Seminar Briefing 1: Knowledge and Paradigms

In preparation for this seminar, you will have read Burrell and Morgan (1979) and Hassard (1991). In
the seminar, your tutor will break you up into working teams and assign a specific paradigm to your
team.

Team exercise
You are a team of researchers based at a large European university. You are applying for research
funding to conduct a year-long organizational analysis of MacDonalds, the international fast-food
restaurant chain. However, you are competing against other teams of researchers from different
paradigms. It is your task to convince the funding body (i.e. your seminar tutor) that your paradigm is
the best one for studying MacDonalds.

You have 1 hour to prepare a max. 10-minute presentation that your team will present to the class in
the final seminar hour. In your presentation, you should address the following discussion points:

• Briefly summarize the underlying theoretical assumptions of your allocated paradigm

• Decide on relevant research question(s) (i.e. what do you want to find out?)
• Decide on your object of inquiry (i.e. what kinds of things will you focus on?)
• Decide on your method(s) (i.e. how will you go about finding out the answer to your
questions?)
• Discuss the likely outcome of your research (i.e. what are you likely to find out?)
• Discuss the limitations of your research (i.e. what won’t you be able to find out?)
• What is the value of your research (i.e. why is it important to MacDonalds or society more
generally)?

Team assignment
Following the seminar, you will write a team assignment (1,000 words +/- 10%) that summarizes your
presentation, based on the discussion points above. Please write in full sentences and paragraphs,
avoiding bullet-points wherever possible. You should upload a copy of your essay (in PDF format) on
Athena > Plans > Seminar team assignment 1 no later than 72 hours after the end of this seminar.

Background information
McDonalds, established in 1940, is the one of the world’s largest chain of fast-food restaurants. It
operates in over 100 countries and serves over 50 million customers every day. Although McDonald’s
Corporation owns and operates some of its restaurants, the majority are operated by franchisees. Many
of these owner-operators are trained at Hamburger University in Illinois, which is run by McDonald’s.
Its restaurants offer counter service and/or drive-through service, and some branches include an
outdoor playground for children. In the mid-2000s, McDonalds redesigned its restaurants: wood and
brick interiors replaced some of the plastic and the lighting become more subdued. McDonalds has
faced some criticism over the years from environmental and health campaigners, and the term ‘McJob’
has been introduced into dictionaries to describe low-paying and unskilled jobs with little prospect for
career advancement.