Design and Methodology
Dr Michael H. Swearingen · 2017
This study was designed to examine the relationship between the style of management that an organization uses and its profitability using Likert’s Profile of Organizational Characteristics (a standardized survey) to define the style of management used and the Dun & Bradstreet financial rating of the organization to help define profitability, the underlining premise being that a company with high productivity is more likely to be profitable. The two terms (productivity and profitable) are not interchangeable, because the ability to bring about a desired outcome (productivity) is not the same as obtaining a financial gain or benefit (profitable), since something can be productive without being profitable, such as in the case of a child cleaning their room. A child cleaning their room will be productive for the parent from a time management point of view, but will not necessarily yield a financial gain for either the parent or the child. A number of different variables were examined through the use of a demographic section that was added to the Profile of Organizational Characteristics ( Appendix E ). The demographic variables were included to help determine whether any differences in the management style ratings between companies or between individuals within the companies could be due to inconsistencies that were previously noted in earlier research. The variables that were investigated are (a) the age of the top level managers (Hypothesis III); (b) the educational level of the top level managers (Hypothesis I); (c) the sex of the top level managers (to determine if there is two terms (productivity and profitable) are not interchangeable, because difference between female and male responses); (d) the age of the organization (Hypothesis II); and (e) the size of the organization in terms of both number of employees and the number of buildings it uses (Hypothesis IV). The data used for the fifth hypothesis were 36 taken from the Dun & Bradstreet ratings and compared to the organizational mean response on Likert’s Profile of Organizational Characteristics.