Defining the unit of analysis
The unit of analysis is the entity on which you focus your analysis. Identifying your unit of analysis is very important for attaining good results.
Since a firm is often complex and interacts heavily with the surrounding environment, identifying the boundary of your organization/unit of analysis may require careful consideration.
In the list below are listed some examples of units of analysis that may fit your situation:
- The whole corporation
- One of the units of the corporation (one division or department)
- One branch in a bank
- One unit of franchise
- One subsidiary
- The entire set of banks, franchises, branches, or subsidiaries
- A subset of the units mentioned above
- Two units planning to merge
Example:
If you are studying a merger, there are at least three possibilities for using OrgCon:
- Organization A alone
- Organization B alone
- Organization A+B in one scenario
These can be analyzed in three separate OrgCon scenarios. In each situation, the organization, the boundary, and the environment will be different.
In a merger, if one of the organizations is dominant, you may want to test the merger using its structure. You can also test a new or proposed merger structure. Another possibility is to run multiple scenarios using the current structure of all the units involved.
In OrgCon , the Unit of Analysis is a specification of the organization name and a scenario name (see illustration below).
