DBAX 9104C Week 9 Independence Rehearsal Example

Whose Study Was This Really? A Written Independence Rehearsal for a Consulting Study of Client Wait Times at a Regional Veterinary Clinic Group Whose Owner Proposed the Question and Hoped for One Answer

Student Name

Walden University

DBAX 9104C: Business Consulting Research Project Stage 4

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Whose Study Was This Really? A Written Independence Rehearsal for a Consulting Study of Client Wait Times at a Regional Veterinary Clinic Group Whose Owner Proposed the Question and Hoped for One Answer

Why Rehearse This Question

A committee member will eventually ask whose study this was, and in my case the question is fair. My consulting study examined long wait times for appointments at a group of five veterinary clinics in the Boise area. The practice owner proposed the question, gave me access to scheduling records and staff, reviewed one section of my drafts and said early on that she hoped the study would support extending evening hours. Brannick and Coghlan (2007) argue that research done close to an organization is legitimate when its relationships and influences are made visible rather than hidden. This rehearsal makes them visible in seven questions, each answered with what I would say and the record that backs it.

Question 1: Did the Owner Shape the Research Question?

Short answer: Yes. She proposed studying "why clients wait so long," and I narrowed it to "what scheduling practices are associated with appointment wait times across the five clinics."

Record: The proposal's background section and my field log entry from the first meeting record both her original wording and the narrowing. The narrowing matters because her version assumed long waits were a single problem with one cause.

Question 2: Did the Owner See Drafts?

Short answer: Only the organizational profile, to check facts such as the number of veterinarians and clinic hours.

Record: The Week 8 disclosure decisions document lists what she reviewed and the two corrections she made, both factual: one clinic had four veterinarians, not three, and Saturday hours had changed in March. She did not see findings or recommendations before the closing chapter was complete.

Question 3: Did Any Recommendation Come From the Owner?

Short answer: One did. She favored extending evening hours. It was removed.

Record: The cut record from Week 5 shows evening hours among the draft recommendations and its removal because no finding supported it. Appointment records showed that waits were longest for daytime surgical consults, not for evening wellness visits, and only 6 of 41 clients surveyed asked for evening appointments.

Question 4: Was Any Finding Softened?

Short answer: No. The finding she disliked appears at full strength in my closing chapter and in the report she received.

Record: The study found that two clinics scheduled surgical consults only when a specific senior veterinarian was available, creating a queue that accounted for most long waits. The owner is that veterinarian at one of the clinics. The finding is stated in the same words in both documents, and the Week 2 coherence log shows no difference in size between them.

Question 5: Were You Paid?

Short answer: No. The engagement was unpaid, and the agreement letter says so.

Record: The signed agreement, filed with my proposal, states that I received access to records and staff time, not payment, and that the clinic group would receive the client report.

Question 6: Did You Have a Prior Relationship With the Owner?

Short answer: She was a client of the bank where I worked until 2023, and I had met her twice at business events.

Record: The relationship is disclosed in the method chapter's section on researcher position. Coghlan (2007) recommends that researchers close to an organization state their prior relationships and how they managed them; mine is stated, with the note that I had no role in her accounts.

Question 7: How Do You Know Your Own Hopes Did Not Shape the Analysis?

Short answer: I cannot be certain, but I took two steps. My chair coded six interviews independently and we compared codes, and a classmate read the findings looking for anything that seemed to favor the owner or me.

Record: The coding comparison and the classmate's notes are in the appendix. The classmate flagged one sentence that described the owner's scheduling decision as "understandable," which I removed as a judgment the evidence did not require.

What the Rehearsal Changed

Writing these answers showed one gap. The method chapter mentioned the owner's interest in evening hours but did not say that the recommendation was removed. A sentence now does. Block (2011) describes the consultant's independence as something demonstrated through choices on the record, not claimed; the rehearsal confirmed that each choice has a record a committee can see.

The Concession Behind All Seven

The owner shaped the question and the access. That is true of most consulting studies and is not a flaw in itself. What matters is that the findings, including the one she liked least, came from the evidence and are reported the same way to her and to the committee.

References

Block, P. (2011). Flawless consulting: A guide to getting your expertise used (3rd ed.). Pfeiffer.

Brannick, T., & Coghlan, D. (2007). In defense of being "native": The case for insider academic research. Organizational Research Methods, 10(1), 59-74. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428106289253

Coghlan, D. (2007). Insider action research: Opportunities and challenges. Management Research News, 30(5), 335-343. https://doi.org/10.1108/01409170710746337