| Course | MGMT 8815M Managing by Design Theory |
|---|---|
| Week | Week 3 |
| Paper type | Field research memo |
| Length | About 840 words, 5 pages |
| Format | Memo, APA 7 citations |
| School | Walden University |
| Program | PhD in Management |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MGMT 8815M Week 3
Memorandum
To: Director of Operations, Tidewater Housewares Distribution
From: Field researcher, MGMT 8815M design project
Date: February 18, 2026
Re: Returns desk observation, second-shift and first-shift visits
Method and Its Limits
I observed the returns desk at Tidewater's Norfolk warehouse for nine hours across two visits: 6:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on a Tuesday and 2:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. the following Thursday. I stood at the end of the inspection bench, where I could see the receiving door, the bench and the credit terminal. I held four short conversations, with the desk lead, two inspectors and a credit clerk, each under ten minutes and during natural pauses. Notes were written by hand on the floor and typed the same evening, with observed actions kept apart from my own interpretations, as Spradley (1980) advises for field notes. I had no access to the returns database, so I cannot say how typical these two days were, and nothing here describes the quarter-end rush, when volume roughly doubles. No individual is named.
The Working Question I Brought
My Week 2 frame asked why credits for damaged returns take a median of eleven days to reach retail customers when the written standard is five. It assumed the cause was capacity: two inspectors for about 300 cartons a day.
Said Beside Did
Table 1
Reported and Observed Practice at the Returns Desk
| Reported practice (source) | Observed practice (source) | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| "Everything goes in the queue in the order it arrives." (desk lead) | Cartons from the two largest retail accounts were pulled from the queue and inspected on arrival, eleven times over two visits. (observation) | High: seen on both visits |
| "Damaged goods get inspected before any credit is issued." (inspector) | On four occasions a credit was entered for a large account before the carton was opened, with "insp. to follow" typed in the note field. (observation, terminal screen) | Medium: seen on one visit only |
| "We photograph every damaged item." (inspector) | Photos were taken for 19 of roughly 60 damaged items; the rest were marked damaged without a photo when the bench was full. (observation) | High |
| "Small accounts wait because they send incomplete paperwork." (credit clerk) | Of nine small-account cartons I followed, seven had complete return authorizations; they waited behind the priority cartons. (observation, authorization slips) | Medium: small sample |
| "The supervisor wants accuracy over speed." (desk lead) | The supervisor's whiteboard tracks one number, cartons cleared per hour, updated every two hours. (observation) | High |
Reported practice is quoted as spoken; observed practice is written as it would appear in a log, without judgment.
Departures Grouped by What Drives Them
Read together, the pairs fall into two groups. The first and second pairs trace to the sales team. The desk lead explained, when asked about one priority carton, that a late credit for either large account "gets a call from sales within the hour." The rule that these accounts go first appears in no written procedure, but everyone on the desk follows it. The third and fifth pairs trace to the cartons-per-hour measure on the supervisor's whiteboard: when the bench backs up, photographs are the step that gets dropped, because photographs take time and the count does not record them.
Argyris and Schön (1974) distinguished espoused theory, the account people give of how they act, from theory-in-use, the rules their actions actually follow. The desk's espoused theory is first come, first served, with inspection before credit. Its theory-in-use is that large accounts come first and throughput comes second, and that both outrank the documentation the written procedure requires. The fourth pair belongs to neither group cleanly; it suggests that the explanation staff give for small-account delays, incomplete paperwork, may be a story that makes the priority rule easier to live with. I offer that as a possibility to check, not as a finding.
What the Fieldwork Does to the Working Question
The fieldwork narrows the question. Capacity cannot be the whole story, because the same two inspectors cleared large-account cartons on the day they arrived. The eleven-day median is better explained by a queue that small accounts never reach the front of on busy days. The revised question is: how does the unwritten priority rule for the two largest accounts decide how long every other customer waits for a credit? That question can be answered with the returns database, if access is granted, by comparing time to credit for large and small accounts on days of high and low volume.
Next Steps
Barley and Kunda (2001) argued that organization studies lost sight of what people actually do at work and that theories built without observing work drift away from it. A third visit at quarter end, and a short interview with the sales manager who makes the calls, would test whether the priority rule tightens under volume and whether sales staff know the effect their calls have on small accounts. Both are needed before any redesign of the queue is proposed.
References
Argyris, C., & Schön, D. A. (1974). Theory in practice: Increasing professional effectiveness. Jossey-Bass.
Barley, S. R., & Kunda, G. (2001). Bringing work back in. Organization Science, 12(1), 76-95. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.12.1.76.10122
Spradley, J. P. (1980). Participant observation. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
MGMT 8815M Week 3 instructions, in plain terms
Week 3 sends you into the field to watch the work your problem frame concerns, then report what you saw in a short memo. Open with a method statement: hours observed, shifts covered, where you stood, how you took notes and what you could not see. Set out pairs that place a practice as staff described it beside the practice as you observed it, each with its source and a note on how confident you are. Describe the observed side plainly, without verdicts. Then group the gaps by what appears to drive them and offer that pattern as a claim someone could check. Finish by saying what the fieldwork does to your Week 2 question: confirms it, narrows it or reopens it. Keep individuals unidentifiable.
How this MGMT 8815M Week 3 example is built
Tidewater's memo opens with the visit times, the observer's spot at the end of the bench, the four short talks and the missing database access, so the limits sit beside the method rather than at the end. A short section restates the capacity question from the previous week. The table holds five pairs, quoting the desk lead, inspectors and a clerk on one side and log-style observations on the other, with confidence rated by whether the pattern was seen once or twice. The pattern section groups two pairs under sales calls and two under the throughput board, and treats the paperwork explanation for small-account delays as a possibility, not a finding. Barley and Kunda's argument for studying actual work supports the proposed third visit.
MGMT 8815M Week 3 rubric: what earns full marks
The observed column carries the most weight; graders look for entries that could only come from being present, not from a second interview. Restraint matters next, since descriptions that already pass judgment, such as careless or lazy, stop counting as evidence. The method statement is judged on honesty about how much was watched, and a memo that hides thin observation behind confident claims loses heavily. Grouping gaps by a driver that could be tested earns credit, while a list of lapses with no pattern earns little. The final section, though short, decides whether the fieldwork mattered, so a memo that never returns to its own question falls into the middle band. Naming or describing identifiable workers is a serious fault.
Common MGMT 8815M Week 3 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Plan your hours so they cover at least two different times of day, and write down where you stood, because position limits what you can see. Take notes on the spot and type them the same evening while you still remember context. When you write each pair, quote what people said in their own words and describe what they did as a log would, with times and counts. Hold interpretation back until the pattern section. If a gap has no obvious cause, say so instead of inventing one. Return explicitly to your earlier question at the end, even if the answer is that it still holds. A tutor is available if you want help turning field notes into pairs, and the Tidewater memo above shows the table layout.
Get a MGMT 8815M Week 3 example written to your instructions
The desk works from the field memo prompt and its rubric, plus the Week 2 question if the memo is meant to test it. A memo with method box, paired observations and a revised frame comes back inside 24 to 48 hours; nothing is charged for the first. Workplace observations get anonymized by role before drafting starts.
More MGMT 8815M papers and PhD in Management samples
- MGMT 8815M Week 1: Discussion Post
- MGMT 8815M Week 2: Problem Framing Brief
- MGMT 8815M Week 4: Reframing Analysis
- MGMT 8815M Week 5: Prototype Critique
- MGMT 8815M Week 6: Concept Brief
- MGMT 8815M Week 7: Service Blueprint Memo
- MGMT 8815M Week 8: Design Critique
- MGMT 8815M Week 9: Peer Reply
- MGMT 8815M Week 10: Implementation Memo
- MGMT 8815M Week 11: Design Argument
- MGMT 8825M Week 1: Discussion Post
- MGMT 8805M Week 3: Entry Analysis
- MGMT 8725M Week 3: Capability Audit
- MGMT 8705M Week 3: Research Synthesis
MGMT 8815M Week 3 questions, answered
Where can I find a free MGMT 8815M Week 3 sample paper?
The complete Tidewater returns desk memo appears above, method box and said-and-did table included.
How much observation does the MGMT 8815M Week 3 sample report?
Nine hours over two visits on different shifts, plus four conversations of under ten minutes each.
How do Argyris and Schön's two kinds of theory differ?
The first is the account people give of how they act; the second is the rule their actions actually follow.
What drives the gaps in the returns desk example?
Calls from sales about large accounts, and a whiteboard that counts only cartons cleared per hour.
How does the memo change the working question?
It narrows a capacity question to how an unwritten priority rule sets every other customer's wait.