| Course | GB730 Applied Business Research Design and Methodology |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 5 |
| Paper type | Site access plan |
| Length | About 1,320 words, 7 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for GB730 Unit 5
Six Parties Who Can Say No: A Unit 5 Site Access Plan for a Study of Revenue Management Overrides
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
GB730: Applied Business Research Design and Methodology
Unit 5 Site Access Plan
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The hotel company, its owners, its people and every figure are composite and illustrative; the methods sources cited are real.
Why Access Is Several Requests, Not One
A company does not agree to research in general. It agrees to specific requests, each made to the person who controls the thing being requested, and each of those people can refuse for reasons of their own. Feldman et al. (2003) describe access as something negotiated repeatedly rather than granted once, and that is the premise of this plan. The study needs three years of hotel-night records from two systems, about fifteen interviews with revenue managers, and permission to describe the company's practices in a dissertation that others will read. Those needs fall under six different authorities.
The plan also has to deal with an unusual fact about this company. It manages hotels; it does not own them. Each of the 22 hotels belongs to an owner, sometimes a family, sometimes an investment fund, and the management agreement with each owner says who controls the hotel's data. The Unit 2 memo left this question open. This plan answers it.
The Six Parties and What Each Is Asked For
The senior vice president of revenue, as sponsor. She is asked for a letter of cooperation stating that the study may proceed, that revenue managers may be invited to interviews during working hours, and that participation is voluntary. Her likely concern is that findings might embarrass the revenue team or be read by owners as evidence of poor management. The drafted response offers her a briefing on aggregate findings before anything is written for the committee, with no right to change them, and states that no hotel, owner or manager will be named.
The chief financial officer, as owner of the records. He is asked for permission to extract specific fields from the revenue management system and the property management system: for every hotel-night from January 2023 through December 2025, the recommended rate, the published rate, the time and user of each change, rooms sold, rooms available, average daily rate, bookings on hand at fourteen days, and competitors' rates as captured by the company's rate-shopping service. His likely concern is that rate data are commercially sensitive. The response is that every hotel will be given a code before extraction, that no rate will be reported for an identifiable hotel, and that the data will be held on a company-managed encrypted drive rather than the candidate's own computer.
The director of information systems, who would run the extraction. She is asked for about twelve hours of her team's time, scheduled in a slow month, to write and run one query against each system and to replace hotel and user identifiers with codes. Her concern will be time. The response gives her the field list in advance, so the query can be written once, and offers to test it on a single hotel-month before the full pull.
The vice president of human resources, who controls interview time and the bonus plan. He is asked for confirmation that revenue managers may spend up to an hour each in an interview during working hours without loss of pay, and for a copy of the bonus plan so that its incentives can be described accurately. His concern will be that interviews could be seen as performance reviews. The response states that no interview content will be shared with any manager's supervisor and that the plan's recruitment process, described below, keeps participation itself confidential.
General counsel, who reviews the data use agreement. She is asked to approve a short agreement covering what data leave the systems, who may see them, the retention period and what happens to them if the candidate leaves the company. Her concern will be the management agreements with owners. The response asks her to identify which agreements permit the company to use hotel data for internal analysis and which require owner consent.
The hotel owners, where their agreements require it. If counsel finds that some agreements require consent, those owners will receive a one-page letter from the senior vice president explaining the study and asking permission. Any owner who declines will have their hotel removed from the extraction.
Data Leave the Systems Already Coded
The candidate never sees a manager's name next to an override. The information systems team replaces each user name with a code and each hotel with another code before the extract leaves the system, and keeps the key in a separate file the candidate cannot open. This matters because the candidate knows most of the revenue managers personally. An override record that read "J. Alvarez, Savannah, 14 percent below recommendation" would be impossible to forget when interviewing J. Alvarez later. Coding at the source protects managers and protects the analysis from the candidate's own impressions of colleagues.
The connecting step in Unit 4, choosing interviewees according to their quantitative pattern (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2018), needs the key. The plan handles that by asking the information systems director to send invitations to the coded managers in each pattern group on the candidate's behalf, so that the candidate learns who was invited only when a manager agrees to take part.
The person who helped set up the pricing system should not be the person who decides which managers are asked to explain overriding it.
The Insider Problem
The candidate is a senior revenue analyst who helped configure the revenue management system's rules in 2022. Brannick and Coghlan (2007) argue that insider research brings knowledge of the setting, access to people and an understanding of the language that outsiders lack, and that these advantages are real. They also bring risks: participants may tell an insider what they think the insider wants to hear, may worry about how their answers will travel inside the organization, and may feel unable to refuse a colleague. A revenue manager asked by the analyst who built the system why she overrides it may defend her overrides more than she would to a stranger, or may hide them.
Three steps address this. Invitations come from the information systems director, not the candidate, and state that declining will not be reported to anyone. Interviews take place by video outside the manager's hotel, at a time the manager chooses. And the candidate's role in configuring the system is stated plainly at the start of each interview, so that managers know who they are talking to. The Unit 8 rigor plan will add procedures for checking whether the candidate's position shaped what was heard.
When Someone Says No
The plan treats refusal as likely, not hypothetical. If the chief financial officer refuses the extraction, the study cannot proceed at this company, and the fallback is a second hotel management company reached through the state hotel and lodging association, where the candidate has a professional contact. If some owners refuse, their hotels drop out, and the study reports how many hotels remain and whether they differ from the ones that left. If fewer than ten managers agree to interviews, the qualitative phase continues with those who agree, and the limitation is stated. If the sponsor leaves the company, the data use agreement, signed by counsel, continues to govern the data already extracted.
What Has Not Happened Yet
No letter has been signed. The senior vice president has said informally that she supports the study, but informal support is not permission. No review board has acted, and no data will be requested until the university's board approves the study and the company's letters are in hand. The requests above are drafts, to be revised after the committee's review and before any are sent.
References
Brannick, T., & Coghlan, D. (2007). In defense of being "native": The case for insider academic research. Organizational Research Methods, 10(1), 59-74. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428106289253
Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2018). Designing and conducting mixed methods research (3rd ed.). SAGE.
Feldman, M. S., Bell, J., & Berger, M. T. (2003). Gaining access: A practical and theoretical guide for qualitative researchers. AltaMira Press.
The Purdue Global GB730 Unit 5 instructions
Unit 5 in GB730 asks you to plan how you will gain and keep access to your study site. Begin by listing every person or party who must agree, and do not stop at your sponsor. For each, state exactly what you are asking for, in records, hours or permissions, and the concern that person is likely to raise. Draft your response to each concern. Describe how data will be protected, including who removes identifiers and when. If you work at the site, address your insider position directly: how recruitment avoids pressure and how your role could shape what participants say. Explain what you will do if any party refuses or later withdraws. State clearly what has and has not been signed or approved, since a plan written now can describe only intentions.
How this GB730 Unit 5 example is built
The plan opens by treating access as several separate permissions and raises the fact that the company manages hotels it does not own. Six parties then get one paragraph each, with the request, the likely concern and a drafted response: a pre-writing briefing for the sponsor, coded hotels for the finance chief, a twelve-hour extraction for information systems, protected interview time for human resources, a data use agreement for counsel and consent letters for owners. A section explains why the candidate never sees a manager's name beside an override, with the highlighted sentence on who should choose interviewees. Brannick and Coghlan frame the insider problem, and three safeguards answer it. A fallback is given for each refusal, and the plan ends by saying no letter is signed and no board has acted.
GB730 Unit 5 rubric: what earns full points
GB730 points on the access plan reward specificity. Each request should be quantified, so that a reader knows how many hours, which fields and what period are being asked for. Instructors weight the identification of every party who can refuse, and a plan that names only the sponsor loses a large share of the marks. Drafted responses to likely objections show the student has thought from the other side of the table. Data protection must say who does what and when, not merely promise confidentiality. For insider studies, the rubric expects recruitment that keeps managers and colleagues from knowing who took part. A fallback for each refusal earns credit for realism. Honesty about status, stating that letters are drafts and approvals pending, is part of the grade in most sections.
GB730 Unit 5 help: mistakes that cost points
Many GB730 access plans treat a supportive conversation with a manager as if it were permission. Others list one gatekeeper and forget the people who control the data, the systems or employees' time. Insider researchers often recruit colleagues directly, which a review board will question. Data protection is described in general terms, such as kept confidential, without saying who strips identifiers. Fallbacks are rarely planned until access actually fails. Students sometimes describe letters as signed when they are only promised. Map every party, quantify each request, answer each likely objection, set out who codes the data, move recruitment away from yourself and write a fallback for each refusal. Send us your site and sponsor, and we can map the parties for your plan.
Get a GB730 Unit 5 example written to your instructions
Describe the organization you hope to study, your relationship to it and the data or participants needed, then add what Unit 5 asks for, its rubric and any program guidance on site letters. A custom access plan naming each gatekeeper, quantifying every request, addressing any insider role and planning for refusal reaches you in 24-48h, the first plan costing you no money. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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GB730 Unit 5 questions, answered
Does GB730 require a signed site letter at Unit 5?
Rarely at this stage. Most sections want a realistic plan: who would grant permission, what they would be asked for and what could go wrong. A draft letter of cooperation is sometimes requested as an appendix. Never describe a letter as signed or an approval as granted unless it truly has been, since that claim gets checked later.
Is studying one's own employer allowed?
Often, with safeguards. Review boards look closely at insider research because employees may feel pressure to participate or to answer favorably. The plan should explain how recruitment avoids managerial pressure, how data are de-identified and how the researcher's role might shape responses. Some programs discourage it for certain designs, so check your program's guidance.
What if the organization asks to see the findings first?
Negotiate that before collecting any data and put the terms in writing. Sharing an aggregate summary is common; allowing the organization to edit or veto findings compromises the study. The access plan should state what the organization receives, when and at what level of detail, so nobody is surprised when the study ends.
Where can I find a free GB730 Unit 5 sample paper?
This page holds a full GB730 Unit 5 site access plan for a hotel override study, naming six parties, each request and objection, the insider safeguards and a fallback for every refusal.
Why should someone else send interview invitations in an insider study?
If the researcher knows who was invited and who declined, colleagues may feel pressure to take part. Invitations sent by a neutral person keep participation private until the employee chooses to say yes.