ORG 727 Week 3 Gathering and Analyzing Organizational Data Example

Interviews, Surveys and Member Records: Gathering and Analyzing Diagnostic Data at a Credit Union

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

ORG/727: Organizational Diagnosis and Intervention

Week 3 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Saguaro Federal Credit Union, its people, data and figures are composites written for a model paper.

Week 2 adopted an adapted congruence model to diagnose stalled membership growth at Saguaro, the invented credit union serving southern Arizona. The model directs attention to the fit among strategy, work, people, formal organization and informal organization, with an explicit environmental scan. This paper describes how data were gathered and what they show.

The Data Plan

Harrison and Shirom (1999) advise diagnosticians to combine methods, since each reveals different features and has different weaknesses. Jick (1979) described triangulation, the combination of methods to study the same phenomenon, as a way to increase confidence when methods converge and to uncover new dimensions when they diverge. The plan used four sources:

Interviews: 32 semi-structured interviews with the executive team, eight branch managers, ten frontline staff, six lending officers and four members of the digital team, about 45 minutes each.

Survey: a 40-item employee survey covering the congruence model's components, sent to all 820 employees, with 582 responses, a 71 percent rate.

Observation: 30 account openings observed at six branches and 20 attempted through the app by staff posing as new members.

Records: three years of member applications, account openings, loan applications and closures, plus competitor rates and market data.

Sampling and Ethics

Interviewees were chosen to cover each function and level and to include branches with the best and worst growth. Participants were told the purpose, that participation was voluntary and that quotations would be reported without names or identifying details. Survey responses were anonymous, and no result was shown for any group smaller than ten people. The steering group agreed in the contract that no individual's interview would be shared with leaders.

Interview Findings

Interview themes were coded using the model's categories. On work, branch staff described account opening as slow and paper-heavy, requiring separate systems for membership and loans. On formal organization, lending officers report to the chief lending officer, not branch managers, and are measured on loan quality, not member growth. On informal organization, branch and lending staff described mutual blame: branch staff said lending loses members by taking days to decide; lending staff said branches send incomplete applications. On strategy, executives agreed on the goal of being members' primary institution but described different routes to it.

Branch staff and lending officers each described the same lost member as the other team's failure.

Survey Findings

Survey scores were lowest on cross-unit cooperation, 2.6 on a 5-point scale, and on systems supporting work, 2.8, and highest on commitment to members, 4.3. Branch staff scored staffing adequacy at 2.9; lending staff scored it at 3.6. Scores on digital tools were low across groups, 2.7.

Observation Findings

Account opening in branches took an average of 52 minutes, of which 20 minutes involved re-entering data across systems. In the app, a new member could open a savings account in about eight minutes, but anyone who wanted an auto loan at the same time was told to visit a branch or call. Of 20 app attempts, the 10 that included a loan request could not be completed digitally.

Records Findings

Records proved the most revealing. New member accounts fell from 31,000 to 25,400 a year over three years. Of the 5,600 decline, about 3,400, or 60 percent, came from people who applied for an auto loan through a dealer or online, received a conditional approval, but never opened an account, because opening required a branch visit or a call within five days. Departures of existing members rose only slightly. Competitors' online lenders approve and fund in a day without branch visits.

Analyzing the Interviews

Interview notes were coded in two passes. The first pass sorted statements into the congruence model's categories: strategy, work, people, formal organization, informal organization and environment. The second pass looked for themes within each category and counted how many interviewees in each group raised them. A second coder, a colleague from the strategy office, coded a quarter of the interviews independently; the two agreed on about 85 percent of codes, and disagreements were resolved by discussion. This step guards against the consultant reading only what fits a favored explanation.

Branch Differences

Records allowed one more comparison. The eight branches with the best member growth over three years differed from the eight with the worst in one notable way: four of the best had a lending officer located in the branch, while none of the worst did. Where lending and branch staff sat together, approved applicants were more likely to open accounts the same day. The sample is small and other differences exist, but the pattern fits the interview evidence that the handoff between units is where members are lost.

Environmental Scan

Market data confirmed that two large banks and an online lender gained share in Saguaro's markets. The online lender approves and funds auto loans in one day with no branch visit. The banks offer accounts that can be opened entirely online. Saguaro's rates remain competitive, so price does not explain the decline; speed and convenience at the moment of borrowing do.

Triangulation

The sources converge on one pattern: Saguaro loses most potential members at the link between lending and membership, where work spans units that do not cooperate and systems that do not connect. Interviews show the blame; the survey shows low cooperation and poor systems; observation shows the break in the digital path; records quantify the loss. The three leaders' explanations each capture part of it: digital tools cannot open accounts with loans, branches spend time re-entering data and loan decisions are slow, but none identified the link itself. The sources also diverge on staffing: branch staff report shortages, but records show branch traffic down 22 percent, suggesting the problem is time spent on re-entry, not headcount.

What Surprised the Steering Group

When the steering group saw the records analysis, the chief lending officer said he had never seen loan data and membership data side by side; they sit in separate systems and separate reports. That reaction is itself a finding. The credit union measures each unit's activity well but has no view of the member's path across units.

Limitations

The survey captures one moment and relies on what employees say about themselves, so its items may share method effects. Podsakoff et al. (2003) described common method biases that can inflate relationships when the same respondents answer all items with the same method, a reason to rely on records and observation for key conclusions. Members who never joined were not interviewed; their reasons are inferred from records. Observation covered six of 38 branches.

Conclusion

Interviews, a survey, observation and records, organized by the congruence model and triangulated, point to a specific source of stalled growth: the broken link between lending and membership across units and systems. The data partly support each leader's explanation but locate the problem where no one was looking. Week 4 will turn these findings into performance gaps and causes.

References

Harrison, M. I., & Shirom, A. (1999). Organizational diagnosis and assessment: Bridging theory and practice. Sage.

Jick, T. D. (1979). Mixing qualitative and quantitative methods: Triangulation in action. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24(4), 602-611. https://doi.org/10.2307/2392366

Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Lee, J.-Y., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(5), 879-903. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.5.879