ASSIGNMENT

SUBJECT CODE & NAME: MB0050 RESEARCH

METHODOLOGY

Q1. How would you distinguish between a management

decision problem and a management research problem?
Do all decision problems require research? Explain and
illustrate with examples.

Ans.

The problem recognition process starts when the decision maker

faces some difficulty of decision dilemma. The broad decision
problem has to be narrowed down to information-oriented
problem, which focuses on the data or information required to
arrive at any meaningful conclusion. Given in table a set of
decision problems and the subsequent research problems that
might address the.

It is not essential that the decision maker will always go in for

research as he may arrive at a decision without research also.
Sometimes, the company might have so much experience in the
business that they feel no additional information Can be obtained
through research.

Differences

Sine DECISION PROBLEM RESEARCH PROBLEM

.
What is the awareness and
What should be done to
purchase intention of
increase the consumers of
1 health conscious
organic food products in
consumers for organic food
the domestic market
products
 What is the impact of shift
How to reduce turnover duties on work exhaustion
2
rates in the BPO sector and turnover intentions of
the BPO employees?
What is the current
investment in real estate
Can the housing and real
and housing? Can the
3 estate growth be
demand in the sector be
accelerated?
forecasted for the next six
months?

Explanation:

1. Management decision problem:

The entire process begins with the identification of the
difficulty encountered by the business manager/researcher.
The manager might decide to conduct the study himself or
gives it to a researcher of a research agency. Thus this step
requires that there must be absolute clarity about what is
the purpose of getting a study done. When the work is to be
done by an outsider it is very important that discussion is
held with the business manager.

2. Management research problem: Once the audit process of

secondary review and interviews and survey is over, the
researcher is ready to focus and define the issues of concern
that need to be investigated further, in the form of an
unambiguous and clearly defined research problem. Here, it
is important to remember that simply using the word
‘problem’ does not mean that there is something wrong that
 has to be corrected, it simply indicates the gaps in
information or knowledge base available to the researcher.

Examples:

1. How to reduce the turnover rate in a BPO company. This

problem has to be translated to a simpler form of research
question like,
 What are the management policies in other BPO
companies?
 Why do the employees leave the company? What is the
problem area?
 Are the shift duties creating a problem of work family
conflict which is they leave.
 How can the company work on employee engagement
so that he stays with the company?
2. The lack of sales of a newly launched product could be due
to consumer perceptions about the product, ineffective
supply chain, gaps I the distribution network, competitor
offerings or advertising ineffectiveness.

Q2. How is research designs classified? What are the

distinguishing features of each? Differentiate by giving
appropriate examples.

Ans.

1. Meaning of Research designs:

Once you have established the ‘What’ of the study, i.e., the
research problem, the next step is the ’how’ of the study,
which specifies the method of achieving the research
objectives. In other words, this is the research design.
-+
Green et al. (2008) defines research design as ‘the
specification of methods and procedures for acquiring the
information needed. It is the overall operational pattern or
framework of the project that stipulates what information is
to be collected from which sources by what procedures. If it
is a good design, it will ensure that the information obtained
is relevant to the research questions and that it was
collected by objective and economical procedure.’