Kyoto Midtown is a composite urban district of modern buildings surrounding a historic Japanese garden. It features sophisticated bars, restaurants, shops, art galleries, a hotel and leafy public spaces. Kyoto Midtown aims to offer a unique shopping experience with a broad selection of outlets that include Japan's first flagship boutique and the world's first concept shops. From playful and trendsetting boutiques to prestigious brands valued the world over, it aspires to be a place for people who appreciate the finer things in life. In the past few years however, visitor numbers have declined. For this reason, the management of Kyoto Midtown shopping centre feels that it is important to develop a better understanding of its shoppers in order to take the shopping experience to a next level. It wants to know what attracts customers to its stores, what customers need while shopping and how they go about shopping. Based on these insights, it wants to develop strategies that are closely aligned with its customers’ shopping strategies, needs and preferences. The management of the shopping centre has hired Hoshimi Kusunoki, an international full-time MBA student, to produce a report complete with practical, hands-on recommendations ready for implementation. Born and raised in an upper class family in Yamanote, Hoshimi is familiar with the lifestyle and attitudes of people visiting the Kyoto Midtown shopping center and the high expectations that they have. A key aim of Hoshimi’s research project is to find out what shoppers would need to increase the frequency of shopping at the centre as well as to understand how it compares to other shopping centres in Kyoto competing for customers. Based on preliminary research, Hoshimi has been able to develop the following specific project objectives: • To establish the profile of shoppers; • To understand their awareness and usage of the Midtown shopping centre; • To understand how shoppers travel to the Midtown shopping centre, how far they have travelled and how frequently they shop there; • To explore shopper behavior and understand what they have purchased or had expected to purchase and average expenditure; • To understand their expectations to the Midtown shopping centre; • To understand their attitudes to the Midtown shopping centre. Hoshimi wants to conduct structured face to face interviews with 100 shoppers at the shopping centre and a competing shopping centre. The interviews will take place during the key shopping hours across every day of the week among a representative sample of participants. 1. Hoshimi has planned to carry out structured interviews. How do structured interviews differ from unstructured interviews? 2. What are the possible advantages and disadvantages of using face to face interviews? 3. The information obtained during interviews should be as free as possible from bias. How can Hoshimi minimize bias introduced by the interviewer, the interviewee, or the situation? 4. What advice would you give Hoshimi regarding the selection of participants for her interviews?
> IQ (the intelligence quotient) is Normally distributed with mean 100 and standard deviation 16. (a) What proportion of the population has an IQ above 120? (b) What proportion of the population has an IQ between 90 and 110? (c) In the past, about 10% of t
> Manchester United beat Liverpool 4–2 at soccer, but you do not know the order in which the goals were scored. Draw a tree diagram to display all the possibilities and use it to find (a) the probability that the goals were scored in the order L, MU, MU, M
> Find the values of z which cut off (a) the top 10% (b) the bottom 15% (c) the middle 50% of the standard Normal distribution.
> Which of the following events are independent? a. Two flips of a fair coin. b. Two flips of a biased coin. c. Rainfall on two successive days. d. Rainfall on St. Swithin’s Day and rain one month later.
> On a test taken by 100 students, the average mark is 65, with variance 144. Student A scores 83; student B scores 47. a. Calculate the z scores for these two students. b. What is the maximum number of students with a score either better than A’s or worse
> The average income of a group of people is £8000, and 80% of the group have incomes within the range £6000–10 000. What is the minimum value of the standard deviation of the distribution?
> At another stall, you have to toss a coin numerous times. If a head does not appear in 20 tosses you win £1 billion. The entry fee for the game is £100. a. What are your expected winnings? b. Would you play?
> A newspaper advertisement reads ‘The sex of your child predicted, or your money back!’ Discuss this advertisement from the point of view of (a) the advertiser and (b) the client.
> A motorist keeps a record of petrol purchases on a long journey, as follows: Calculate the average petrol price for the journey. Petrol station 1 2 3 Litres purchased 33 40 25 Price per litre (pence) 134 139 137
> Sketch the probability distribution for the likely time of departure of a train. Locate the timetabled departure time on your chart.
> How might you estimate the probability of a corporation reneging on its bond payments?
> The data below show the number of enterprises in the United Kingdom in 2010, arranged according to employment: Number of employees Number of firms 1 ……………………………………………………………. 1 740 685 5 ……………………………………………………………. 388 990 10 ……………………………………………………………. 215
> Sketch the probability distribution for the number of accidents on a stretch of road in one day.
> A train departs every half hour. You arrive at the station at a completely random moment. Sketch the probability distribution of your waiting time. What is your expected waiting time?
> Construct a chain index for 2001–10 using the following data, setting 2004 = 100. 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 87 95 100 105 98 93 100 104 110 100 106 112
> Demonstrate that the weighted average calculation given in equation (1.9) is equivalent to finding the total expenditure on education divided by the total number of pupils.
> The following data show the education and employment status of women aged 20–29: a. Draw a bar chart of the numbers in work in each education category (the first line of the table). Can this be easily compared with the similar diagram
> How does moderate participation differ from complete participation?
> Discuss how ethnography and participant observation are related.
> Define reliability and validity in the context of qualitative research.
> How does narrative analysis differ from content analysis?
> What is grounded theory?
> How can you assess the reliability and validity of qualitative research?
> A production manager wants to assess the reactions of the blue‐collar workers in his department (including foremen) to the introduction of computer‐integrated manufacturing (CIM) systems. He is particularly interested to know how they perceive the effect
> David Shen Liang is a business student engaged in a management project for Ocg Business Services (OBS), a supplier of office equipment to a large group of (international) customers. OBS operates in the Businessto‐business market. David
> Critique Report 3 in the Appendix. Discuss it in terms of good and bad research, suggesting how the study could have been improved, what aspects of it are good, and how scientific it is.
> The following data are available: Note: Maximum exam mark = 100, Maximum paper mark = 100, Sex: M = male, F = female, Year in college: 1 = Freshman; 2 = Sophomore; 3 = Junior; 4 = Senior. 1. Data handling a. Enter the data in SPSS. Save the file to yo
> Dear Respondent, I am final year student studying Business Information Technology (BIT). For my research project I am conducting a survey related to online buying. It would be great if you could answer some questions about this topic. There are no right
> T-Mobile is a mobile network operator headquartered in Bonn, Germany. The company has enlisted your help as a consultant to develop and test a model on the determinants of subscriber churn in the German mobile telephone market. Develop a sampling plan an
> The Executive board of a relatively small university located in Europe wants to determine the attitude of their students toward various aspects of the University. The university, founded in 1928, is a fully accredited government financed university with
> A consultant had administered a questionnaire to some 285 employees using a simple random sampling procedure. As she looked at the responses, she suspected that two questions might not have been clear to the respondents. She would like to know if her sus
> A magazine article suggested that “Consumers 35 to 44 will soon be the nation’s biggest spenders, so advertisers must learn how to appeal to this “over-the-thrill crowd”. If this suggestion appeals to an apparel manufacturer what should be the sampling d
> The medical inspector desires to estimate the overall average monthly occupancy rates of the cancer wards in 80 different hospitals which are evenly located in the Northwestern, Southeastern, Central, and Southern suburbs of New York city.
> Develop an ordinal scale for consumer preferences for different brands of cars.
> Suggest two variables that would be natural candidates for nominal scales, and set up mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive categories for each.
> The SERVQUAL-scale described in the appendix is formative in nature.” Comment on this statement. Explain why it does not make sense to assess the inter-item consistency of this scale.
> Develop and name the type of measuring instrument you would use to tap the following: a. Which brands of toothpaste are consumed by how many individuals? b. Among the three types of exams – multiple choice, essay type, and a mix of both – which is the o
> Mention one variable for each of the four scales in the context of a market survey, and explain how or why it would fit into the scale.
> Dawson Chambers is a young, dynamic and fast growing research agency that is specialized in Mystery Shopping, Market Research, and Customer Service Training. It is located in Geneva, Switzerland from where it provides national and international organizat
> Measure any three variables on an interval or a ratio scale.
> Design an interview schedule to assess the “intellectual capital” as perceived by employees in an organization – the dimensions and elements for which you developed earlier.
> a. Read the paper by Cacioppo and Petty (1982) and describe how the authors generated the pool of 45 scale items that appeared relevant to need for cognition. b. Why do we need 34 items to measure “need for cognition”? Why do three or four items not suf
> Identify the object and the attribute. Give your informed opinion about who would be an adequate judge. a. Price consciousness of car buyers. b. Self‐esteem of dyslexic children. c. Organizational commitment of school teachers. d. Marketing orientati
> Find the paper “Consumer values orientation for materialism and its measurement: Scale development and validation,” written by Marsha Richins and Scott Dawson. a. Provide an overview of the dimensions and elements of Richins and Dawson’s materialism sca
> Compare your service quality measure to the measure of Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman (1996) presented in the Journal of Retailing. a. How does your measure differ from this measure in terms of dimensions and elements? b. Would you prefer using your
> Try to come up with two unidimensional and two multidimensional abstract concepts. Explain why these concepts have either one or more than one dimension.
> What are projective techniques and how can they be profitably used?
> Explain the possible ways in which you can control “nuisance” variables.
> What is bias and how can it be reduced while interviewing?
> As a manager, you have invited a research team to come in, study, and offer suggestions on how to improve the performance of your staff. What steps would you take to allay their apprehensions even before the research team sets foot in your department?
> Describe different data sources, explaining their usefulness and disadvantages.
> Explain the concept of “trade-off” between internal and external validity.
> What is internal validity and what are the threats to internal validity?
> Define the terms control and manipulation. Describe a possible Lab experiment where you would need to control a variable. Further, include a possible variable over which you would have no control, that could affect your experiment.
> In what ways do Lab experiments differ from Field experiments?
> What are the differences between causal and correlational studies?
> The Solomon Four Group Design is the answer to all our research questions pertaining to cause and effect relationships because it guards against all the threats to internal validity. Comment.
> If a control group is a part of an experimental design, one need not worry about controlling for other exogeneous variables. Discuss this statement.
> Explain why mortality remains a problem even when a Solomon four-group design is used.
> Jack O’Brien is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh. Jack is working on a PhD thesis on the role of negative emotions, and more specifically the emotion anger, in service consumption settings. Jack’s dissertat
> History is a key problem in a time series design. “Other problems are main and interactive testing effects, mortality, and maturation.” Explain.
> Explain the difference between main and interactive testing effects. Why is this difference important?
> Explain how the selection of participants may affect both the internal and external validity of your experiments.
> How has the advancement of technology helped data gathering?
> How are multiple methods of data collection and from multiple sources related to reliability and validity of the measures?
> Explain the principles of wording, stating how these are important in questionnaire design, citing examples not in the book.
> How has the advancement of technology helped data gathering via questionnaires?
> One way to deal with discrepancies found in the data obtained from multiple sources is to average the figures and take the mean as the value on the variable. What is your reaction to this?
> Every data-collection method has its own built-in biases. Therefore, resorting to multi-methods of data collection is only going to compound the biases. Critique this statement.
> Provide relevant measurable attributes for the following objects. a. a restaurant; b. an investment banker; c. a consumer; d. a bicycle; e. a pair of sunglasses; f. a strategic business unit.
> When Song Mei Hui moved from being Vice President for Human Resources at Pierce & Pierce in Shanghai to her international assignment in New York, she was struck by the difference in perception of Pierce & Pierce as an employer in China and the Un
> Under which circumstances would you prefer observation as a method to collect data over other methods of data collection such as interviews and questionnaires?
> How is the interval scale more sophisticated than the nominal and ordinal scales?
> Describe the four types of scales
> Field notes are often regarded as being simultaneously data and data analysis. Why?
> What is rapport and how is rapport established in participant observation?
> Although participant observation combines the processes of participation and observation it should be distinguished from both pure observation and pure participation. Explain.
> Operationalize the following: a. customer loyalty b. price consciousness c. career success.
> Why is it important to establish the “goodness” of measures and how is this done?
> What aspects of a class research project would be stressed by you in the written report and in the oral presentation?
> Why is it necessary to specify the limitations of the study in the research report?
> In 1965, a young man named Fred DeLuca wanted to become a medical doctor. Looking for a way to pay for his education, a family friend – Peter Buck – advised him to open a submarine sandwich shop. With a loan of $1,000,
> How have technological advancements helped in writing and presenting research reports?
> What are the similarities and differences of basic and applied research reports?
> Discuss the purpose and contents of the Executive Summary.
> What is bootstrapping and why do you think that this method is becoming more and more popular as a method of testing for moderation and mediation?
> A tax consultant wonders whether he should be more selective about the class of clients he serves so as to maximize his income. He usually deals with four categories of clients: the very rich, rich, upper middle class, and middle class. He has informatio
> What kinds of biases do you think could be minimized or avoided during the data analysis stage of research?
> There are three measures of central tendencies: the mean, the median, and the mode. Measures of dispersion include the range, the standard deviation, and the variance (where the measure of central tendency is the mean), and the interquartile range (where
> What is reverse scoring and when is reverse scoring necessary?
> How would you deal with missing data?
> Data editing deals with detecting and correcting illogical, inconsistent, or illegal data in the information returned by the participants of the study. Explain the difference between illogical, inconsistent, and illegal data.
> In the first months of 2010, U.S. Banks have launched a campaign that aims to win back trust of their consumers and repair their battered images. For banks, it is very important to rectify the violation of trust caused by the financial crisis if the fina
> Double sampling is probably the least used of all sampling designs in organizational research. Do you agree? Provide reasons for your answer.
> Over-generalizations give rise to a lot of confusion and other problems for researchers who try to replicate the findings. Explain what is meant by this.
> Because there seems to be a tradeoff between accuracy and confidence for any given sample size, accuracy should be always considered more important than precision. Explain with reasons, why you would or would not agree with this statement.
> Nonprobability sampling designs ought to be preferred to probability-sampling designs in some cases. Explain with an example.
> Use of a sample of 5,000 is not necessarily better than having a sample of 500. How would you react to this statement?
> The use of a convenience sample in organizational research is correct because all members share the same organizational stimuli and go through almost the same kinds of experiences in their organizational life. Comment.
> a. Explain what precision and confidence are and how they influence sample size. b. Discuss what is meant by the statement: “There is a trade‐off between precision and confidence under certain conditions.
