GM599 Unit 1 Capstone Topic Proposal Example

Why Operators Stopped Applying: A Unit 1 Capstone Topic Proposal at a Regional Transit Agency

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

GM599: Applied Research Project

Unit 1 Topic Proposal

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Wexmoor Regional Transit, its staff and every figure are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.

The Question

Why have eligible bus operators at Wexmoor Regional Transit's three garages largely stopped applying for road supervisor postings since 2023?

Why This Question

Road supervisors work on the street. They monitor service, respond to incidents, relieve late buses and support operators when something goes wrong on a route. Wexmoor has 24 road supervisor positions, and for years most were filled by promoting experienced operators, who already knew the routes, the riders and the garages.

That pattern has changed. The agency's posting history shows that sixteen road supervisor postings between 2019 and 2022 drew an average of 7.4 internal applicants each. The fourteen postings since the start of 2023 have drawn an average of 1.9, and nine of those fourteen were filled from outside the agency. A supervisor hired from outside must learn the routes that a promoted operator already knows, and the agency's operations staff say incidents are handled more slowly while new supervisors learn.

Timothy Ellis and Yair Levy argue that a research-worthy problem should be grounded in evidence that the problem exists and matters, not in the researcher's interest alone (Ellis & Levy, 2008). The drop from 7.4 applicants to 1.9 is that evidence.

A drop from 7.4 internal applicants per posting to 1.9 is a measurable change with a likely set of causes, and the people who know those causes work in the same building as the writer.

Two Topics Considered and Dropped

Fare evasion on Route 14. Operators report frequent fare evasion on the agency's busiest crosstown route. The topic was dropped because the only reliable data, the fare box and automatic passenger counter records, are controlled by a vendor under a contract that prohibits sharing raw data with staff outside finance, and finance declined to release them for a student project.

Absenteeism across the whole workforce. Unscheduled absence has risen across the agency. The topic was dropped because attendance records are tied to medical leave and disciplinary files, which human resources will not release even in aggregate without legal review, and because the scope, every employee group, would be too broad for a single term.

Access to Evidence

Five sources could explain the supervisor question, and each is controlled by someone the writer can reach.

Posting records, 2019 to the present, including applicants, withdrawals and hires. Controlled by human resources, in the applicant tracking system.

Payroll figures for operators and supervisors, including overtime earnings. Controlled by the payroll manager.

Eligible operators, meaning those the promotion rules allow to apply: three or more years on the job and no discipline in the past year. Reachable through garage mailboxes and meetings, with the union local's cooperation.

Three road supervisors promoted from within since 2019, who can describe what the move cost and gained them. Reachable directly.

The supervisor job description and pay range, published by human resources. Publicly available.

The writer works in scheduling, not human resources or management, which means operators may speak more freely, but also that the writer's familiarity with the agency could shape what is noticed. Teresa Brannick and David Coghlan argue that insider researchers bring access and understanding that outsiders lack, provided they are open about their position and its effects (Brannick & Coghlan, 2007).

Boundaries

This study will not evaluate individual supervisors or operators, and it will not judge whether outside hires perform worse than promoted operators, which would require performance records the writer cannot see. It will not propose changes to the collective bargaining agreement itself, though it may identify a provision worth discussing with the union. And it will not study other job families, such as dispatchers or mechanics, even though some may show similar patterns. Keeping these boundaries makes the question answerable in one term with the evidence available.

How the Term Could Unfold

The first weeks would test the question with the people who hold the evidence and refine it. A problem statement and literature review would follow, then a method that uses the posting and payroll records first, a survey of eligible operators second and a small number of interviews last. Data collection would need permissions from human resources, payroll and the general manager, and a plan for keeping answers confidential. The final weeks would analyze the results and turn them into recommendations for the director of operations.

The Decision the Findings Could Feed

The agency's director of operations will review road supervisor pay in the next budget cycle. The findings could tell that review whether pay is the reason operators stopped applying, or whether other causes, such as losing seniority on promotion, matter as much. Eric Barends and Denise Rousseau describe evidence-based management as combining organizational data, stakeholder views and research to inform a specific decision (Barends & Rousseau, 2018). This project is designed to do that for one decision, and the director will receive its results before budget work starts.

References

Barends, E., & Rousseau, D. M. (2018). Evidence-based management: How to use evidence to make better organizational decisions. Kogan Page.

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

Ellis, T. J., & Levy, Y. (2008). Framework of problem-based research: A guide for novice researchers on the development of a research-worthy problem. Informing Science, 11, 17-33. https://doi.org/10.28945/438