Daniel Lourenço is a Portuguese student of International Business. Born in Reguengos de Monsaraz, he is an active sportsman, excelling in football and swimming. As a young man Daniel developed a keen interest in aviation. He read everything he was able to find on the subject and began training for his private pilot license when he was 16, but he had to give it up for financial reasons. Daniel has just started writing his master thesis and he has handed in his research proposal to his company advisor, Leonor Soares Henriques Pais. Leonor is a senior operations manager for CAP airlines, a Portuguese aviation company. He has been working for CAP airlines since 2008 and he is responsible for ensuring that business operations are efficient in terms of using as little resources as needed, and effective in terms of meeting customer requirements. Leonor’s job is quite hectic and ever since he has started, Leonor has been working long hours. Daniel and Leonor have agreed to meet in a few days to discuss the following research proposal developed by Daniel. RESEARCH PROPOSAL By: Daniel Lourenço 1.1 Introduction: The story below is one of the many typical complaints posted on an airline complaint website (http://www.airlinecomplaints.org/) describing passengers’ experiences with CAP Portugal. CAP is the airline of PLC Travel Group, a leading international travel corporation based in Lisbon. CAP – Nightmare. On 23 September 2010 I was flying from Milan to Lisbon and then from Lisbon to Faro with CAP Portugal having the worst experience ever. First of all, I missed my flight to Faro due to a delay of my first flight. They put me in the next flight (7 hours later) which was also delayed for 3 hours. Hence, it took me 16 hours to fly from Milan to Faro which is truly unacceptable. Of course, I have had delays with other airlines in the past but CAP is something else. For instance, at Lisbon airport, they didn’t grant me the entrance to their Lounge in order to find some quietness and make phone calls to reschedule the appointments I missed due to the delays. What’s more, I had to wait for 45 minutes at the transfer desk which was manned with only 4 people; the slowest people I ever seen in my life, helping to form a queue of more than 200 meters. CAP People were not only slow, they were also rude, they were barely speaking English, and they were very unresponsive. Finally, on the plane to Faro, we could not even get a glass of water, although they knew that we had been waiting the whole evening at Lisbon airport. The Pilot made the worst landing I have ever had with most of the people in the plane praying. That is why CAP for me stands for "Crappy Air Planes!" PLC Travel Group was formed eight years ago by the merger of First International Holidays with the tourism division of NTI Portugal. PLC Travel Group carries the brands ‘Arches’, ‘Portugal International’ and ‘CAP’, and it is the largest tour operator in Portugal. PLC Portugal has its own airline company (CAP) and owns a franchise chain of CAP travel agencies. CAP carries out charter and regular flights to medium haul destinations such as the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Red Sea and to long haul destinations such as the Caribbean. Today CAP’s fleet consists of three (new) Boeings 737-800 and four (outdated) Boeings 767-300. Because the Boeings 767 are rather outdated they need more maintenance than the average airplane. Despite an intense maintenance program, these planes have a lot of technical problems. Consequently, the long haul fleet of CAP has dealt with a lot of delays recently. New long haul planes have been ordered, but these planes will not be delivered before 2016. This means that more delays will inevitably occur. For this reason, CAP needs to obtain more knowledge on the wait experience of passengers during delays and the effects of this experience on customer satisfaction and the evaluation of the service CAP provides. This research proposal will address the problem and problem statement in section 1.2. Section 1.3 details the research questions that will help to answer the problem statement. Next, section 1.4 discusses the relevance of the project. Section 1.5 provides a brief description of the research design, whereas section 1.6 includes information on the time frame of this study. Finally, this research proposal will provide a selected bibliography. 1.2 Problem Indication and Problem Statement: Prior research has claimed that service waits can be controlled by two techniques: operations management and management of perceptions. For CAP it is very difficult to obtain "zero defects" (no delays). Hence, this project will focus on managing the perceptions of the wait experience: because CAP cannot control the actual amount of delays and wait duration (recall that they work with a number of outdated planes), the company must focus on controlling the customer's perception of the waiting experience. To do this successfully it is important to know the variables that influence the perception of this waiting experience and the possible impact of waiting on customer satisfaction and service evaluations. More specifically, this project focuses on the following problem statement: How do delays affect consumers’ service evaluations? Drawing from prior research in the areas of waiting, service evaluations, attribution theory, and mood theory, hypotheses are generated regarding the relationships among a delay, affect, and service evaluations. The hypothesized relationships are tested in a field setting involving delayed CAP airline passengers. 1.3 Research Questions: To deal with the preceding problem statement, the following research questions are answered: 1. How does a delay affect service evaluations? 2. What are the affective consequences of delays and how does affect mediate the relationship between waiting and service evaluations? 3. How do situational variables (such as filled time) influence customer reactions to the delay? 1.4 Relevance: Regarding the practical usefulness of the research project; this project gives CAP an indication of their level of performance during delays and shows what the effects of this performance are. The results of this project allow CAP to improve its service, to keep people 'smiling' even during delays. 1.5 Research Design: The hypotheses of this study will be tested with a standardized questionnaire. Data will be collected from passengers on delayed medium and long haul flights over a period of two months by the cabin crew. Delays on outbound and inbound flights will be used to gather data from passengers. Flights are only sampled if the post-schedule wait is more than one hour. The passengers are asked to fill out and hand in the questionnaire at the end of the flight (approximately one hour before the airplane will land). Post-flight services, such as luggage pick-up, are ignored for practical reasons. Asking the passengers to fill out a questionnaire after they leave the plane would cause a further delay. 1.6 Time Frame: The time frame necessary for this project is approximately six months. During these six months, periodic reports will be provided on the progress being made. 1.7 Selected Bibliography: Folkes, V. S., Koletsky, S., and Graham, J. L. (1987). A Field Study of Causal Inferences and Consumer Reaction: The View from the Airport. Journal of Consumer Research, 13, 534-539. Oliver, R. L. (1996). Satisfaction: A Behavioral Perspective on the Consumer. New York: McGraw-Hill. Richins, M. L. (1987). A Multivariate Analysis of Responses to Dissatisfaction. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 15, 24-31. Smith, A. K. and Bolton, R. N. (2002). The Effect of Customers’ Emotional Responses to Service Failures on Their Recovery Effort Evaluations and Satisfaction Judgments. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 30, 5-23. Taylor, S. (1994). Waiting for Service: The Relationship Between Delays and Evaluations of Service. Journal of Marketing, 58, 56-69. Westbrook, R. A. (1987). Product/Consumption-Based Affective Responses and Postpurchase Processes. Journal of Marketing Research, 24, 258-270. Provide an evaluation of Daniel’s problem statement and research questions. Use the following criteria: a. The background of the problem is clear. b. The goal of the research project is clear. c. The problem statement is formulated in a neutral and unambiguous way. d. The problem statement is precise and specific. e. The problem statement is relevant. f. The problem statement is feasible. g. The specific research questions follow logically from the problem statement. h. The specific research questions are precisely written and lead to observable outcomes 2. Improve the section “Relevance”. 3. Do you think that the section “Research Design” provides enough information? Why (not)? 4. Does the section “Time Frame” provide enough information? Improve this section if necessary. 5. Explain how a literature review helps Daniel to solve CAP’s problem. 6. Search for three more relevant papers in academic journals. Explain why you have selected these specific papers.
> Develop a conceptual model for the scenario below. Incidence of smoking in movies has started to increase again, after having declined for several decades. According to the National Cancer Institute smoking is seen in at least three out of four contempo
> Discuss the following statement: The hallmarks of scientific research do not/cannot apply to inductive research.
> The exact purpose of a critical literature review depends on the research approach that is taken. Discuss this statement.
> When is applied research, as distinct from basic research, useful?
> For what specific purpose is Basic Research important?
> Why should a manager know about research when the job entails managing people, products, events, environments and the like?
> Give two specific instances where an external research team would be useful and two other scenarios where an internal research team will be deployed, with adequate explanations as to why each scenario is justified for an external or internal team.
> Research in behavioral finance has shown that overconfidence can cause investors to underreact to new information. What is the dependent variable in this case?
> A manager of an insurance company finds that “fear appeals” in commercials are positively associated with consumers’ behavioral intentions to insure their house. This effect is particularly strong for people with a high inherent level of anxiety.
> A marketing manager believes that selecting physically attractive spokespersons and models to endorse their products increases the persuasiveness of a message.
> An investor believes that more information increases the accuracy of his forecasts.
> A marketing manager believes that limiting the availability of a product increases product desirability. What is the dependent variable here?
> Avatars are virtual characters that can be used as representatives of a company that is using the Internet as a distribution channel. For instance, avatars can be used as shopping assistants, website guides, or as identification figures. A manager of an
> You are interested in how person–organization fit relates to employees’ affective commitment and intention to stay with an organization during the early stages of a strategic organizational change.
> Define the problem statement (the why and the what) in the following situation: Employee loyalty Companies benefit through employee loyalty. Crude downsizing in organizations during the recession crushed the loyalty of millions. The economic benefits of
> How would you go about doing literature survey in the area of corporate social responsibility?
> A typical examples of causal research questions is: “What is the effect of reward system on productivity?” And What is the problem here, according to the researcher? And what is a possible solution to the problem, according to the same researcher?
> Do the project assigned below, following the step‐by‐step process outlined: Compile a bibliography on any one of the following topics, or any other topic of interest to you, from a business perspective: (a). service quality; (b). product development;
> Offer a clearly focused problem statement in the broad area of corporate culture, job satisfaction or risk-seeking behaviors of investors.
> Describe a situation where research will help you as a manager to make a good decision.
> The problem definition stage is perhaps more critical in the research process than the problem solution stage”. Discuss this statement.
> For the topic you chose to work on for the project in Chapter 4, do the following: ● Go through the computer‐generated bibliography again. ● Define a problem statement that, in your opinion, would be most useful for researchers to investigate. ● Carry ou
> The Mobile Phone Company has been named as the most complained about mobile phone Company, narrowly beating 3G, which has shot to the top of the table as the worst landline provider. According to the latest figures from the regulator, Ofcom, the Mobile P
> 1. Develop a theoretical framework for the following situation and state one testable hypothesis in the null and the alternate. A school administrator is interested in finding how the threatened teachers’ strike can be averted. He knows that pay demands
> Several situations are given below. For each situation, respond to the following research design questions. a. What would be the nature of the study that would be designed - Exploratory, descriptive, or hypothesis-testing? b. Give reasons for your answer
> Make up three different situations in which motivation to work would be an independent variable, a mediating variable, and a moderating variable.
> A manager finds that off‐the‐job classroom training has a great impact on the productivity of the employees in her department. However, she also observes that employees over 60 years of age do not seem to derive much benefit and do not improve with such
> A recent study has investigated the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the market value of the firm. This study developed and tested a conceptual framework, which posits that (1) customer satisfaction mediates the relationship between CSR
> In 1864 Henricus Laroche started making high-quality chocolate in his kitchen in Ooigem, Belgium. Henricus learned his trade at a famous chocolate shop in Paris, and he and his wife began to make chocolate in bars, wafers and other shapes soon after Henr
> A production manager is concerned about the low output levels of his employees. The articles that he has read on job performance frequently mention four variables as being important to job performance: (1). skills required for the job, (2). rewards, (3
> Create a diagram to illustrate the relationships between the relevant variables in Exercise 5.9 and develop five different hypotheses.
> A store manager observes that the morale of employees in her supermarket is low. She thinks that if their working conditions are improved, pay scales raised, and the vacation benefits made more attractive, the morale will be boosted. She doubts, however,
> Failure to follow accounting principles causes immense confusion, which in turn creates a number of problems for the organization. Those with vast experience in bookkeeping, however, are able to avert the problems by taking timely corrective action. List
> You want to investigate the specific effects of specific emotions on customers’ behavioral responses to failed service encounters across industries. Discuss the design decisions that you as a researcher will make to investigate this issue, giving reasons
> You want to examine how exposure to thin or heavy models in advertisements influences a person’s selfesteem. You believe that the effect of exposure to models in advertisements depends on the extremity of the model’s thinness or heaviness. Discuss the de
> A foreman thinks that the low efficiency of the machine tool operators is directly linked to the high level of fumes emitted in the workshop. He would like to prove this to his supervisor through a research study. 1. Would this be a causal or a correlati
> Describe a situation where you used research in order to inform thinking, decisions, and/or actions in relation to a personal issue of interest such as buying a new mobile phone or going to the movies. Provide information about the purpose of your resear
> Explain giving reasons which is more important – applied or basic research.
> Why is it important to be adept in handling the manager-researcher relationship?
> Explain the processes of deduction and induction, giving an example of each.
> One hears the word research being mentioned by several groups such as research organizations, college and university professors, doctoral students, graduate assistants working for faculty, graduate and undergraduate students doing their term papers, rese
> Why do we still have transform the following problem statement into a researchable topic for investigation? The introduction of flexible work hours has created more problems than it has solved.
> Below are three scenarios. Indicate how the researcher should proceed in each case; that is, determine the following, giving reasons: a. Type of research question (exploratory, descriptive, or causal). b. The extent of researcher interference. c. The s
> Discuss the interrelationships among the research questions of a study (exploratory, descriptive, and causal), study setting (no contrived or contrived), researcher interference, research strategy, and time horizon of study.
> Why is the unit of analysis an integral part of the research design?
> A field study is often more useful than a lab experiment.” Discuss this statement
> Is a field study totally out of the question if one is trying to establish cause and effect relationships?
> Why is it important to consider basic research design issues before conducting the study and even as early as at the time of formulating the research question?
> What are the basic research design issues? Describe them in some detail.
> For the following case: a. Identify the problem b. Develop a diagram representing the conceptual model c. Develop the hypotheses. Concerned about her current customer base, manager Andersen started to think of factors that might affect the attractiveness
> In recent decades, many service markets have been liberalized. For this reason, incumbent service firms are facing new competitors and must address customer switching. You are discussing the determinants of customer switching with a service firm manager.
> It is advantageous to develop a directional hypothesis whenever we are sure of the predicted direction. How will you justify this statement?
> There is an advantage to stating the hypothesis both in the null and the alternate; it adds clarity to our thinking about what we are testing. Explain.
> In an applied research context you do not need to explain the relationships between the variables in your conceptual model. Discuss this statement.
> Good models are complex. What’s more, a good model should include both moderating and mediating variables. Discuss this statement.
> Develop a theoretical framework for the following case. Once given, perks are extraordinarily hard to take away without sapping employee morale. The adverse effects of these cuts far outweigh the anticipated savings in dollars. Research has shown that wh
> Because literature survey is a time-consuming exercise, a good, in-depth interview should suffice to develop a theoretical framework. Discuss this statement.
> Why is appropriate citation important? What are the consequences of not giving credit to the source from which materials are extracted?
> After studying and extracting information from all the relevant work done previously, how does the researcher know which references, articles, and information should be given prominence in the literature survey?
> The (over)consumption of calories is one of the most important determinants of the obesity problem in Europe and the United States. Governments promote the consumption of healthy alternatives and try to support consumers in making healthy choices, for in
> What is the purpose of the literature survey?
> Should a researcher always find information on structural and job characteristics from those interviewed? Give reasons for your answer with examples.
> Why is it important to gather information on the background of the organization? Whys is it important to review the literature on your topic?
> Describe the functions of preliminary data gathering.
> Below is the gist of an article from BusinessWeek. After reading it: a. identify the broad problem area b. explain how you would proceed further. Two years ago, Electronic Arts, the second-largest U.S. video game company, ran on promises. Developers pitc
> Define ‘problem’ and provide an example of a problem you have encountered in your daily life. Discuss how you have used research to solve this problem.
> Discuss the most important differences between positivism and constructionism.
> If research in the management area cannot be 100 percent scientific, why bother to do it at all? Comment on this question.
> Discuss the following statement: Good research is deductive in nature.
> Is there a specific perspective on research that appeals to you? Why?
> The growing use of social network sites (such as Facebook) and online communities (such as for instance the Apple Computer community, the community of Harley-Davidson riders, and the community of Starbucks customers) provides exciting opportunities for o
> This case exercise covers many issues found in new product and service development projects. In particular, the case examines a new type of product that is to be launched in an uncertain and unpredictable market and also carries some development risks. A
> The example of the bullwhip effect shown in Table 7.2 shows how a simple 5 per cent reduction in demand at the end of supply chain causes fluctuations that increase in severity the further back an operation is placed in the chain. Table 7.2: (a). Using
> Described as having ʻrevolutionised the concept of sandwich making and eatingʼ, Prêt A Manger opened their first shop in the mid-1980s, in London. Now they have over 130 shops in UK, New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo. They say that their secret is to focus c
> The manager of a sweet shop decides to sample batches of sweets to check that the weight is reasonably consistent. She takes 9 samples, each with 10 bags. The data below shows the average mean weight for each sample and the weight range. What control lim
> An animal park in Amsterdam has decided to samples 50 visitors each day (n) to see how many visitors are from overseas. The data below is for the last seven days. If it decided to continue recording this data and plot it on a control chart for attributes
> A local shop has a relatively stable demand for tins of sweetcorn throughout the year, with an annual total of 1,400 tins. The cost of placing an order is estimated at £15 and the annual cost of holding inventory is estimated at 25 per cent of the produc
> The environmental services department of a city has two recycling services – newspaper collection (NC) and general recycling (GR). The NC service is a door-to-door collection service that, at a fixed time every week, collects old newspapers that househol
> Supplies4medics distributes a range of around 4000 SKUs of medical and safety item supplies across Europe. The case highlights increasing problems with inventory shortages and declining service levels, at the same time that total inventory levels were at
> Some (even relatively experienced) project managers neglect stakeholders in the project management process, preferring to ‘manage them at a distance’ rather than allow them to interfere with the project. Others argue that the benefits of stakeholder mana
> The activities, their durations and precedences for designing, writing and installing a bespoke computer database are shown in Table 15.3. Draw a network diagram (activity-on-node) for the project and calculate the fastest time in which the operation mig
> Revisit the six examples of failure described at the beginning of the chapter. Compile a table that summarises your view of: (a). The reasons for the main failure. (b). How it might have been prevented. (c). The result (damage) of the failure.
> It is week 35 of a busy year at Ashby Architect’s and Jo Ashby is facing a big problem. Both her two junior partners have been diagnosed with a serious illness contracted on a trip to scope out a prospective job in Lichtenstein. So Jo h
> Find a copy of a financial newspaper (Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, etc.) and identify one company that is described in the paper that day. What do you think would be the main operations issues for that company?
> The Fast and Efficient (FAC) transport Group is reviewing its fleet maintenance operations. ‘Our lease on our current maintenance and repair facilities site will expire in a year, and we need to decide how to operate in the future. Currently we have the
> Mark Key is an events coordinator for a small company. Returning from his annual holiday in France, he is given six events to plan. He gives them the codes A–F. He needs to decide upon the sequence in which to plan the events and wants
> Write down five services that you have ‘consumed’ in the last week. Try and make these as varied as possible. Examples could include public transport, a bank, any shop or supermarket, attendance at an education course, a cinema, a restaurant and so on. F
> Visit an IKEA superstore and a smaller furniture store. Observe how the shop operates, for example, where customers go, how staff interact with them, how big it is, how the shop has chosen to use its space, what variety of products it offers and so on. T
> The Managing Partner of The Branding Partnership (TBP) describes her business. ʻIt is about four years now since we specialized in the small to medium firms’ market. Before that we also used to provide brand consultancy services for anyone who walked in
> Blackberry Hill Farm (BHF) has developed two businesses to complement their traditional farming activity over the last 6 years. The first is a service operation opening up the farm to paying visitors who can observe farming activities and enjoy tours, wa
> Quentin Cakes make about 20,000 cakes per year in two sizes, both based on the same recipe. Sales peak at Christmas time when demand is about 50 per cent higher than in the more quiet summer period. Their customers (the stores who stock their products) o
> A company that produces concrete paving slabs is introducing a new range of ‘textured’ nonslip products. To do this it must invest in a new machine. Demand is forecast to be around 10,000 units per month for the first year and approximately 24,000 units
> A data centre is ‘a facility composed of networked computers and storage that businesses or other organisations use to organise, process, store and disseminate large amounts of data. A business typically relies heavily upon the applications, services and
> Consider the music business as a supply network. How did music downloads and streaming affect to artists’ sales? What implications did electronic music transmission have for record shops?
> It sounds like a joke, but it is a genuine product innovation. It’s green, it’s square and it comes originally from Japan. It’s a square watermelon. Why square? Because Japanese grocery stores are not large and space cannot be wasted. Similarly a round w
> A janitor called Murray Spangler invented the vacuum cleaner in 1907. One year later, he sold his patented idea to William Hoover whose company went on to dominate the market. Now, the Dyson vacuum cleaner has jumped from nothing to a position where it d
> According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a circular economy is ‘one that is restorative and regenerative by design, and which aims to keep products, components and materials at their highest utility and value at all times, distinguishing between tech
> Innovation becomes particularly important at the interface between offerings and the people that use them. Consider two types of website: (a). Those which are trying to sell something such as Amazon.com. (b). Those primarily concerned with giving informa
> We have to get this new product and fast’, said the Operations Director. ‘Our competitors are close behind us and I believe their products will be almost as good as ours when they launch them.’ She was talking about a new product that the company hoped w
> One product for which customers value a very wide range of product types is that of domestic paint. Most people like to express their creativity in the choice of paints and other home decorating products that they use in their homes. Clearly, offering a
