You and 2-4 other MGT 305 students will be assigned to a "frame group" by the second week of class. The frames are based on the concept of "re-framing," which will be discussed in class and in readings. Members of your team will be given a reading about your team's frame.

1. Direct observation of organizational events and behavior.
2. Analysis of documents (memos, reports, handbooks, publicity releases, and so one).
3. Conversations or interviews with participants in the organization (who might include managers, employees, clients, and so on).
4. “Intervention” or field experiment; that is, taking some action to see how the organization responds. (A simple example would be to order an item that is not on the menu at a restaurant.) Intervention is very useful for answering questions of the form “What would happen if . . . ?” But intervention raises ethical issues: Don't engage in activities that might be damaging or unreasonably disruptive to the system.
   

You may choose one or a combination of methods. The method that you use should be appropriate to the organization and to what you hope to learn. Whichever method you use, it is important to take good field notes either during or immediately after your visit to document your observations.

Goals
You are limited to a maximum of one day per team member studying the site, so you cannot (and are not expected to) do an extensive study. Instead, the purpose is to learn as much as you can about an organization in a relatively brief scouting expedition and to use organization theory to describe and interpret what you learn.

Your group’s product will be a paper of about 10 pages that uses your group's "frame" to describe and analyze how the organization works and why it is the way it is. You should structure the paper in the way that best communicates your analysis. Your paper should include a brief account of your methodology (observations conducted, individuals interviewed, documents studied, or interventions made), which may be included in the introduction or added as an appendix.

Suggested structure:

1. Introduction: description of setting, introduction of the major themes or central arguments of the paper, and description of how the group conducted the study.
2. Analysis based on your team's "frame."
3. Conclusion: synthesis of findings and recommendations for organizational change.


Questions for Analysis

In conducting frame-based managerial field analysis, groups may find the following sets of questions helpful.

Structural Frame Team:

1. What are the stated goals of the organization? Who determined them?
2. Do people in the organization agree about what the important goals are? What is the level of agreement or disagreement?
3. What obvious goals (taboos, etc.) seem to provide direction?
4. How are responsibilities allocated?
5. What roles have been established? How complex is the role structure? What is the organizational chart like?
6. Are the roles well defined or ambiguous?
7. Do some role groups show higher turnover rates than others?
8. Among which roles to you find important relationships?
9. What types of interdependencies exist?
10. How are interdependencies managed?
11. What does the hierarchy of authority look like? Is it centralized or decentralized?
12. Are there many layers or a few?
13. How are activities coordinated?
14. What is the main basis of authority (position, expertise, reward, etc.)?
15. How clear are authority relations? Do any authority role groups show higher turnover rates than others?
16. How are decisions typically made? Who is responsible, and how are others involved? How are problems identified, defined, and resolved?
17. Where do conflicts arise, and what formal mechanisms are established for resolving disagreements?
18. Are there task forces, committees, coordinators, and other lateral communication networks?
19. How many meetings are held each day? Who attends? What is discussed? How are meetings structured?
20. In what areas do explicit policies exist? Do people know what the policies say? Are policies reflected in behavior? Who are the policy makers?
21. Is evaluation based on performance or outcomes?
22. Who evaluates whom? What are the evaluation criteria, and how widely are they known? How frequently is performance observed and appraised? What information is used? In what ways are formal evaluations communicated? Are evaluations linked to formal rewards and penalties? What is the relationship between goals and evaluation criteria?
23. What is the nature of the core technology? Of the managerial technology?

Human Resource Frame Team

1. How diverse are the social and educational backgrounds and skills of the people in the organization? What are their social styles? What is the range in ages?
2. How diverse are employee needs? What is the match between needs and roles? Do people look healthy and happy? Do they appear to enjoy their work?
3. How do people seem to relate to one another? How do they handle interpersonal conflicts? Do they listen to one another?
4. What kinds of training and education are provided or supported?
5. Do people feel able to influence their work and larger organizational issues?
6. What kinds of small work groups or informal cliques seem to exist? How were they formed? How do people treat each other in these smaller settings?
7. Is there an informal hierarchy of power and prestige? How does it relate to the formal structure?
8. What are the existing levels of turnover, absenteeism, sabotage, goldbricking, and employee grievances?
9. Is the company unionized? How active is the union? Who are its leaders?
10. Do people jab and tease each other?
11. What is the correspondence between verbal messages and nonverbal signals?
12. Do people socialize outside the work place? What are the sociometric patterns?
13. Are most people in the organization single or married? How high is the divorce rate?
14. What are the drinking patterns? Do most people smoke, or are the majority nonsmokers?

Political Frame Team:

1. Who are the recognized people of power? How centralized does the power and strategic order seem to be? Does the power apply across issues, or is it restricted to specific issues or areas?
2. What is the primary basis of power (tenure, expertise, charisma, persuasion, access to resources, fear)? What is the relationship between power and authority? Where is discretion greatest?
3. What issues produce conflict? How are powerful people mobilized? How do they exercise their power? How are conflicts resolved?
4. Are there obvious coalitions? On what basis are they formed? How are they formed? How stable are the coalitions? Are coalitions exclusive? Do coalitions form and disband around specific issues?
5. How do people of power relate to people who are relatively powerless, and vice versa? Is there evidence of inappropriate use of power?
6. Do people feel they have access to power holders? Do they feel efficacious in influencing power holders? What form of influence is used most often?
7. Is there much bargaining or negotiation around events, or are issues decided in back rooms?
8. What are the main arenas in which power is exercised? Is it visible or covert?
9. Are there obvious winners and losers? Are put-downs and innuendos commonplace? Who speaks to whom about what?
10. Where are people physically located? Does the allocation of space fit with the distribution of power? Who can enter whose space without knocking? Who ends meetings or conversations? Around what events are patterns of deference most obvious?
11. What are the key symbols of power?

Symbolic Frame Team

1. What does architecture say about the culture? What is on the walls? How does the building make you feel? How is space arranged? How is the parking lot organized? What kinds of cars do people drive?
2. How do people look and act when they arrive? How do they look and act when they leave?
3. What is the organization’s history?
4. What are the organization’s core values? How are they displayed? Do they seem to make sense? How widely known and shared are the values? Do they have meaning for people? Do they appear to arouse sentiment? How have they changed over time?
5. Is there a visionary hero or heroine at the helm? In the recent or distant past? What is he or she like? Does he or she represent and embody the core values? Inspire emotion in people? Is his or her picture displayed on the wall? Is he or she portrayed in well-known stories?
6. Who are other heroes and heroines? Do people know who they are? Are they of a particular type? Are they anointed and celebrated formally? Across the heroes and heroines, can you see patterns consistent with stated values?
7. What seem to be the most potent symbols? What do these seem to represent?
8. What do social rituals of greeting and exit say about the culture? How deep are work rituals? How does symbolic activity mesh with core values? Are ritual and values consistent with one another? What are the key management rituals (the meeting, planning, memos)? What goes on in hazing rituals as new members are brought into the culture? Are rituals convened around important transitions? What do rituals symbolize? How stylized is the behavior in rituals? How different is it from everyday behavior?
9. How does the organization’s implicit purpose compare with its explicit purpose?
10. How often are ceremonies held? Who attends? What is the sequence of events?
11. What role do heroes and heroines play? What symbols are recognized or exchanged? What costumes do people wear? How do they compare with regular work costumes? What do people eat? What do they drink? What emotions does the ceremony evoke?
12. What stories are told? Are they told across the culture? Who are the storytellers? What status are they accorded? What are the stories about? How do stories relate to company values?
13. How well known and active is the informal network? Who is the priest or priestess? What is this person’s relationship to the CEO? Who are the gossips? The spies? What events make the actors in the informal network visible?
14. How cohesive are subcultures within the organization? What do subcultures form around (function, length of tenure, gender, race)? How do subcultures relate? Do people find more meaning in subcultures than in the larger culture? Can you see a core set of values across the subcultures? What happens when the members of different subcultures attend the same meeting or ritual? Do they bond or blast each other?
15. What metaphor of culture type — tough guy, bet-your-company, work hard/play hard, or process — seems to capture the essence of the culture?
16. What metaphors do you frequently encounter in everyday language?
17. How often do people play? Where does play occur? What form does it take? Who  plays with whom?

Physical Setting (all teams)

1. How would you describe the location of the organization?
2. What are the outstanding aspects of the design of the setting? How efficient is it given the organization’s mission?
3. How is the safety of employees affected by the physical setting, equipment, and so forth?
4. Are any health issues raised for employees as a result of the setting or the processes performed?
5. How does the physical setting provide for the social needs of employees?
6. How does the setting affect communications patterns?

External Environment (all teams)

1. How stable is the environment? How often do major changes or demographic shifts occur? How predictable are the changes?
2. How complex is the environment (i.e., with how many different groups must the organization deal)?
3. What are the political coalitions in the environment? Are they stable, or do they shift depending on the issues?
4. How dependent is the organization on resources from the environment? What resources does it require?
5. What strategies does the organization use to influence or isolate itself from the environment?
6. What resources does the organization provide to the environment? How dependent is the environment on the organization?
   
7. How do the various parts of the organization (human resource, political, structural, symbolic) relate to the environment?
8. What is the marketplace for the organization like? What competition does the organization encounter?
9. What governmental pressures (laws and regulations) does the organization experience?

Linkages to the Environment (all teams)

1. What is the nature of the organization’s linkages to the environment? Who is responsible for monitoring them? How regularly is the environment formally monitored?

Interrelationships (all teams)

1. In what ways do the frames interact with each other and with the physical setting and the environment?
2. How do different parts of the organization interact to determine what goes on?
3. What happens if the various interactions cause problems?

Guidelines for Paper and Presentation
Teams will present their field-based analysis of an organization in two ways: (1) a paper and (2) a 15-minute in-class presentation.

The Paper
Each group will submit one paper consolidating its findings. You may structure the paper in any way you choose. However, the grade you receive will depend on the clarity and cohesiveness of the paper. A collection of parts does not make a whole in this case. The paper should include:

1. A description of the organization giving the reader enough background to follow your analysis.
2. Analysis:
   
• For Structural Frame Team: Structural analysis highlighting problems of control (i.e., goals, roles, how people work together, hierarchy of authority, ways of coordinating activities, etc.). Choose from the structural frame the concepts that apply best to the organization’s formal work arrangements.
• For Human Resource Frame Team: Human resource analysis focusing on commitment (i.e., satisfaction of human needs, employee satisfaction, informal relationships, levels of trust, employee participation, mastery versus mystery, forms of communication, etc.). Choose the concepts from the HR frame that apply best.
• For Political Frame Team: Political analysis revealing the “influence” aspects of the organization: What individuals or groups have power, the sources of their power, coalitions and their interests, where conflict occurs and how it is typically resolved, etc. Choose the political-frame concepts that contribute best to an understanding of the political dynamics you observed.
  
For Symbolic Frame Team: Symbolic analysis concentrating on the organization’s cultural patterns and its problems of legitimization (i.e., its history, core values, myths, heroes and heroines, rituals, ceremonies, stories, network of informal players, artifacts, specialized language, employee commitment, etc.) Select the symbolic-frame concepts that apply best.

3. Based on your analysis, determine whether your team's frame dominates the organization, or is the dominant frame one other than your team's? If so, which one?
4. What are the organization’s strengths? Are there areas that obviously need improvement? What strategies for improvement would you recommend?
5. Choose an issue important to the organization you analyzed and then develop a strategy for reframing the problem. Describe in detail the steps you would take, the anticipated results, and what the overall effect might be.
   

The Presentation
Unlike the paper, the presentation need not cover everything you observed or your entire analysis. Since you have only 15 minutes, you will need to come up with a creative way of getting the main points across to your colleagues: a video, a skit, stories, role playing, or the like. The presentation will be judged on how well it captures the true essence of the organization, how creative it is, what it adds to the class’s learning, and what level of audience interest it is able to maintain. The presentation must actively involve each member of the team.