Question

1. You are the president of a small accounting firm with four offices in Astoria, Queens (two offices), and Brooklyn (two offices). As is typical of accounting firms that do tax returns for clients, there is a lot of stress leading up to April 15th. Because you care about the well-being of your employees, you want to do something to relieve their stress. Kim Wu, the director of human resources for your firm, has suggested that stress could be substantially reduced by 1) implementing flexible work hours, and 2) offering a stress management training program during their lunch break. This program will be designed by a psychologist who has expertise in stress management; it will run for four Fridays in January.

You decide to ask Ms. Wu to conduct a rigorous, practical research investigation of the effectiveness of 1) offering flexible work hours, and 2) offering a stress management training program.

a. Please describe the research design you would choose, and explain why you would choose that design.

b. What is your independent variable(s)? Dependent variable? How will you measure your variables?

Answer 1

Research idea

To conduct a rigorous, practical research investigation of the effectiveness of 1) offering flexible work hours, and 2) offering a stress management training program.

Plan and preparation

1. Research Literature
2. Ask research question(s)
3. Decide the right kind of research design
4. Develop hypotheses
5. Collect the data
6. Analyze the data
7. Evaluate the hypotheses

Research Design

As there is less time and can not experiment employees at work, use observational model.

The data collection involves both primary and secondary data collection and they are collected from the respective sources. The primary data is collected by the help of aquestionnaire from employees of four office units, comprising of organizational as well as individual factors of stress. The secondary data is collected from books, journals, and all other available sources of information

Use stratified random sampling and data is collected from 'x' employees under the required field of analysis based on various strata like role A, role B and role C.

Dependent and Independent Variables

Dependent variables

• Number of employees taking medicine to relieve stress
• Number of employees absconding during the peak season
• Cost of low quality work during thr peak season

Independent variables

• Number of hours spent by employees at work during peak season
• Number of employees requested for assistance to get relieved from stress

Measure Variables

Use nominal level of measurement. Nomial values indicate qualitatively different kinds