Running Head: STRATEGIC DIRECTION
NCRCC: Teeing up a New Strategic
Direction
Catherine Robinson
Liberty University
BUSI 600
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STRATEGIC DIRECTION
NCRCC: Teeing Up a New Strategic Direction (Part 2)
Describe the sampling strategy. How appropriate were the various sampling design
decisions?
NCRCC contracted with McMahon group to conduct strategic planning and sampling for
the questions. McMahon conducted a “first impressions visit” where they toured the facilities,
collected information and discussed trends with the strategic planning committee. They then
conduced six focus groups at NCRCC which included 43 members, 7 nonmembers and 12
employees. McMahon used the data collected to conduct a survey which was mailed to all club
members and their immediate family members.
McMahon focused on the members of the club, which correlates to targeting “those
people, events or records that contain the desired information and then determine whether a
sample or consensus is desired” [Coo121]. This allowed them to select the questions used to
secure a sample. According to Cooper and Schindler [Coo121], the questions that must be asked
are:
1. What is the target population?
2. What are the parameters of interest?
3. What is the sampling frame?
4. What is the appropriate sample method?
5. What size sample is required?
When discussing qualitative management research, Buehring, Cassell, Johnson & Symon
[Joh] agree that sampling should include representatives that are aware of the situation and have
knowledge. This allows them to provide helpful information instead of just being the right age
and gender. The selection McMahon selected is appropriate considering it captured
representatives primarily from members but included non members and employees also.
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STRATEGIC DIRECTION
The strategy used to gather responses is critical when conducting research. McMahon used a
variety of different formats in their questionnaire to gather responses. These formats included
the rating scale, open ended questions and dichotomous questions. This style is appropriate for
the type of survey conducted.
What, if any, problems did you find with the questionnaire as a whole? Consider structure,
directions, question order, question phrasing, appropriateness of response strategy chosen,
etc.
The survey was well written although it could be considered a little long for the time
expected. The instructions explicitly stated to “answer all questions that pertain to your interests
at the Club.” This leaves it open to respondents to skip over questions as they desire and makes
it hard for McMahon to determine if it was missed or just not answered. It would have been more
effective to have a “not applicable” option for each question to ensure that the question was not
answered.
The formatting of the questionnaire leaves room for improvement, as a respondent I
would be annoyed if I had to go back to the prior page to see the scoring criteria, a simple page
break would keep the whole question on one page and would allow for better responses. Brace
states “the way in which the questionnaire is laid out is very important to its success as an
instrument of accurate data capture. If the layout is not clear to any of the various users of the
questionnaire, the wrong responses may be recorded or the wrong questions asked” [Bra08].
Brace continues to discuss that the expenses spent on improving the appearance are rarely wasted
[Bra08]. It is my opinion that McMahon didn’t spend much time on the formatting which could
have been money well spent.
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STRATEGIC DIRECTION
The open ended questions at the end of the survey were appropriate as they allowed
participants to respond to questions they wanted to provide more information on. I would have
preferred an option for the respondent to request a call back if they had more they would like to
have covered which appears to be a missed opportunity by McMahon.
I believe that McMahon could have used the opportunity to drill down on questions
further had they conducted more in person interviews. Often paper surveys will only get
responses from a limited number of participants and these participants are often those who are
really excited about the club or have serious complaints about the club. In person interviews
allow for more in depth interviews about the fringe responses to see where there is room for
improvement.
Since NCRCC is looking to attract younger members, I am unsure why McMahon
focused as much as they did on the older members. The typical response of an older citizen is
not going to correlate to a younger citizen and the desires are likely to be different. In order to
attract younger members, the focus should have been on the younger generation as the target
audience. This appears to be another missed opportunity from McMahon, especially considering
only 19 percent of the respondents were under the age of 46.
Overall I believe McMahon did an adequate job on their survey although there were
multiple missed opportunities and areas of concern. From my perspective, it appears NCRCC
will be better advised to conduct a new survey with the correct target audience.
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STRATEGIC DIRECTION
References
Brace, I. (2008). Questionnaire design: How to plan,structure and write survey material for
effective market research (2 ed.). London.
Cooper, D. R., & Schindler, P. S. (2014). Business research method (12 ed.). New York, NY:
McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Johnson, P., Buehring, A., Cassell, C., & Symon, G. (2006, September). Evaluating qualitative
management research: Towards a contingent criteriology. International Journal of
Management Reviews, 8(3), 131-156.
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