There was no information, however, regarding the validity of the instrument employed.

In
order to reduce threats to internal validity, the participants were asked to respond honestly and
confidentiality was stressed yet there were no other efforts were indicated. The instrument used a
Likert’s scale (ordinal), yet a multiple regression analyses would be most applicable for normally
distributed quantitative data. The researchers mention that the scales were given in a variety of
settings. There are a number of other factors that could affect the internal validity of the study, yet
were not addressed by the researchers. Length of experience would greatly affect the responses
of the participants, yet this was not considered in the study. The gender of the respondents may
be a contributing factor to the responses. Once again, a better analysis method could have been
chosen based on the nature of the data collected. The results indicated no significant
interactions. An additional set of questions regarding the personal history of the respondents in
question could have helped reduce many of these threats. With additional information, the
researchers may have been able to use a modified matching system when analyzing the results.

By increasing the number of independent variables the researchers could have reduced
some of the potential threats to internal validity. It would have also been possible to actually go to
individual SMEs s and conduct further FGD (focus group discussion). This method would have
given a good cross-section of knowledge and practices of inventory management. While the study
has merit, the methods need to be re-evaluated. The power of the study needs to be increased by
obtaining a larger sample size. The numerous potential threats to internal validity need to be
addressed and minimized in order to evaluate a meaningful study. The ecological generalizability
for the study is fair. However, due to the random nature of the sample, the results do not reflect
generalizable beyond the 100 respondents in the study. As quoted by the findings of this study are
not generalized to other sectors or industries evidently shown in the recommendation that “ Future
studies should increase the number of sample in order to collect more reliable evidences in this
area or add more contextual variables such as the effect of technologies, business strategies and
culture on the application of inventory”.

The literature review discussed in detail the problems. The content of the paper is right on
track and a succinct summary was provided. The article focused on quantitative discussion with
respect to the effects of cost, owner/managers’ attitude and knowledge on inventory and was
focused to the small businesses in the retailing industry hence the findings of this study are not
generalized to other sectors or industries.

Summary and Conclusion

Overall, the research reflected a substantial amount of data however; the presentation of
the data would be appreciated in graphic illustrations not in all tabular forms. This research could
have greatly enhanced by discussing other sides of the problems and allowing the reader to explore
new issues.