How Research is Used by a Distribution Company In any organization there will be the conflicting needs of different stakeholders; shareholders or owners will want profits, customers will want good service levels, products to the right specifications, reliability and low process, and employees will want job security and job satisfaction. Other stakeholder may have other needs or desires, such as good environmental practices. Research can be used in order to help find ways to satisfy the needs or desires for stakeholders. In the case of a distribution company research can be applied in a number of ways, from generalized research that is accepted across entire industries to research which is undertaken for the specific company. There are also ways in which the research may be used more effectively. The use of research is seen in the way that the employers manage the employment relationship. This may be old research with staff motivated with the use of human relations school of though practices. Some of this research was flawed. The work of Mayo and the Hawthorne studies which is the foundation of the human relations school of thought. Carey (1967), argued that the Hawthorne effect was not a ‘perfect psychological study’, and that the results obtained were could have been skewed including aspects such as bias and a lack of objectivity on the part of the researchers and the participants (Carey, 1967). This is very generalized research which took place many years ago. In more recent years there has been research that can be seen as specifically applicable to the distribution industry, which is likely that the company is using. The resea