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NTU Management Review Vol. 33 No. 3 Dec. 2023

various circumstances at their own branch offices. Therefore, there can be inconsistency
between the goals of regional and branch managers.
Under the hierarchical structure of this target company, a regional manager has the
authority and discretion to decide how advertising funding and salespersons are delegated

2
among the branch offices within the region. This creates an opportunity for regional
managers to influence the advertising funding and the number of senior/junior salespersons
a branch office can receive and possess. Since the organizational resources that a regional

manager receives from headquarters are fixed and limited, it is impossible to meet the
resource needs of all branch managers. Therefore, there is a possibility that the resource
distribution is skewed in favor of certain branch managers.

3.2 Data Collection

To examine our hypotheses, we collect data from multiple sources at the research
(case study) site. First, we interview the top management team to understand the goal-
setting process and the underlying implications and specifications of their goals. Given
the information from these interviews, we then develop the survey questionnaires. The top

management team review the questionnaire drafts, randomly select regional and branch
managers, and pilot-test them.
Later, we conduct a field survey with the regional and branch managers of the case
company. The case company help us distribute a paper-based survey to 33 regional and

431 branch managers. In total, we receive responses from 28 regional and 272 branch
managers (with 84% and 63% response rates from regional and branch managers,
3
respectively). Of these, only 1% of the regional managers and 15% of the branch
managers are female, and the average tenures for regional managers and branch managers

2 The branch offices in this case company are all chain stores. Although the case company owns and
operates the branch offices, the case company gives authority to regional managers to decide how
advertising funding and salespersons are delegated among the branch offices within the region based
on the circumstances of the region and each branch office. From the interview we conducted with the
top management team, regional managers, and branch office managers, resource allocation decisions
are made on a monthly basis.
3 We conduct a nonresponse analysis to compare respondents and nonrespondents. Our results show
that the two groups did not differ significantly in terms of tenure or gender (p > 0.10). Therefore, the
results indicate that nonresponse bias was not a serious concern in our study.

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