Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Managerial Issues: Action Research
Although I am currently employed in the Navy, I have also worked for private organizations, including, most notably, Starbucks. Starbucks is one of the most famous food and beverage companies in the world, and initially generated a great deal of goodwill as well as sales because of its image as a progressively-minded organization that cared about communities as well as offered tasty and unusual coffee beverages that were a cut above the competition in the fast-food industry. However, many people today believe Starbucks has lost its way.
Starbucks initially promoted itself as a so-called third place, or somewhere between home and work where people could enjoy coffee, company, or simply a relaxing moment with a meal (Rainey, 2022). Today, however, more than 80% of the coffees beverages are sold to-go (Rainey, 2022). Additionally, although Starbucks was praised for offering health insurance to part-time employees, Fair Trade coffee, and better working conditions, both its products and treatment of employees have come under fire, as employees complain of unrealistic expectations in terms of how many orders they are expected to fulfill within a short span of time, beverages are criticized for being overly expensive, and the company is criticized for crowding out independent stores and bakeries (Rainey, 2022).
Management must find a way to rebrand the organization and foster more positive feelings among employees for the organization to thrive in the future. The biggest problem is ensuring Starbucks still offers a strong value proposition to customers as a unique product, which is increasingly challenging as more people work from home and more companies have offered similar specialty coffees at a lower price point to Starbucks. The reason management may struggle with this issue is because of the size of Starbucks today. Starbucks began as a company which emphasized a strong personal connection to its customers. It is now an international organization.
Mitigating Problems
Organizational development consultants can offer an outside perspective, which can be helpful for companies which are highly insular. Action research consultants, according to Lurey & Griffin (2013) focus on establishing priorities for change, collecting and interpreting data, analyzing...…something no other company can. This also requires it to sharpen the final phase of action research, which demands evaluating the change and being willing to make changes to the original plan, if that plan is not delivering as hoped.
Currently, Starbucks has a presence as far-ranging internationally as India and China. Being a neighborhood coffee place while suiting the needs of these different regions may not be feasible in the future, without changing how it expands and partners locally. Its once-unique business practices, such as offering tuition assistance to employees, are now less generous than Walmart, Target, and other companies, which, along with criticisms of its labor practices, has made it look less inviting to its progressive customers (Rainey, 2022). According to Haneberg (2005), setting an organization up for success when engaging in change is half the battle. Starbucks has shown itself willing to change, but the changes it must undertake in the future must be more broad-ranging and far-reaching than the ones it has taken in the past, if it wishes to continue to secure…
References
Haneberg, L. (2005). Chapter 3: The action research approach to change. Organizationdevelopment basics. Alexandria, VA: American Society for Training & Development. [EBSCO eBook Business Collection.]Lurey, J. & Griffin, M. (2013). Section 2: Chapter 4: Action research: The anchor of ODpractice. In Vogelsang, J. (ed.). Handbook for strategic HR: Best practices in organization Development from the OD Network. Saranac Lake, NY, USA: AMACOM Books, pp. 46-52.
McLean, G. N. (2006). Chapter 1: What is organization development? Organizationdevelopment: Principles, processes, performance. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. [EBSCO eBook Business Collection.]Rainey, C. (2022, March). What happened to Starbucks. Fast Company.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90732166/what-happened-to-starbucks-how-a-progressive-company-lost-its-way
The authors further note that the National Research Council (2003) state that the "obligation to treat individuals as autonomous agents whose decisions on whether or not to participate in research are to be respected and not overridden by a researcher" (as sited in Nolen & Vander Putten, 2007, p. 402). When considered in the context of students as a protected research group in a K- 12 classroom this obligation may
Action Research on the Impact of Video Technology Classrooms on Student Achievement Audio-Visual Technology & Student Achievement Research problem / topic. The proposed research study will examine the impact of integrating video technology in classroom lessons on the achievement of students. In this study, consideration will also be given to students' perceptions of the impact of integrated video on their achievement and gender-based differences in achievement related to the integration of video
Action research as related to education is a process by which a teacher, group of teachers, school, school district, or university observes a problem, creates a plan for action, implements that plan (action), observes the results (research), and plans on further action (Ferrance, 2000, 26). It is in this way that an individual teacher becomes aware of the advantages and disadvantages of her own teaching methods and improves the performance
Action Research in the Classroom To what extent is team-based learning effective in helping children learn? Although team-based learning is often touted as helpful in teaching students to how to work together on a social level, monitoring the degree to which learning is actually taking place can be challenging because of the degree of 'social loafing' that may transpire. Students may allow one student to assume the majority of the burden
The case studies compiled and edited by Caro-Brice (2007) provide a somewhat broader perspective than the singular case study conducted by Coles-Ritchie and Lugo (2010). These studies are all geared towards promoting equality in instructional methods and learning rates in diverse classroom settings, however, making them directly useful in this review and plan development. Some of the central common findings of the studies compiled by Caro-Brice (2007) and the lessons that
Action Research and Its Key Working Principles Examine the most salient challenges and advantages of the Internal AR person. Based on my readings, action research is a methodological approach to research that provides a useful framework in which effective solutions to seemingly intractable problems can be identified. In sharp contrast to other social science research approaches, one of the main advantages of action research is that it seeks to identify generalizable solutions