UNIVERSITY OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS & ECONOMICS

School of Business
Department of Marketing
Spring 2022

Advanced Business Research

Type of work Literature Review/ Case Study

Title of work Observational Studies

Student ID/ Name(s) Mr.Arkar Htun

Lecturer P rof. Xiong Wei

Date 24.3.2022

Marks Obtained
Observational studies

1.What are the varieties of information that might be observed?

Given the scenario of an observational study to examine the use of office space by white-
collar and managerial workers, various information will need to be examined.

 size of office space and number of premises (with indication of their size);
 number of white-collar and managerial workers;
 number of furniture (tables, chairs, desks, flipcharts, boards, shelves) and information
if it is going to be used in future;
 what kind of information flow prevails – hard copies or soft copies. This information
is needed for providing paper for printing;
 number of offices equipment (printers, scanners, phones, copiers);
 office floorplan/layout

2.Select a limited number of content areas for study, and operationally define the observation
acts that should be measured.

Observation varieties might include

1.layout of office space.

Picture it with remote workers there at least part of the time. Are there places where
people congregate? If one department works with another and goes back and forth all
day, locate them close to each other. Look for anything in daily operations that slows
things down. Come up with new layouts and ideas to improve functionality. Use graph
paper to draw the current layout and then move things around on paper before
physically repositioning furniture and equipment. When mapping out the floor plan for
an office, consider the flow of work. If one employee is going to be expected to be in
close communication with another employee, make sure their desks are in close
proximity to each other. If a particular job requires numerous trips to the copier, have
that person’s workstation nearby. ensure that your layout promotes efficiency.

2.use of office furniture

Furniture is a big deal in the modern office today. Providing comfortable office furniture
to your employees is crucial as this can reduce physical problems such as neck pain or
backaches. Some ergonomically designed office furniture such as ergonomic
chairs provide numerous adjustments to cater to different sizes and build of your staff.
This can really help to reduce these issues and promote a better working environment as
most workers spend over 8 hours every working day.
 3.noise impact on employees

The sounds and distractions within a 20-foot radius have the most impact on employee
concentration levels. Adding acoustic panels can reduce noise in an open office space.

4.If the workplace Equip well with suitable Office Machine

Equipping workplace with quality office equipment can also help to increase work
efficiency.

3. Develop a checklist to be used by observers in the previous study.

 Number of times employees go to each other to complete a task

 How much time is taken to go to each other to complete a task?
 how employees communicated with each other (e.g. by yelling out questions, or
calling a colleague, or leaving a personal workspace to have a face to face discussion
with another employee).

 Employee’ comfort rating on office furniture

 If employee concentration affected by noise?

 Employee satisfaction on office equipment

a) Determine how many observers you need and assign two or three to a specific
observation task.

I would need about five observers to conduct the study. Three observers will have to
be assigned to observe the layout of office space and movement/interaction of
employees within the office space. Another two observers will be assigned to
interview the employees.