Jennifer Cook, Senior Vice President of the Immunology and Ophthalmology (GIO) business unit at Genentech sat at her desk in South San Francisco, California, while preparing to meet with her Executive Leadership Team comprising Cook, sales and marketing franchise heads, the operations and communications lead/chief of staff, and the HR lead. Cook, an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, had risen rapidly at Genentech since her graduation in 1998.

In 2009, she became the leader of GIO within Genentech, a 35-year-old leading biotechnology company that discovers, develops, manufactures, and commercializes medicines to treat patients with serious or life- threatening medical conditions. Also in 2009, Genentech became a wholly owned member of the Roche Group, a Swiss pharmaceutical giant. Genentech focused on five therapeutic areasOncology, Immunology, Neuroscience, Metabolism, and Infectious Diseasesand had over 11,000 employees in the United States.

Cook's relatively new GIO division included four products/franchises: Actemra (rheumatoid arthritis), Rituxan (rheumatoid arthritis), Lucentis (wet age-related macular degeneration, an eye disease), and Xolair (allergic asthma). Cook's boss, Ian Clark, formerly head of the Commercial Division, had become CEO of Genentech about a year before Cook became head of GIO.

When Cook entered her new job, she knew she had a challenging path ahead of her. The four brands she inherited were all very differentwith different histories, different cultures, and in various stages of development. Xolair and Rituxan were mature Genentech brands with modest growth prospects and a strong sense of history and identity; Lucentis was a Genentech brand with a robust lifecycle, significant growth potential, and an already-strong culture; and Actemra was a Roche brand in launch mode with an extensive lifecycle, significant growth potential, but culture and product launch challenges. Adding to these differences, the merging of the four brands occurred amidst the Roche-Genentech merger that led to layoffs, disruption, and uncertainty, as well as multiple leadership changes in 2010.

Because of the disparate franchises and upheavals, Cook felt it was especially critical to embark on a culture change process in order to be successful over the long run. She believed that identifying and establishing GIO's culture would enable GIO to deliver business results and help the organization realize its vision. In fact, at every major position Cook had held at Genentech prior to GIO, she had instituted a culture change process.

As Cook headed into a conference room to meet with her team, she took a deep breath and prepared to face all the potential skeptics that were typical during the initial phase of a culture change effort. She was also keenly aware of the new challenges she faced in managing a group of over 500 people who were spread across the United States. Numerous questions filled her head, such as how to effectively bring this team together, what might affect GIO's performance, what features of culture were at play, and what stood in the way of positive change?

a)If you were Jennifer Cook in the above scenario, propose a research question (RQ) that is appropriate for a qualitative inquiry into GIO. From the scenario, explain your motivation for proposing such a RQ.

b)Within the context of the scenario, explain your understanding of the three (3) concepts of Ontology, Epistemology, and Methodology and discuss how they relate to one another within a scientific inquiry. Illustrate your answer with how Jennifer would have to take into consideration the three concepts when planning a formal scientific inquiry to answer the RQ.

c) Using the context of the scenario, explain to which category of research design (Exploratory, Descriptive, Explanatory, or Emancipatory) does your RQ belong?

d)Discuss at least three (3) qualitative research methods you would use to answer your RQ. Explain how these methods relate to one another and also your rationale for why they are appropriate to your RQ in this scenario.