Introduction
NCR Country Club began as an employee benefit for National Cash Register Company, hosting National Golf Tournaments, which include the 1996 PGA Championship, the 1986 U.S. Open, and the 1988 U.S. Mid-Amateur. In 1997, AT&T purchased the facilities from NCR Corporation, followed by an immediate overall renovated. Interest in the sport of golf has grown tremendously, since NCR’ Country Club’s beginning in 1954. Memberships began to decline at NCR Country club, and they hired McMahon Group to help develop a strategic plan to expand and increase membership.
Country Clubs are in a perfect economic storm. From the perspective of the membership base, many club members have lost employment, and older members have seen substantial declines in retirement savings that translate into a change in their private club lifestyle. At the same time, reduced real estate values have caused lenders who previously believed that default was unlikely to fear that their mortgages may not be adequately covered by the value of the underlying real estate. Many clubs can generate positive cash flow. However, for a variety of reasons they have incurred substantial debt, which ultimately puts them “underwater.” If the property can be developed more profitably for another use, the often-inefficient use as a club is scrapped in favor of a more lucrative use, assuming appropriate zoning and entitlements achievement (Hirsh, L. A. (2010).
Demographics play an important role in predicting customer expectations and demand for goods and services. There are growing sentiment and a resounding call by leading club executives for private clubs to understand better the demographics of the locales in which they operate. An understanding of demographics will allow clubs to develop better positioning and pricing strategies as well as lead to a better understanding of their member categories (Carpenter and Miller, 2014).
Management-Research Question Hierarchy
It is essential to begin the questions of management-research with issues which concern management. These questions are usually easy to identify from the history and relationships with NCR founding members.
In management research, as in other empirical fields, researchers use substantive theory to derive testable predictions or hypotheses. For instance, one may hypothesize that “a firm’s industry visibility positively associated with its corporate social performance” (Chiu & Sharfman, 2011), that “prosocial role expectations are positively related to citizenship behavior” (Dierdorff rt al., 2012), or that “the relationship between competitive negotiation tactics and career or paid work effort will be moderated by gender such that the relationship will be more strongly positive for men than for women” (Livingston, 2014). These hypotheses are then tested in the sense that they are confronted with empirical data that may either contradict or support the hypotheses of interest (Andraszewicz et al., 2014).
Management Concern: How to increase the Country Club’s Across All Sectors
• Questions for Management
1. What Methods can be developed to increase NCR Country Club membership permanently expand or increase membership programs?
2. How can the NCR Country Club be inclusive of founding memberships?
• Questions of Research
The hypothesis rather than the data should drive the primary research question. That is, the research question and hypothesis should develop before the start of the study. This could then lead one to work backward from the data and develop the “question.” This is counterintuitive to the process because the question is explicitly asked to find the answer then, thus collecting data along the way (i.e., in a prospective manner). Multiple statistical testing of associations from data previously collected could potentially lead to spuriously positive findings of association through chance alone.2 Therefore, a reasonable hypothesis must be based on a good research question at the start of a trial and, indeed, drive data collection for the study ( Farrugia et al., 2010).
1. How can NCR’s Golf Club premier championship and golf sporting legendary history be used to generate to increase current membership.?
2. What can additional membership benefits NCR Country offer in comparison to other exclusive country clubs?
3. Can NCR’s Country club be promoted as a tourism destination?
4. What are NCR’s membership rates in comparison to other exclusive clubs?
• Questions for Investigation
1. What marketing opportunities may be available at NCR Country Club?
2. What membership rate would members and non-members find affordable?
3. What do Country Club members find satisfactory with the facilities services currently provided?
4. What marketing strategies would NCR use to attract non-members?
Measurement Comparison for Questions Asked
Questions focus on current memberships, satisfaction, services offered, memberships rates compared to other facilities, and quality of services. The rate of banquet facilities rental for Corporate events, weddings, and social gatherings analysis not included. These services attract the public to consider membership after participating in these events. All these factors can play a role an important role in increasing membership.
Research Questions Measurement
NCR Country Club and McMahon Group worked together to develop these questions. Useful information applies in response to these research question on best practices for implementing measures to increase memberships. These measurement questions focus on providing the information to solve management concerns.
Advertising the club’s past participation in Championship Golf Tournaments can be used to attract new members. If NCR Country Club has a positive impact on the surrounding communities’ residents would find interest in becoming members.
The most important and significant aspects of golf-based projects are those relating to the way that stakeholders in influential positions, holding administrative and technical power in the tourist/urban development of the area, designed and carried out the plans and projects in line with their interpretation of space, independently of other points of view. Any diversity of socio-spatial approaches and interpretations was ruled out of the decision-making process (Domínguez-Gómez & González-Gómez, 2017).
The targeting of tourism market segments is considered to increase repeat visitations to tourism destinations because it allows destination marketers to determine the needs and expectations of targeted tourists accurately, develop more effective marketing strategies, which in turn, assists with ensuring that the targeted tourist’s segments support and return to the destination. Consequently, to determine the profile of golf tourists attending golf events by shedding some light on their critical trip-related and general golf tourism behavior patterns. To date, most research undertaken has focused on product-driven research concerned with golf course facilities and the marketing thereof and little emphasis on demand-side research concerning the golf tourist (Tassiopoulos & Haydam, 2008).