Comparative Issues and Methods in Organizational Diagnosis. Report II. The Decision Tree Approach.

摘要

This report describes the decision-tree approach to organizational diagnosis. The advantages and disadvantages of the decision-tree approach generally, and in this study specifically, are examined. A pre-test, using a civilian sample of 174 work groups with Survey of Organizations data, was conducted to assess various decision-tree classification criteria, in terms of their similarity to the distance function used by Bowers and Hausser (1977). The results suggested the use of a large developmental sample, which should result in more distinctly defined boundary lines between classification profiles. Also, the decision matrix was preferred over the extended decision tree, since the matrix is not path-dependent, and is probably more convenient and easily used by a decision maker. Finally, it is anticipated that the classification criteria (minimum-maximum vs. standard scores) will yield different results, with the standard score approach results perhaps being more similar to those of the distance function. (Author)