RES 351 All DQs

Week 1

Why must business managers understand the importance of business research and how it is used in their organizations?

What are the essential tenets of the scientific method, and why is the scientific method important to business research?

Recently, several studies have sought to measure the extent of binge drinking among college students. Explain the meaning of an operational definition and develop a good operational definition for binge drinking.

Toyota has a problem with unexplained acceleration problems in some of its top models. It closed down plants and stopped production on several models. What types of research might Toyota conduct to make these decisions?

Why is research ethics important in business? Describe the rights and obligations of the participant, researcher, and research sponsor?

Week 2

You are the supervisor of a call center. Lately, there have been many misdirected or dropped calls. Develop one or two research questions and three hypotheses that might account for misdirected or dropped calls

Identify a management dilemma you face at work or at an organization with which you were previously employed. Using the Management-Research Question Hierarchy in Ch. 5 of the text, develop the management questions, research questions, investigative questions, and measurement questions.

Explain the difference between a research question and a hypothesis. Using your current or previous place of employment as a starting point, provide one or more research question and then develop two appropriate hypotheses.

Week 3

Differentiate between the scientific method and applied research. Which one is most often used in business? Provide an example of either that might be appropriate from your current or previous place of employment

You are the manager of a hotel. There have been several complaints from guests relating to employee attitude. Provide a description of three different types of research that might be appropriate for this situation

Why do some senior executives feel more comfortable relying with quantitative data than qualitative data? How might a qualitative research company lessen the senior-level executives skepticism? What are the advantages and disadvantages of using surveys to collect data? Describe a research situation where survey research is appropriate and explain why

Amazons Kindle electronic book, magazine, and newspaper reader, has been more successful than its competitors. The fact that the Kindle reader was first introduced on the Oprah Show and was strongly endorsed by the host, Oprah Winfrey, may have contributed to its success. However, the original Kindle reader has some physical problems, such as button replacement and page-turn speed. Correcting these problems resulted in a redesigned Kindle reader, which was released in 2009 and received many positive reviews. What observation research might have been used in the redesign of the original Kindle reader? What are some advantages and disadvantages of this approach? Which would you recommend for the new Fire tablet being offered by Amazon? Are there any ethical concerns and how might they be addressed, if any?

What essential characteristics distinguish a true experiment from other research designs? What ethical problems do you see in conducting experiments with humans?

Week 4

What special problem do open-ended questions have? How can these be minimized? In what situations are open-ended questions most useful?

As part of its bankruptcy restructuring, General Motors (GM) launched a new ad campaign on June 3, 2009, that that was meant to feature a streamlined GM: fewer brandsincluding the Cadillac, Buick, Chevrolet, and GMC brandsand fewer models within each brand. What research would you have done to determine which vehicles models GM should retain and which it should drop? What would you have measured and with what type of measurement scale?

During the 2010 Super Bowl game, the Snickers candy bar campaign was voted the best ad among men and women 18 and older and youth 18 or younger. The ad featured a neighborhood football game in which one of the players, who has dwindling energy, is tackled again and again. His teammates tell him, You play like Betty White! The 80-year-old actress and comedian appears in the ad as the football player being tackled. If you were the owner of the ADBOWL website, how would you draw the sample to measure the best ad that aired during the Super Bowl game among the three groups of interest?

What special problem do open-ended questions have? How can these be minimized? In what situations are open-ended questions most useful?

Week 5

Distinguish between a Z test and a t-test. Provide an example of each one that might be appropriate for your current or previous place of employment

Set up a nonparametric test using the six-step hypothesis testing procedure. You do not have to provide calculations