research employed two hypotheses, hypothesis 1 and hypothesis 2. Hypothesis 1 stated that responses to the sexual harassment questionnaire are influenced by subjective factors of the respondents. Hypothesis 2, on the other hand, stated that responses to the sexual harassment questionnaire are not influenced by the subjectivity of the respondents.

The first hypothesis was an alternative hypothesis while the second one was a null hypothesis. The research used the F-test with a 95 percent confidence level to test the null hypothesis. If the null hypothesis was wrong by over 5 percent it would be rejected. In contrast, if the null hypothesis was wrong by less than a 5 percent margin it would be accepted.

The Dependent and Independent Variables

In this research, the dependent variable was the change in sexual harassment behavior among members of the US armed forces. Conversely, the independent variable was the cause of the change in sexual harassment behavior. That is, was the cause related to the research approach or instrument or a real change in behavior?

Data Analysis

To analyze the research data, the study employed several approaches including univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analysis. Univariate analysis was used to depict variables such as the study populations and sample constituents among others. In contrast, bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to study the relationship between the research variables.

Multivariate analysis methods employed included calculating the means and standard deviations of the responses, determining covariance, and regression analysis. Scatter graphs were also utilized to depict the relationship between the key variables.

Research Findings

The aim of this study was to investigate the methods for understanding change in organization outcomes. Though crediting the decline in sexual harassment to organization efforts is obviously appealing, the study results indicates that the significant decline in these behaviors is not completely as a result of measures taken by organizations to curb it.

This finding is based on the study’s investigation of the association between sexual harassment incidences and organization interventions to reduce the behaviors. Further, the study revealed that incidences of sexual harassment in organizations have not changed significantly as implied by earlier investigations into the subject. What have changed instead are organizational members’ responses to cases of sexual harassment.

Additional Research Questions

The present study sheds light on the impact of subjective factors on survey responses. Specifically, it shows how change in organizational members’ reaction to cases of sexual violence can influence survey results despite the fact that incidences of sexual harassment have not reduced. Potential research questions arising from this research are the causes of change in organizational members’ responses to incidences of sexual harassment and the most effective ways of measuring such incidences.

References

Antecol, H. (2003). ‘‘Does sexual harassment training change attitudes? A view from the federal level.’’ Social Science Quarterly, 84: 826-842.

Arvey, A. (2011). ‘‘Using surveys to assess the prevalence of sexual harassment: Some methodological problems.’’ Journal of Social Issues, 51: 117-138.

Waldo, C. (2008). ‘‘The sexual harassment of men? Exploring the concept with theory and data.’’ Psychology of Women Quarterly, 20: 527-547.

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